No physical problem with unidentified hard drive.

[milesjonathon]

Hello,
My new Seagate hard drive 1tb stopped working. I think i still had a movie playing on a networked media player which was pulling a movie off of it, when I shut down the computer. That was the last time it worked. It spins up, there are no clicking sounds, but my computer does not recognize it as a drive. Booting up takes forever because it spends so long trying to figure out what the hell it is. Even when I try and find it through Computer Managment/Disk Managment, it doesn't find it.

Is there nothing I can do to revitalize my hard drive?

 

[ChainsawDude]

Hello,
My new Seagate hard drive 1tb stopped working. I think i still had a movie playing on a networked media player which was pulling a movie off of it, when I shut down the computer. That was the last time it worked. It spins up, there are no clicking sounds, but my computer does not recognize it as a drive. Booting up takes forever because it spends so long trying to figure out what the hell it is. Even when I try and find it through Computer Managment/Disk Managment, it doesn't find it.

Is there nothing I can do to revitalize my hard drive?

I would recommend downloading the Seagate HDD testing program from their support website and doing a test with that.

 

[milesjonathon]

I ran the software, it easily found all the other storage devices I have but couldn't find the problem drive.

Thanks for the idea. I had already tried their file recovery software without success but I didn't know about HDD testing program.

 

[dokk2]

Check the data and power connections to and from the mobo, run the oem software if it is a no go R M A , the sucker ASAP, 'cause now it is just "spilt milk"...

 

[milesjonathon]

I missed the return window.

Not to mention I have to save the data on the drive. There are about 1000 pictures from my3000 mile hike from Mexico to Canada. That I didn't save anywhere else.... I guess it's time to send it in somewhere? Thanks for your help.

 

[Paperdoc]

You say you "ran the software" but it could not find the troubled drive. I suspect you used the WINDOWS version of the software. That may not be able to test a device that Windows does not recognize.

Go back to the Seagate website and download the Seatools for DOS package. Get the version for a CD-ROM - it comes in two choices. One is the .iso image file. The other is just a compressed .zip file that, when unzipped, creates the same .iso file. Once you have the .iso, then you need a blank CD-R, a CD burner, and disk burning software that can make a bootable CD from an .iso image file - like Nero, for example. You use that to make your own bootable CD-ROM disk that contains Seatools for DOS.

Place the prepared disk in your optical drive and make sure your BIOS is set to boot first from the optical drive before it goes to the HDD. It will boot from this new CD-ROM disk and load a mini-DOS into RAM, then start up a menu system from which you run all its diagnostic tests. The huge advantage is that it works even with no functioning HDD in your machine, AND it works without using Windows at all! So it CAN access devices like HDD's that Windows cannot communicate with, and run tests on them.

There are several non-destructive tests you can run to determine whether there are any hardware problems. There are also somew tools that try to fix things, and certain of those DO destroy data! Anything like that will put a big warning message on the screen and ask for your permission to proceed. So WATCH THE MESSAGES and do NOT let it do anything to over-write or destroy existing data.

If this tool tells you there are no serious hardware problems, then it's software - as in, corrupt data making disk access impossible - which is more likely to be the case from your story. Re-run Disk Management and look in the LOWER RIGHT pane. It SCROLLS so you can see all its contents. Your troubled disk ought to be there among the hardware devices, even though it may NOT appear in the Upper Right pane. Look at its information, especially the File System it says it has. Normally this is NTFS. But if your says "RAW", that means some info in the Partition Table or the NTFS Sile System tracing files is corrupt and Windows cannot understand it. In that case, look around the web for ways to recover from a RAW Format HDD.

 

[milesjonathon]

Great Idea! I really appreciate all the help.

My motherboard couldn't even identify it, so I wasn't suprised when the dos version of Seatools couldn't find it either. There is a repair place here in town who says they will see if they can get the info off for free, and if they can charge me 130-180 bux. Thanks again for your help. I learned a lot.

Thanks.

 

[fzabkar]

If your drive is a 7200.11, then you may be seeing the BSY bug. If so, then there is an easy DIY fix.

See this thread for more information:
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/ATA-and-Serial-ATA-drives/Updated-firmware-on-a-bricked-hard-disk-but-not-working/m-p/51036#M19464