Question Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3,5" SATA HDD fixing options?

Dec 11, 2020
5
0
10
After replacing PC’s power seems that two of my hard drives got hit for some reason. One SSD (no big deal about that) and other one 1TB Seagate HDD with lots of stuff but most importantly pictures of fun past times etc.

No sound, no nothing and seems that this HD does not even start up.

Got similar new hard drive and used its BCP board to replace the one on damaged drive as I thought that some components on that board got damaged as the drive not even start with plain power cable.

Now got some signs of life:

When booting up the drive, platter starts spinning and by the sound of the drive, seems that readwrite head is moving from inner landing zone and then returning back (and then making small click sound). This happens perhaps for few seconds and perhaps ten or so back and forth movements of the heads (=number of clicks it makes when hitting back to landing zone).

Also, HDD was not recognized by BIOS at this point.

So, thought that perhaps the head has been damaged too and therefore tries to read from the disk but cannot and tries that few times until gives up. And when I was looking for the instructions of how to change the readwrite head, saw some comments that (at least some) Seagate Barracuda HDD’s have unique BIOS and if chaning PCB, needs to transfer that BIOS too to get HDD function properly.

That can explain why the head moves back and forth at the start as if not finding some (unique) info or settings are a bit off, or whatever, cannot continue..

So, do I need to somehow transfer that BIOS (Firmware) and what are my options to do so? Worth of the pain?
 
Dec 11, 2020
5
0
10
What, exactly, did this entail?

Well, quite simple process: removed cables, old power out, new in, reconnected cables, fired up. PCI SSD worked as supposed to be, just silence with SATA SSD and HDD (afterwards checked with new HHDs (similar) that SATA bus and cables works). I guess there was just bunch of frustrated electrons who attacked when turned power on (=dunno how/why this happened).
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Well, quite simple process: removed cables, old power out, new in, reconnected cables, fired up. PCI SSD worked as supposed to be, just silence with SATA SSD and HDD (afterwards checked with new HHDs (similar) that SATA bus and cables works). I guess there was just bunch of frustrated electrons who attacked when turned power on (=dunno how/why this happened).
Different make/model power supply, with the modular cables from the old power supply?
 
Dec 11, 2020
5
0
10
Different make/model power supply, with the modular cables from the old power supply?
Different make and new cables which came with power supply. Anyway, PC itself seems to be working fine (with old PCI SSD and new SATA HDD) but old HDD did not like the change. Anyway, that's not the issue here but what are the options with the HDD. In one another forum (local electronics forum as I'm looking someone to do a bit soldering...) someone said that Seagate PCBs should be exchangeable with no need to transfer BIOS.. so, gotten a bit confusing information now.. is BIOS unique or not or what..
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
I asked, because the modular cable thing is a common problem.
They are NOT interchangeable between makes, and that can easily kill a drive PCB. We've seen it here many times.

On some drives that BIOS is unique, some drives not.
I am unsure of any dividing line or identifier stating which is which.
 
Dec 11, 2020
5
0
10
Well, now PCB has changed as well as old BIOS from dead PCB transferred to new PCB. And HDD is up and running and seen again by Win.. almost… lost partition information as well as formatting and seems that roughly 1,5% of sectors are bad… on the other hand, 98,5% are good so perhaps some data, like pictures and videos, can be salvaged.. more about that later on..