Question Seagate Firecuda 2TB-SSHD unable to Mount(linux)/Initialize(Windows)

LeanMan82

Distinguished
Dec 20, 2011
58
0
18,540
TL;DR
HDD
: Seagate FireCuda 2TB Solid State Hybrid Drive Performance SSHD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s Flash Accelerated for Gaming PC Desktop (ST2000DX002)
HD Sentinel: Performance=100/100, Health=88/100, Overall Condition=Excellent; S.M.A.R.T shows two areas with "!" icons: "Current Pending Sector Count" and "Off-line Uncorrectable Sector Count" with values of 8.

It was working on Windows before, prior to the restart and then it went caput after the restart. How can I get access to the file system from Windows? If not Windows, on Linux, its not surfacing a /dev/sd* block for me to mount so I'm scratching my head of what to do next. How can I recover the data if I can't access the file system through an OS?

In Depth:
I have the Firecuda 2TB Hybrid Drive and I use it as a supplement storage volume that houses my backups and anything large that needs additional storage. I can probably lose the backups and start those from scratch but the other stuff in there I can't lose, so I am in the usual crisis that comes with storage failures (i.e., lost time, effort, work etc., that I can't afford right now). The problem occurred after I restarted my machine (which has been running for 24/7 nonstop due to work related reasons) and the restart was due to Microsoft Updates. I didn't expect my hard drive to go caput and was hoping everything would be fine after the updates...

After restarting, I noticed my drive was not showing up in File Explorer and upon opening Disk Management, a popup window asks if I would like to initialize the device, otherwise the drive shows up as uninitialized. I promptly ignore this as this would put me on the path of formatting my drive. HD Sentinel shows the SSHD in "Excellent" Performance (100/100) and Health (88/100) so I did not think twice that it was on the verge of corruption. However, S.M.A.R.T shows the "Current Pending Sector Count" and "Off-line Uncorrectable Sector Count" attributes with a value of 8 and exclamation marks and a graph indicating it started on 2021-06-19. If I had known that this could be a possible indication I would have looked closer at the codes rather than using the overall health feature to determine SSHD health.

Since this is just a data drive and there is no Windows OS, I don't see why I am having any issue at all. As a block volume, I should be able to recover the data some way. The "Uninitialized" state of the volume indicates that the MBR was corrupted in some manner that I am unaware of, is there a way for me to recover the MBR? Could this help me get Windows to recognize the SSHD again? If not, how can I access the file system that was on the volume?

Linux is not surfacing a /dev/sd* block for me to mount so I'm scratching my head of what to do. I connect the SSHD via a USB to SATA cable and connect it to my Linux machine. These are the results:
Code:
$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 152d:2338 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JM20337 Hi-Speed USB to SATA & PATA Combo Bridge
$ lshw | grep "JMicron"i
... # removed for sake of brevity
*-usbhost:0                                                                        
     product: xHCI Host Controller                                                 
     vendor: Linux 5.3.0-64-generic xhci-hcd                                       
     physical id: 0                                                                
     bus info: usb@3                                                               
     logical name: usb3                                                            
     version: 5.03                                                                 
     capabilities: usb-2.00                                                        
     configuration: driver=hub slots=15 speed=480Mbit/s                            
   *-usb                                                                           
        description: Mass storage device                                           
        product: USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge                                           
        vendor: JMicron                                                            
        physical id: b                                                             
        bus info: usb@3:b                                                          
        version: 1.00                                                              
        serial: 000000000000                                                       
        capabilities: usb-2.00 scsi                                                
        configuration: driver=usb-storage maxpower=2mA speed=480Mbit/s             
$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk
└─sda1   8:1    0 465.8G  0 part /

Essentially, the above shows that the USB cable registers with the system but the SSHD doesn't present a volume as seen by lsblk (2 Terabyte volume not present). So I don't know how to mount the system with what is available to me. How can I recover the data if I can't access the file system through an OS?
 
Last edited:
Have you tried running any bootable recovery utilities? You may just need to recover the partition instead of all that data.
Also keep in mind you'll need a place to recover the data to. You don't recover the data to the same drive you are recovering it from.

Was this drive always in a USB adapter or did you do that for recovery?
I ask because many USB adapters do not translate drives with true 4k sectors (vs the old standard of 512 bytes) properly.
 
What "bootable revcovery utilities" are you referring to? Can you provide an example?

The drive is an internal drive that worked fine for the last 4 years until the recent boot of my machine. I only took it out of the case when I started to investigate the problem Its connected on a 6 GB/S SATA connector normally. The USB adapter has a separate power adapter and a SATA to USB connector.. I bought a 4 TB HDD a few months ago (actually because I was fearing data corruption but later felt it was unfounded when looking at HD Sentinel) so I do have something to recover data to. I really don't think anything is wrong with the 2TB SSHD in question but I've been reading that this could be a hardware issue. Anyways, any way I can diagnose if this is a hardware or software issue?