Seagate FreeAgent 1TB failure

[santo]

Hi guys,

I've seen couple of topics regarding restoring data from Seagate Barracuda drives, but I couldn't find anything useful for disk I've got.

So.. I bought brand new Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 1TB ST31005FDD2E1-RK. After 2 weeks it simply.. refused to work.

When I tried to run it, it made this 'electricity noise - buzz' and disk platters didn't even start to spin. It might be some electronic issue or motor issue - I've got no idea. I tested it on 2 laptops (note disk is powered by external AC adaptor) and disk is not recognizable by OS.

I have sent disk to Seagate Recovery to investigate.. they didnt reply to me yet but they said it usually costs between £700-£1100....

So I will probably ask them to send it back to me and I will try to access data on my own.

Where should I start? What do you know about FreeAgent drive? Do you have any thoughts what could be wrong with it?

Any help highly appreciated.

[CoffeeFiend]

Something like 99% of the external drive failures I've seen weren't the actual drive being dead, it's the enclosure (the USB-IDE bridge chip inside it) gone bad (*tons* of Western Digital My Book, and tons of no-name enclosures too). Remove the hard drive from the enclosure, and try it inside any old PC, see if it works then.

[DAVIT]

Hi guys,

I've seen couple of topics regarding restoring data from Seagate Barracuda drives, but I couldn't find anything useful for disk I've got.

So.. I bought brand new Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 1TB ST31005FDD2E1-RK. After 2 weeks it simply.. refused to work.

When I tried to run it, it made this 'electricity noise - buzz' and disk platters didn't even start to spin. It might be some electronic issue or motor issue - I've got no idea. I tested it on 2 laptops (note disk is powered by external AC adaptor) and disk is not recognizable by OS.

I have sent disk to Seagate Recovery to investigate.. they didnt reply to me yet but they said it usually costs between £700-£1100....

So I will probably ask them to send it back to me and I will try to access data on my own.

Where should I start? What do you know about FreeAgent drive? Do you have any thoughts what could be wrong with it?

Any help highly appreciated.

I have the exact same problem with another Seagate FreeAgent and only after two weeks use. The drive, after cracking open the drive's external housing and this was suggested by Seagate's helpdesk techi as an option... and yes destroys warranty for FreeAgent RMA, found the dreaded ST31000340AS 7200.11. The drive behaved and failed the same way as a internal drive. Not sure what the problem is, as I never heard the beeping sound before from a damaged/dead drive. All points to some electromechanical failure, no spindle/platter spin or actuator/head parking.

Some of these drives have the Firmware update notice.

See "Seagate 7200.11 Drive Failures - Official Answer" I checked my batch number of the drive and it appears it does not require the firmware update.

However, I am seeing a number of similar failures of the Seagate's 1TB and 1.5TB.

Planning to send to the Bigboys for cleanroom analysis but I very tempted to open drive myself if I can find a spare clone drive. The big price tag for repair/recovery is a bit much.

Yes data is precious but its to old Garage mechanic trust at stake here. $2000 for a 2 second nudge of spindle or a 10 minute head replacement. I have recovered data from a few dead drives and all it required was a gentle hand and just enough time to get 99%% data off. These Big Gigs are a different story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DAVIT

[henry.venter@ymail.com]

Hi all

I've got the 250GB Seagate FreeAgent external HDD. It worked fine for a year, and one day all of a sudden started with soft clicking noise, and yup - windows does not pick it up anymore... The LED is on so it does get power...

Having made the mistake of putting my whole life on the HDD, I sent it in for repair - and the result:

The primary failure is spindle motor seizure. The read/write heads have also failed. The read/write heads will need to be replaced. There are also unreadable sectors on the disk surface where the read/write heads made contact.

Economy Service (14 – 21 days)

Read/Write Head Transplant - £195

Spindle Motor Repair - £215

HDD Clone /Sector Remap - £145

Required Parts - £135

20% Discount

VAT at 15%

TOTAL Cost excluding VAT - £552

The 7 days option is £ 1600!!!

Is this the normal price I can expect to pay? (10times the price I paid for the drive)

The company seems quite reputable, but since I am not in a big hurry (though the data is my life's work) - should I get the drive back for a second opinion?

Any feedback / comments will be greatly appreciated!

(Oh and BTW, I've got a Western Digital External drive with music backups - I have dropped it (by mistake) and it just keeps going and going... so Seagate has lost my confidence completely)!

Henry