Question Seagate Seatools USB recover tools won't work - "Missing operating system."

[Sparktown]

I'm trying to use Seagate's Seatools for USB to fix a bad hard drive. I've gotten all the data off the hard drive, so I'm just trying to do some diagnostics and fix it up as much as possible.

However, every time I try to boot into the USB drive I only get the error message: "Missing operating system". There is no indication that Seatools has even loaded. It's like my PC can't even find it on the USB.

I've tried reinstalling Seatools on my USB several times. However, I keep getting the same error. Unfortunately, Seagate doesn't appear to have any forums on which I can ask about this.

Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[popatim]

Are your pressing the F-key to select the boot device or boot options during POST (PC startup)? Which F-key it is varies with the motherboard but it's usually shown at the bottom of the screen at the same time as when it says press XXX to enter Setup/Bios.

If you don't see it then let us know which motherboard you have.

Also, you are running the program and letting it create the bootable flash drive, right?
You don't just copy the files to it.
SeaTools Bootable

 

[Sparktown]

Are your pressing the F-key to select the boot device or boot options during POST (PC startup)? Which F-key it is varies with the motherboard but it's usually shown at the bottom of the screen at the same time as when it says press XXX to enter Setup/Bios.

If you don't see it then let us know which motherboard you have.

Also, you are running the program and letting it create the bootable flash drive, right?
You don't just copy the files to it.
SeaTools Bootable

Yeah, I press F11 and select the USB drive from a boot menu. I've used this to boot between multiple drives in my rig before and it has never been an issue with any other usb drive.
The Seatools for USB download gives you a zip file with a .exe file that is a complete setup program. That formats the drive, (supposedly?) makes it bootable and installs the files. Obviously, it didn't work out so well for me.

 

[popatim]

Are you selecting the UEFI Flash drive option or the one without uefi?

 

[Sparktown]

Are you selecting the UEFI Flash drive option or the one without uefi?

My computer uses UEFI (not BIOS) to boot up. However, I don't see any option in the Seagate USB Boot installer related to UEFI. Do you see something I'm missing?

UPDATE:
This got me thinking maybe it might be an issue with my mobo settings. My current setting has USB Legacy support enabled. I tried setting it disabled which only disabled usb devices on boot. Not only did the usb drive not show up, but it kept usb keyboard from working until it booted into windows (I had to attach a ps/2 keyboard). I tried the other USB support settings, but the USB drive either didn't show up or it kept giving me the same error.

 

[hang-the-9]

"fixing" a failing hard drive is not really a thing, unless you wan to to keep dealing with it failing, better idea to replace it.