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Dead hard disk

I have a 2TB Seagate ST2000DL001 drive (was in an enclosure). Suddenly today it no longer starts up. I removed it from the enclosure, plugged it into a USB adapter instead. When I power it up I can hear a one-second faint beep every few seconds.

I froze the drive in a zip lock bag for an hour, but it behaves the same.

Am I in the realm of drastic and expensive measures now? I assume I'm out of "tricks"? Any advice?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

John

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rindi

To me it sounds like it isn't even spinning up properly, so spinrite won't really be of much help.

Get a new HD and restore the data from your backups.

John

>>> spinrite won't really be of much help. <--- As I noted above if it won't start. .... Thinkpads_User

Robert Retzer

Is this a beep or clicking noise? If you touch the drive, do you feel any vibration that may indicate that the drive is spinning up? If is vibrating indicating the motor is running and the drive is making a clicking noise then it may be the drive is trying to find the boot sector of the drive. If that is the case as mentioned by thinkpads_user spinRite may be able to repair it. Contrary to what many people believe placing the drive it the freezer does not really help and may cause condesation on the platters making matters worse.

DaveWWW

ASKER

It definitely doesn't spin. Look up FreeAgent USB drives, and it turns out lots of people are having the same issue. Looks like we're in the professional recovery realm, as thinkpads_user says.

Thanks.

John

Thank you, and good luck with a recovery service if you choose that route. .... Thinkpads_User

Gerwin Jansen

Though already closed, another trick is to hold the drive in your hand by the side edges and make quick twist motions with your hand as it's trying to startup. No shaking just quick twists. You USB adapter has a separate power supply, right?

Robert Retzer

In order to prevent further damage to the drive and thus lessen the chance of recovering data, it is best to leave the job to the proffessionals. You tried what you could and the more attempts at trying to recover the data yourself the more potential damage that can occur to the platters that hold your data.