Seagate Expansion 3TB not recognised - spinning noises and one beep

[prosperina]

I've got a Seagate Expansion 3TB external hard drive that is making weird noises and not being recognised when I plug it in. It wasn't dropped or anything - one day just stopped working.

I would describe the sounds as repeated spinning for around 20 seconds, one beep, then it shuts off. I've listened to some videos about clicking/beeping noises, but this doesn't sounds like that (I don't think). I've uploaded a recording so you can hear it: http://picosong.com/za4B

Is this something that can be fixed? Any feedback is appreciated.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hi prosperina.

It definitely doesn't sound good in my opinion. If you have data which you need to recover, I guess, a data recovery company would be your safest bet. It doesn't sound like anything that might be caused by a failed external enclosure, so I assume the HDD is internally damaged. Even if you haven't dropped it or anything, all mechanical devices wear out with time and things like this could happen.
I'd recommend that you get in touch with the vendor you got it from, or the manufacturer and RMA it if it's still under warranty.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[prosperina]

Hi prosperina.

It definitely doesn't sound good in my opinion. If you have data which you need to recover, I guess, a data recovery company would be your safest bet. It doesn't sound like anything that might be caused by a failed external enclosure, so I assume the HDD is internally damaged. Even if you haven't dropped it or anything, all mechanical devices wear out with time and things like this could happen.
I'd recommend that you get in touch with the vendor you got it from, or the manufacturer and RMA it if it's still under warranty.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

Hi Boogieman_WD, thanks for the response. Your answer however is just what I was afraid of - I really had my fingers crossed for an easy fix!

The warranty period had expired unfortunately, and the data is not so important that it's worth contacting a data recovery specialist. I guess it's time to get a replacement and hope this doesn't happen again with no warning!

 

[Faux_Grey]

Hi there.

The seagate 3TB drives have a very high failure rate (I've had two die myself)

Anyone using these drives needs to watch out.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/222267-seagate-faces-lawsuit-over-3tb-hard-drive-failure-rates

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hopefully you have better luck with your next drive. It's really unfortunate that it had to come to this. Just as a friendly advice, if you don't have the budget for it right now, please do think of a backup option whenever you can. This time it might not have been something important, but compared to a data recovery company, a backup drive is way more budget friendly (to say the least).

Cheers and good luck!