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Hard drive spins up, then shuts down
I have a Seagate Barracuda 500GB internal SATA 7200 RPM hard drive from an OEM PC that spins up for 36 seconds, then spins down without any perceivable errors.
I have attached it to an external device made for cloning drives as well as attaching them via USB to a PC. I have frozen the drive for 30 minutes and tried again. Like clockwork, it spins up for 36 seconds then stops.
I've not seen this before. Has anyone else? I know there have been some issues with Barracuda drives, but I can't find this particular problem on the web.
Any ideas for how to get this drive to come up so I can retrieve my client's data?
I have attached it to an external device made for cloning drives as well as attaching them via USB to a PC. I have frozen the drive for 30 minutes and tried again. Like clockwork, it spins up for 36 seconds then stops.
I've not seen this before. Has anyone else? I know there have been some issues with Barracuda drives, but I can't find this particular problem on the web.
Any ideas for how to get this drive to come up so I can retrieve my client's data?
SOLUTION
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I'm curious if you can get it to stay on longer with a recovery disc like SpinRite or something.
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ASKER
As it turns out, this drive is eligible to be evaluated by i365 (Seagate's data recovery company) to see if a firmware upgrade solves the problem. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
@ semperWIFI - I gave you points because you actually gave me the idea that a firmware upgrade might solve this, even though you thought it wasn't possible. Turns out is IS possible, a least on this drive.
@ semperWIFI - I gave you points because you actually gave me the idea that a firmware upgrade might solve this, even though you thought it wasn't possible. Turns out is IS possible, a least on this drive.
To add more info for benefit to others The boot-of-death is NOT repairable by firmware upgrade once a drive gets into this mode. Once the disk is in this boot-of-death condition then only people with the right equipment (a SATA diagnostic controller running specialized firmware), can get it going. No data is lost and nothing is damaged. It is not possible to fix this disk by running any program. You need to send commands to a diagnostic port on the disk. Reason is the disk is locked into a diagnostic spin down mode that is used in test labs only .. The bug caused disks to go into this mode in certain circumstances.
I urge all 7200 Barracuda owners to upgrade drive firmware to prevent this from happening to you.
read the http://storagesecrets.org/tag/boot-of-death if you want to know more.
I urge all 7200 Barracuda owners to upgrade drive firmware to prevent this from happening to you.
read the http://storagesecrets.org/tag/boot-of-death if you want to know more.
ASKER
Yes. Thanks for the clarification, diethe. I have to send the drive to i365 and THEY will do the firmware upgrade.
cool, you might want to comment on the blog site about what happens and the procedure if you have nothing else better to do. It is nice to be able to point people in the right direction. While experts-exchange (or should I write expertSexChange which my son pointed out to me when I wore one of the free shirts) is great, the blog entry on the death thing is something that everybody can google and learn about.
good luck. please follow-up with turn-around time also, none of my customers ever had the problem so it would be great to tell them how long it takes and what was involved.
good luck. please follow-up with turn-around time also, none of my customers ever had the problem so it would be great to tell them how long it takes and what was involved.
ASKER
Absolutely. I will hear from my clients later today how they want to proceed and will keep track of the time frames and report.
I love this site from both sides. It's fun to help, and it's great to have others share their expertise when I need it.
I love this site from both sides. It's fun to help, and it's great to have others share their expertise when I need it.
There is no magic command or software that can repair the drive. You need professionals who are equipped with a lab and cleanroom.
Many major cities have recovery firms with clean rooms. Start googlin' for one. Most of them even have a deal with Seagate so you can get a warranty replacement after the data is recovered. Ontrack.com is one of the best, but Seagate also has a data recovery firm.