Seagate portable hard drive not being recognised and making beeping sound

[llrporsche]

Hello,
I have a seagate portable 500gb hard drive, and yesterday I plugged it in, and it started beeping at me for about a minute or 2. The drive dont sound like its working, normally you can feel its working, there is nothing. I have tried a different USB cable, and have tried other computers. Its is not being recognised in my computer, or under disk management. The HDD is only a couple of months old, yet I have been told Seagate will charge me in the region of $3000 to recover the data, if I go local, (am in the UK) I can get it done for around £70, but then me warranty is void. Is there any way of getting the data off, or even getting the Hard drive working again?

 

[rozz]

just curious.. is there a way to remove the HDD from the external enclosure? Usually, you can remove the drive, plug it into a sata port and get the data off it then. Try googling the model number to find instructions on opening it up and removing the HDD.

 

[rozz]

be sure that opening the drive enclosure doesnt void warranty

 

[fzabkar]

The symptoms sound like a power issue. It may be that the USB port is unable to provide enough current to spin up the drive. USB 2.0 ports are current limited to 500mA whereas USB 3.0 can provide 900mA. A typical 2.5" drive requires about 850mA during spin up.

If a USB 3.0 port is not available, then try a USB Y-cable. This will pick up power from two USB ports. Alternatively, try a powered USB hub.

Alternatively, it could be that the drive has a seized spindle motor or a stiction fault (heads stuck to platters). This often happens if the drive has been bumped or dropped. Stiction can sometimes be overcome with a little "percussive maintenance", but there are significant risks.

 

[fia_suria]

hello, i m facng the same problem. My seagate 2.5" usb3.0 freeagent Goflex 500GB portable hard disk makes a faint beeping sound and failed to operate. I just bought it two days ago. Please help. I bought this item on 24th September 2011.

 

[pudds]

I also have a seagate 500gb external hard drive and I am having the exact same issues. I need my hard drive! Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[niroshon]

I also having the same problem. anyway i gave it to guys at enlitesolutions.com.au to have a look...

 

[ollie igo]

hi people, if this kind of symptom persists, go buy a new casing for the mobile hdd. it usually solves the problem, unless like the other commentor mentioned, the problem is with the hdd itself. fyi

 

[SOF_Bunny]

Had this same issue. Took apart the hd casing, turned out the arm was stuck. Most likely from being dropped, it jammed up somehow. Was able to get the arm moving again but the hd rate itself runs a bit slow. Warranty is still covered so plan to get it swapped out. Hope this helped a little.

 

[fzabkar]

This thread may be useful:
http://forum.hddguru.com/samsung-m750xbb-not-spinning-t23744.html

If the drive is spinning slowly, then this would suggest a seized spindle bearing. This is a common problem in recent Seagate models.

 

[1267X]

To be honest, the more I search for an answer to the problem for seagate hard-drives corrupting like this... The more it seems like this is quite a problem for seagate hard drives... I myself own like a 800 g sized portable hard drive which was working fine then suddenly I plugged it in my laptop and it starts making a beeping noise and the drive goes really warm, i got a message saying about software needed but I already had software installed, so I reckon there's maybe a virus that's trying ti attack seagate hard drives, maybe I'm wrong, I have not backed up my files cause to be perfectly honest why should I have to when I've bought this hard drive that's a bloody lot of money out my pocket and I cannot afford to be buying more as I am only a student, the work I produce has such as big memory size needed so it wouldn't be possible to even bring USBs into the equation. I honestly think this is ridiculous how these hard drives are just going bust, I've had really important work on there and I am lucky to have found a local computing company in which are trying there very best to help me out for a decent price, but they do warn me if they can't fix it it'll be sent off to get fixed by a further third party of some sort which could go up to £500! I don't have this kind if money being a student... My advice is if you can get someone to copy the work from the memory board (I guess it's the memory board?) for as cheap as they can to another device.

