My hard drive hates me

[Swizzle]

So today I go to boot up my desktop and surprise! My hard drive is apparently non-existent as far as the rest of the computer is concerned. I tried switching cables in case the cables were bad, changing where it's plugged into the motherboard, throwing it in the freezer for a bit, taking a look at the boot settings to see if maybe the order had gotten screwed up somehow, basically everything my non-technically-oriented self knows of for getting around issues like this. Not much, admittedly, but whatever.

I'm pretty sure the thing isn't completely screwed; the disk still spins all dandy inside and it's not making horrible clicking noises. It's just not being read for some reason or another.

I read through a few other threads here on data recovery and such, but their solutions don't seem to apply to the current situation. I'm nowhere near as technically capable as some people here, so any suggestions on how to handle this would be rather handy.

[Ferg]

So it's not showing up in the bios? Only other thing I can think is to update all your motherboard drivers. Failing that, try plugging it in as a secondary in a friend's machine.

[kaptainkernals]

The main thing is whether or not it shows up in bios, if it shows up in bios, but not when booting windows, then it's a partition problem, which is the simplest to fix compared to other problems HDD gives.

[Farfarer]

If it still spins up fine... you might get away with replacing the PCB on the bottom with one from an identical drive.

Assuming that you first check what kaptainkernals mentioned, that boot partition or MBR is/isn't screwed, which can be far more easily fixed.

[MattQ86]

I've never had this problem before but I do remember seeing this (http://www.tested.com/news/dont-give-up-how-to-salvage-a-failing-hard-drive/786/) article on tested a little while ago. It seems like at the very least Recuva (http://www.piriform.com/recuva) will keep you from losing data.

[ceebee]

Also worst case scenario try plugging it into somebody else's computer and see if it boots up, or get an external enclosure or a SATA to USB connector from newegg and see if it spins up that way. Best of luck Swizzle, loving your recent work.

[Mark Dygert]

Kub would probably mumble something about Hiren's Boot CD. They have a bunch of software tools for junk like this something there might have a magical fix my HDD button.

Sounds like its time for SSD... you can drop the things off a freeway over pass while its running and not miss a cycle.

I hope you don't loose anything important!
/me scuttles off to make a backup since I haven't done it and I just doomed my HDD to fail by talking about it.

[Swizzle]

So, it looks like there's good news and there's bad news.

Bad news first:
The drive is pretty much fucked right now. It doesn't show up in the BIOS on my home machine or a test machine at school. Judging from what I've read online, my hard drive was likely part of a batch from a couple of years ago that Seagate put out that had a firmware issue. This firmware issue basically bricked the drives and they had to be sent to Seagate for data recovery.

The good news:
There are no other hardware issues with my computer and it still runs like a champ even if it doesn't have a hard drive in at the moment. The hard drive may be unusable right now, but chances are good that the data is fully recoverable since it's an issue with firmware and not some horrible fuckery with the actual hardware of the device. It spools up just dandy, so it may be possible to take Talon's advice and get an identical drive if I can find one.

I'm going to contact Seagate bright and early tomorrow and see what they have to tell me. This article (http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/41265-updated-seagate-500gb-barracuda-hdds-having-high-failure-rates) mentions that Seagate was trying to do damage control with this a bit over a year ago and was doing free data recovery, so I may be able to get something out of this if so.


Vig, I've seen you mentioning your SSDs before. What brand do you have and how much did you spend? I've been keeping my eye on them for a while and I'm interested in the speed boost I'd get when loading programs and such, but last I knew they were still a bit expensive for comparable storage space.

[Lamont]

If it's out of warranty, go for the PCB swap. If it's in warranty, give Seagate a call and let the pro's deal with it.

[notman]

I hope they do more than just recover your data. They should replace the drive too. Obviously recovery is the number one concern right now though. I really have been a big fan of Seagate in recent years, but I had heard about this issue too, and it's shaken my faith in their hardware.

[Ruz]

hmm I bought A seagate 1 TB hard drive a while ago and without warning it did the same thing as yours. There was no rhyme or reason and I never got any of the data back.
Really annoying as the drive was still spinning but would not show in the bios and just seemed completely dead.
I have shyed away from these large capacity drives since then

[Neavah]

does it tell you theres no partions - or something similar?

Do you have a usb stick in?

I had a similar issue telling me on boot up that there was no partioned space.
(just about shit my pants...) I checked the boot order, and it was set to boot correctly...
It turned out if was just trying to boot off one of my usb drives.
Un plugged all them and it boot up fine.

Hope that helps! :)

[arrangemonk]

thats why i only buy samsung harddrives, only had one death due to broken sata plug and sparks from pcb because of being plugged in wrong

[Swizzle]

Issue confirmed: It's a firmware problem.

I've contacted Seagate and my drive was indeed part of a bad batch. The good news is that all they have to do is flash the new firmware onto it and it should be right as rain. I don't know yet whether it's going to cost me to have them flash the new firmware, but the guy on the phone made it sound like there was going to be no cost to me.

Ruz: I'd suggest calling Seagate and telling them about the issue. They were very helpful and they gave me a shipping label to send it to their lab for free. Chances are good all the data on your drive is still good, too, since it's not a problem that affects the data or hardware itself.

[notman]

too bad they don't have a way for you to reflash it at home ... but I'm guessing it needs to directly connect to the controller.

[Swizzle]

If I had the hardware to flash it at home, I'd definitely do it myself. However, I don't so Seagate is my best option. I'm just glad the drive isn't dead.

[ScoobyDoofus]

hmm I bought A seagate 1 TB hard drive a while ago and without warning it did the same thing as yours. There was no rhyme or reason and I never got any of the data back.
Really annoying as the drive was still spinning but would not show in the bios and just seemed completely dead.
I have shyed away from these large capacity drives since then

Same thing happened to me last night.
Shit sucks.