Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[syedafsar]

I bought this HDD in Jan 2009.  Recently my pc would just shutdown without any warning or anything and now the drive is not detected by Windows XP. The Seagate Diagnostics Long Test fails with logs saying "The drive is not responding to commands, check all the cables are connected." There are no firmware updates available either for this drive. I have some critical data on it which I desperately want to recover.

I did the acoustic test and the drive is spinning. I don't hear any clicking when its powered-up.

One important thing that I noted is when I shake the drive or rotate the drive vertically I could feel the platters are moving inside. (of-course when is not powered up).

Model: ST31000333AS

Barracuda 7200.11 1000 GB SATA

Firmware: CC1H

Made in China

I do not have a back-up of this critical data and I Can not afford to have it recovered by a professional.

Can any one help me find whats wrong with this drive, as its fairly newer than my 6 yr OS drive and rarely used. 

Message Edited by syedafsar on 08-22-2009 12:03 PM

[fzabkar]

I have a 7200.10 series 320GB PATA drive that also rattles when I shake it. However it has never had a problem, and its SMART log is clean. Like you, I am concerned about the rattling but I don't see how it can be related to platter rotation. BTW, my old Fujitsu drive doesn't rattle. I know that older drives park their heads on the platters, whereas current drives retract them off the surface and park them on a loading ramp. Perhaps the noise we're hearing is the head assembly hitting the loading cam ???

Here is a Hitachi white paper that illustrates what is happening:

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/9076679E3EE4003E86256FAB005825FB/$file/LoadUnload_white_paper_FINAL.pdf

You say that your drive is not detected by Win XP. Is it detected by the BIOS? How does SeaTools identify it?

Message Edited by fzabkar on 23-08-2009 07:25 AM

[syedafsar]

Let me stand corrected about Windows XP. 

XP is installed on a different drive, when this drive is connected, its detected by BIOS and XP takes about 30-45 min to load. During this time I believe windows is seeking the HDD. 

After XP load, the response time of XP is very slow. Explorer shows the partitions, but when I try to browse them I got disk inaccessible error.  When this drive is not connected everything works normal without any issues. 

[fzabkar]

It sounds like your drive is retrying bad sectors.

You may want to test it with a SMART diagnostic tool such as HD Sentinel:

http://www.hdsentinel.com/dl.php

This article describes the SMART attributes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.#Known_ATA_S.M.A.R.T._attributes

Look for reallocated and pending sectors, and uncorrectable errors.

Message Edited by fzabkar on 23-08-2009 07:42 AM

[syedafsar]

I installed hdsentinel as suggested. Its able to find the drive,but I see this message in drive status.

The status of the hard disk is unknown

[fzabkar]

Maybe the OP in this thread can help you:

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&message.id=14586&jump=true#M14586

SeaTools and HD Sentinel both appear to be suggesting that you have a communication problem. Have you tried switching cables and/or ports?

[syedafsar]

I have tried both changing the cables and as well as ports with same results.

I am sorry I did not get the OP part. I read the thread but could not figure it. However I rememebered one more thing, I have a Windows 7 Trial version installed on that drive, about a month ago, the OS became un-responsive a couple of times and I had to do hard power down on it, upon restart Windows 7 wanted me to restart in safe mode and once it had to restore OS as it said some files corrupted. At that time I thought it was a case of RC version of OS that caused the freeze.

Message Edited by syedafsar on 08-23-2009 05:14 AM

[DavisMcCarn]

I am willing to bet money that your drive is failing and you need to start being very careful NOT TO WRITE on it.

Get the free version of http://www.hdtune.com and install it while the Seagate drive is disconnected from the power.

Also, get Roadkill's Rawcopy and install it http://www.roadkil.net/listing.php?Category=2

If you want to prove your drive is failing, hook the Seagate back up, do not let it run CHKDSK, and run the error scan in HDTune.  If you get the first red-box, the drive is failing.

Then, if you want the data, buy another 1TB drive, connect it and the Seagate, then use RawCopy to clone it to the replacement.  There is a checkbox in RawCopy to start at the end of the drive which seems to get the bulk copied faster on the ones which are failing.

[fzabkar]

Sorry, I was not suggesting that the other thread was relevant to your problem. I was merely suggesting that you contact the (O)riginal (P)oster to ask for help, as he appears to have experience in retrieving data from failed or failing drives.

[syedafsar]

I already installed the HDTune and it was not able to detect the drive when its connected.

I restarted the pc with the seagate connected. All I see when I run the error scan are red boxes. How is it possible the whole HDD is damaged? not even one green box in a 1TB drive? I have scannd about 300GB till now. 

I have not written any data on since it started giving me trouble, however there have been a couple of instances where chkdsk ran during start-up.

After XP starts sometimes I see all the partitions and sometimes I don't.

Is it possible its a case of head stuck on the platter or on the side? What does this rattling of the disks? mean.

I have handled quiet a few hdd but never heard any disks move when shaken manually ( with power disconnected).

Message Edited by syedafsar on 08-23-2009 08:23 PM