Seagate ST3500641AS 500GB Internal Hard Drive Crash

[maxdrive]

Hi,
My Seagate Barracuda [7200.9 /500GB/ Model: ST3500641AS / Firmware: 3.AGK / Date Code:07235] hard drive seems to have suddenly crashed.
I am running winxp pro SP3. I added a new user and logged back in as that user. as the profile was loading up, I got a blue screen of death. Windows was showing that it was doing a thread dump. Being impatient, I thought I didn't care about the thread dump. so I cold-booted it. Now, windows says it can't recognize drive 0 during boot. I removed the drive from my PC and plugged it to a USB hard-drive reader and plugged it to my win7 laptop but it won't recognize it still.

I could hear the drive spinning and humming as normal, but no click sound like some people reported on some forums. One thing I noticed though when I removed the drive was that it was quite hot to the touch. It took a good 10minutes to cool down.

I would appreciate any comments you may have if you experienced this problem. I have a ghost backup but from a few months ago. I am currently restoring to another 80GB WD drive. But I'd rather get the latest data if possible.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Let me know if you have any further questions.

thanks
Max

 

[backuphero]

Hello Max, As I'm in a very similar situation, I figured I would post my problem in your thread.
I have a seagate barracuda [7200/2TB / model ST2000DM001 / FW:CC4H / date: 13084) drive which was also running XP w/ SP3. In my case though, I didn't receive the blue screen, I received a "Windows System Error- Unknown Hard Error". I restarted back into windows, saw the standard "windows recovered from a serious error" message, but before seeing the details, my system froze again. This time though my drive was gone. It doesn't appear in disk management(using a secondary windows install on another drive at the moment) or in bios. I also tried using an external enclosure(dual thermaltake enclosure) and got no detection, the dead drive actually prevented another drive in the enclosure from being detected.

When placed into the enclosure, the drive seems to spin normally, no clicking. Though my drive gets warm, it doesn't really get all that hot as Max describes. Unfortunately, the majority of data on the drive is no longer backed up, (kids destroyed my backup drive) so I too am also looking to revive this drive.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from reading other forums, this sounds like it may be a problem with the PCB. Though I could be off base. This problem only occurred this afternoon and I haven't really had the time to really do any in-depth research into the problem.

Further input would be most appreciated.

 

[maxdrive]

hey Backuphero
sorry for the late reply. I ended up having to just replace my drive and restored it from a ghost image. I didn't want to waste more time on troubleshooting it. Had I not taken a backup image, I would have been in serious trouble and I am sure I would have looked further into salvaging at least the data in it. Good luck with your issue.
Max