Seagate Back Up Plus doesn't work; lights up for only 25 seconds then turns off.

[wowenz]

My Seagate Back Up Plus(1TB) started to not work. When I plug it in, the light's on for 25 seconds and then it turns off, if you hold the hard drive, you can still feel that it's on tho. When replugging it, it's the same, the computer plays a sound that something was plugged.

If I try to restart the computer and replugging the hard drive, it stops at the boot(where it tells me that 'del' goes to settings and 'F12' goes to boot settings) for a second then the hard drive's light will turn off again then the boot will continue.

I tried plugging it in my brother's laptop and it's the same. What could be the problem?

There's no loud noise and the light isn't blinking.

The hard drive isn't listed in My Computer as well at the Disk Management.

OS: Win 7

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there wowenz,

You can the drive with another USB cable(Y type preferably).
If this does not solve the issue, then either the HDD itself has failed or the enclosure is faulty.
In case you don't need the data and the HDD is still under warranty, you can just contact the manufacturer.
In case you need the data though(except for contacting a data recovery company), you can consider taking the drive out of the enclosure. If the issue you are facing is caused by a faulty enclosure, you should be able to access the data if you connect the HDD through SATA. Keep in mind that this will void the warranty if any. Also, make sure that the HDD is not hardware encrypted.

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

 

[wowenz]

Hello, I tried the SATA procedure but what happens is it gets stuck at the boot where it says "Detecting Storage" and the boot doesn't continue.

I also tried opening it to see what's happening inside; the head isn't stuck to the platter but while it's on, the head is moving back and forth towards the disc. Does anybody know what that means?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Basically, at the point when the drive was not detected when connected to SATA, you should have contacted some professional data recovery company.
When you opened the drive itself(not only the enclosure as I suggested), you exposed the platters to dust contaminated environment.
I guess you can still contact a data recovery company if you really need the data, though I am not sure what part of the data they will be able to recover(if any).
You can wait for some more replies and opinions, but I doubt that they will be significantly different from mine.

D_Know_WD

 

[wowenz]

Before opening the drive I read guides and was very careful, with the dust part too. I could hear some clicking sounds so I tried opening it to see if the slider was stuck at the platter, so if that's the problem I could try fixing it myself. As I opened it, it wasn't stuck and it just moves back and forth. I doubt I made the problem worse(I think) since nothing changed and it has the same problem, it still powers up.

I guess I'll wait for some more replies, if there's no solution I guess I'll try the data recovery company, I don't know how that works tho, do they fix the drive or transfer the files?

Thanks for the help. BTW This is one of the videos I watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg

 

[D_Know_WD]

Most of the major HDD manufacturers have some sort of data recovery partners(or trusted data recovery companies). I guess you can find them on their website on the Support section.
Opening a new thread stating the issue in the title may be a good idea. Maybe something like: clicking HDD, head going back and forth.

cheers,
D_Know_WD