Question Seagate Barracuda 2TB failed out of the blue

[drumandbassfreak]

So this is one of the most reliable drives I've ever owned, after 11 years only 8 reallocated sectors due to a failing PSU i had back in 2015 and passing all SMART tests, kept a VERY CLOSE eye on its health and last test passed 3 days ago and spun up correctly 3 hours prior. My PC failed and I changed it to another one to access my data, and the drive upon spin up clicks as if the power cord was plugged out. Cables OK, I removed the logic board and noticed it was very dusty behind, so I wiped it with with isopropyl alcohol and reattached, drive spun up and was detected, upon mounting the partition the clicking noise returned and timed out, now spins up, BIOS hangs detecting it and says AHCI port 3 device error, appears as a 3.9 GB unknown drive, this time no weird sounds and spinning up consistently, did the logic board die on me?

 

[kanewolf]

So this is one of the most reliable drives I've ever owned, after 11 years only 8 reallocated sectors due to a failing PSU i had back in 2015 and passing all SMART tests, kept a VERY CLOSE eye on its health and last test passed 3 days ago and spun up correctly 3 hours prior. My PC failed and I changed it to another one to access my data, and the drive upon spin up clicks as if the power cord was plugged out. Cables OK, I removed the logic board and noticed it was very dusty behind, so I wiped it with with isopropyl alcohol and reattached, drive spun up and was detected, upon mounting the partition the clicking noise returned and timed out, now spins up, BIOS hangs detecting it and says AHCI port 3 device error, appears as a 3.9 GB unknown drive, this time no weird sounds and spinning up consistently, did the logic board die on me?

Probably not the logic board. More likely a mechanical issue. The failure curve for disk failures starts increasing sharply after 5 years use. You got 11 years. Replace it and move on. Just like the queen, mechanical things do die from "old age" ...

 

[Exploding PSU]

So this is one of the most reliable drives I've ever owned, after 11 years only 8 reallocated sectors due to a failing PSU i had back in 2015 and passing all SMART tests, kept a VERY CLOSE eye on its health and last test passed 3 days ago and spun up correctly 3 hours prior........

To be fair I've seen drives die without any preceding symptoms. One of my 8TB Seagate Barracuda just drop dead all in a sudden one day. Few days before that SMART tests reported no problems, green health, 100% condition, the whole thing. And suddenly it just clicked indefinitely refusing to read anything. And it was new unit too. Sure, the unit was covered by warranty, but that incident solidified my belief to always have a backup. Always.

 

[fzabkar]

The "3.9GB capacity" is symptomatic of a Seagate drive that cannot access the hidden firmware area (System Area, SA) on the platters. The drive then reverts to identifying itself with an Identify Device template stored in the "ROM" on the PCB.

This usually points to a head or media fault.

 

[PPorri]

So this is one of the most reliable drives I've ever owned, after 11 years only 8 reallocated sectors due to a failing PSU i had back in 2015 and passing all SMART tests, kept a VERY CLOSE eye on its health and last test passed 3 days ago and spun up correctly 3 hours prior. My PC failed and I changed it to another one to access my data, and the drive upon spin up clicks as if the power cord was plugged out. Cables OK, I removed the logic board and noticed it was very dusty behind, so I wiped it with with isopropyl alcohol and reattached, drive spun up and was detected, upon mounting the partition the clicking noise returned and timed out, now spins up, BIOS hangs detecting it and says AHCI port 3 device error, appears as a 3.9 GB unknown drive, this time no weird sounds and spinning up consistently, did the logic board die on me?

Just out of interest, did you use the drive daily for 11 years or how much was the power on hours?

 

[USAFRet]

The fail mode of the physical drive is mostly irrelevant.
Drives die. Eventually, all of them, for many and varied reasons.

The data on it is what counts.

Is/was there a good backup of the data on it?

 

[drumandbassfreak]

Just out of interest, did you use the drive daily for 11 years or how much was the power on hours?

daily almost, had like 8k power on days