 

[trammellsrus]

Ok... My Seagate FreeAgent 888gb external hard drive is driving me nuts! I've seen many posts related to the issues I'm having- is not recognized, recognized only as initio default controller, and now beeping. Its is about 2 years old and has EVERYTHING on it... I've tried changing cables- didn't work. changing computers- didn't work. more drasticially, i've removed it from the casing and plugged it directly into my SATA port. The good news ( i guess) is that the computer does recognize the drive under device manager, but in disk management, it says the disk is not initialized. (funny thing is--- it doesn't beep when found by the computer???) When I've tried to initialize it- it gives me an I/O error message. I'm at my wits end and would really like to recover the 10+ years worth of photographs I have stored on this drive. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Michael Hawk]

To be honest, the more I search for an answer to the problem for seagate hard-drives corrupting like this... The more it seems like this is quite a problem for seagate hard drives... I myself own like a 800 g sized portable hard drive which was working fine then suddenly I plugged it in my laptop and it starts making a beeping noise and the drive goes really warm, i got a message saying about software needed but I already had software installed, so I reckon there's maybe a virus that's trying ti attack seagate hard drives, maybe I'm wrong, I have not backed up my files cause to be perfectly honest why should I have to when I've bought this hard drive that's a bloody lot of money out my pocket and I cannot afford to be buying more as I am only a student, the work I produce has such as big memory size needed so it wouldn't be possible to even bring USBs into the equation. I honestly think this is ridiculous how these hard drives are just going bust, I've had really important work on there and I am lucky to have found a local computing company in which are trying there very best to help me out for a decent price, but they do warn me if they can't fix it it'll be sent off to get fixed by a further third party of some sort which could go up to £500! I don't have this kind if money being a student... My advice is if you can get someone to copy the work from the memory board (I guess it's the memory board?) for as cheap as they can to another device.

I completely agree. Talk about a racket, it's like when a few mafiosos go in and physically trash a bar, and then later two other mafiosos, who, unbeknownst to the bar owner, are working with the ones who trashed the bar, go in and talk with the owner and tell him that they can "fix" his/her problem for a price to keep them safe from getting busted up by thugs again. They solve the problem, which wouldn't have been a problem had they not created it. Not an exact analogy, but close enough. Is Seagate extorting its customers?

My story:
After a Windows update yesterday (not sure if the update is at all responsible) my Seagate 1 TB external hard drive, which is still under warranty, started clicking and beeping. My computer wouldn't shutdown. It just hung on the "Shutting Down Computer" screen. The computer seemed to detect the external hard drive , but it was hung up, too. I forced a restart of my computer and it stopped recognizing the external hard drive and the clicking/beeping was still present. I took my laptop and the hard drive to Geek Squad, who are the in-store troubleshoot and repair computer experts in the store that I bought the external hard drive, Best Buy. The Geek Squad guy put his ear to the external hard drive and said it was probably dead and the only thing he could offer was sending it off to a third party, or maybe Geek Squad headquarters, for data recovery. I had over 400 GB's of music and audio on that drive, all gone unless I come up with $500 to pay to send it off to a data recovery specialist. What good are warranties and external hard drives if they don't serve the purpose for which you bought it? You mean to tell me that even though the external hard drive was not mistreated and is still under warranty I have to pay $500 out of pocket for the shortcoming of the hard drive and not my negligence of it? WTF? If this isn't resolved by Seamagine without me having to pay out my rear to recover data, I'll never buy another Seagate product again and I'll spread the word to anyone who will listen what horrible bait-and-switch products these Seagate external hard drives are.

 

[hirichardshi]

"I'll never buy another Seagate product again and I'll spread the word to anyone who will listen what horrible bait-and-switch products these Seagate external hard drives are."
Sorry that happened to you, but I hope by now you understand the meaning of the word "backup." Just in case, it means having your data in two different places at the same time, so if one drive fails, like your external did, you still have your stuff safe and sound on the other drive. I repair computers and every week I have people coming to me asking if I can save their data. Many times the data can be saved at nominal cost, sometimes the drive has to be sent to data recovery specialists who use special tools and a "clean room" to attempt recovery. And sometimes the data is gone. Forever. So back up. There are lots of moderately priced cloud backup services. But one thing's for sure: Hard drive failure only occurs when you don't back up. It's one of those "Murphy Law" things.

 

[nishitrocks]

just try this:
1.disconnect the usb from the comp/laptop
2.disconnect from the seagate connector
3.remove the seagate to usb thing from the hard drive
4.try blowing
5.reassemble
6.try plugging in

THIS WORKED FOR ME

 

[William Mcdermott-Croysdill]

Mine did that and I solved it by removing the hard drive and replacing it with a bigger sata drive so win win bigger drive and I still have a portable USB to bad I lost all my data good thing I had it all backed up on my desktop. On another note I did not use a seagate drive I just pulled one from a laptop with a broken mother board.

 

[Lekii]

malfunctioning

 

[Patrick Hay]

Had same issues, just tapped the sides a little bit and boom started working! haha

 

[HackDuke]

Guys, I don't know about you all, but I had the same issues, here's my analysis!

The problem :HDD doesnt connect or when it does, it makes beeping sounds!

The kicker:When The HDD connected, there was a virus scan going on, as soon as the scan completed, the HDD got disconnected (No virus was ever found till date)

The Solution: Turned off external drive scan, and viola, the drive connected!!

Dnt know if it is strange, but I suggest doing it

P.S: The drive didnt get noticed when connectd via a USB 1.0 or 2.0

Hope this helps!

 

[kjames]

Same thing with mine. Thing is, its not backup data on it. I'm travelling. I figured I'd put movies and TV shows in case I get bored. I suppose I could watch TV that is in a language I don't understand or just find a place a for a beer........beer it is. Although at some point I'd like to finish Walking Dead.

 

[VWFeature]

I had the same issue- ext USB HD making a 1 sec beep and flashing the LED- I changed the IOmega 1.5 A 12 v power supply for a no name 1.25A 12 V and it works fine now. Check power.

 

[ellzmograph]

First of all always have at least two places for data, older traditional drives are prone to failure.

Remember that hard drives definitely have a shelf life, after a couple years (and thats generous) be careful especially with a less expensive manufacturer.

That being said If you have a old hard drive with the beeping noise, that is a built in capability to tell you its malfunctioning.

Now if its a powered drive you're pretty much toast, if it is BUS driven, a drive that boots up solely from usb/firewire you may still have hope. The key is to try to get power to that puppy to start spinning again. I have an old hard drive that was removed from an early 2008 macbook pro that I load with a bunch of movies, which are backed up elsewhere. Not that important its an old 5400 drive.

So a couple times i've gotten the beep of death. Simply plug that usb cable in a lower amperage phone charger for a second. Sure enough the thing starts spinning, unplug immediately and it should be good to go if you plug it into the computer ASAP. This probably won't work much longer, but it's light at the end of the tunnel!

Obviously I would NOT recommend if you are trying to recover sensitive data, INSTEAD USE a powered case and or cable. And as for the charger, a lower amperage the better, I would be sketched out plugging a drive into a 2A tablet charger.

But mainly just be aware spinning drives are not invincible. The spinning parts are more susceptible to error in an external drive too because its being chucked around.

AGAIN ALWAYS BACK UP THE BACK UP OF THE BACK UP, traditional hard drives are so f*%%&^$(%^&ing cheap now too, no excuses.

 

[joeyjoeyjoey]

I just had the same problem and I did this and it worked. This is a mixture of what two previous people wrote on here and just repeating it in my words and exactly what I did.

1. Unplug it from the computer
2. Disconnect the usb cord from the hard drive
3. Blow into the connection port
4. Plug both back in..... here is where when I still got the beeping and it not being recogonized. I then tapped it on my desk on the two sides and then I heard the inners working again and it just popped up on my screen. Works now just as it used to.

 

[Noel_1]

I cannot believe that banging the HDD onto the desk actually worked... Cause that's exactly what I did. Sometimes connectors gets loose and it needs to be re-established by a simple banging on. But be gentle and not to put too much force.

 

[rv7284]

I know solution will sound a bit stupid but it worked for me so i thought i would share it.
I had the same problem with my seagate 1tb. I look for the solutions online. After watching a video on youtube i found out that its just because the head of the disk is stuck. And in that video he actually open the hard disk and moves the head and it start to work. But he also warns about if you actually open the hard disk it becomes useless and it will lose the warranty too.
So instead of opening it i just banged it in my hand from all corners and it worked.
Try this before actually opening it or going to some professional.
And good luck.