# Solved: Seagate Hard drive won't spin up



## NickShow (Apr 28, 2007)

I had a Maxtor 320gb external drive that has a Seagate 320gb drive inside.
Last night, after having this about 40 days, my pc wouldn't recognize it.
The green light on the outside would blink intermittently but I heard no sounds from the drive. 
Upon disassembling the enclosure, I found that the device seemed to get power but the drive just wasn't running. 
I took the drive out and plugged it back in just for kicks. 
The odd thing: when I plugged in the drive back into the 4 prong power supply cord, and slid it back into the case entirely, and turned it on, the green light wouldn't come back on. 
When I unplugged the drive again from the pins and plugged the main power cable back in, the green light came back on with a constant light. 
I put it all back in, plugged the main power cord in and the light wouldn't come back on while the drive was installed. 
I bought another enclosure to see if it was a bug of some sort.
It wasn't. 
The same thing happens with the new enclosure.

Am I looking at a fried drive since it seems to just not want to come back up at all?

When I plug the new enclosure into a USB port, the system doesn't recognize it as the drive isn't humming and the indicator light is off on the enclosure.
I talked with a couple friends and did some searching before here. 
Apparently, in modern human history since the ENIAC, this has never happened before ever.

Any suggestions on how to "fix" this so I'm not looking at losing about 280gb on info?


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## norton850 (Mar 9, 2004)

You certainly seem to have proven that the drive is dead. A common occurance in the digital world. As a last test and to try to salvage info put into your case and see if you can get any info off of it.

*EDIT: By CASE I mean your desktop!*


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

You can try putting it in a ziplok bag in the freezer for 4 hours...then taking it out and set it in as a slave to another master drive, or just plug it into any port if sata on the board, and if you see it, then copy quickly you have about a half hour. This works about 50% of the time....


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## NickShow (Apr 28, 2007)

> As a last test and to try to salvage info put into your case and see if you can get any info off of it.


I did do that before I bought the new enclosure. The tower wouldn't even fire up (same as with the enclosure). It was as if once it was plugged in, it just acted like an expensive insulator. But I'll do the freezer thing from Rich. I don't think I have a chance of getting 280gb in 30 mins but anything is better than nothing at this point.


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## Billed (Feb 12, 2005)

Maybe not related and I don't know anything about the Maxtor external drive case at all or if it is connected by USB.

I have a USB drive enclosure that works fine with a WD1200 drive but will not work with a Seagate ST340016a ATA IV drive, if I install the Seagate into a drive bay in my desktop and connect it everything is fine, seems that the Seagate may need more power than USB can supply.


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## NickShow (Apr 28, 2007)

Freezer thing didn't really do the trick. Same electrical short kind of problems. I may just replace the circuit board and see if that works long enough unless I burned out the motor inside somehow.


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

Well like I said it works about 1/2 the time. Sorry to hear that.


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## NickShow (Apr 28, 2007)

Went back to Best Buy and purchased an identical external drive. The internal HDD matched the old one exactly. I removed the primary circuit board on top of the new one and placed it on my old one. Success! I guess it just was the board burned out and thankfully not the rest. Thanks for all of your suggestions!


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

Wow nice job...


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## horsecharles (Jul 24, 2005)

NickShow said:


> Went back to Best Buy and purchased an identical external drive. The internal HDD matched the old one exactly. I removed the primary circuit board on top of the new one and placed it on my old one. Success! I guess it just was the board burned out and thankfully not the rest. Thanks for all of your suggestions!


*You know, i always buy hard drives in pairs for that exact reason!*

And i try to think in the future / prepare for eventualities by recommending that to everyone--as well an extra fan in front to keep the drive*ss* cool.(y'all do use multiple drives don't you? It's a good, cheap way to perhaps triple the life, quicken system, protect data / backups better...):

1. An electrical circuit can be old / overloaded and/or locale could have severe weather patterns...and ups are not 100% gurarantee, not to mention their cost.

2. If the board gives out after extended use, by then the drive model can be discontinued. When that occurs, you either will never recover the contents, or you will spend lots of time and money:
*A. *the manufacturer will just fulfill the warranty by sending a newer, different model. After first receiving older model of course. Sometimes IFF their TS still has same model on hand they might offer to recover data...big if.
*B. *The sellers that carry refurbished legacy models charge a pretty penny.
*BC *And of course, a pro data recoverer will ream you.

Best regards,

Charles Langer ms-mvp


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## NickShow (Apr 28, 2007)

I suppose I got lucky since there was an excess of those externals that was being clearanced out. But I've learned my lesson and I just went ahead and split the info onto other drives. Plus, I'll just remove the pcb, put it back on the new one, so now I'll have a spare. $150 is better than the base $600 I was quoted just to start by a site before I found out what to do. Thanks again.


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

OK but the real lesson to be learned is to backup image and data and files on a regular basis, which is so easy to do today with programs like Acronis True Image that will do both for you to an external or internal drive or even dvd's.


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## weatheryoko (Jun 11, 2007)

I'd also like to thank NickShow and the members of this forum. With your help I was able to recover about 2+ years of my PhD research data (I replaced the pcb). Thanks for all the help. 

Justin


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## dnb1337 (Apr 6, 2007)

I have exactly the same problem with my 320 gig seagate external drive and i know what caused it, I accidently plugged my laptop charger into the seagate drive and after that it was dead, the light blinks on the drive when i relealised i had the wrong power supply and put the right one back in, strange thing is the light on the drive and the green light on the power supply both blink at the same time (might be some kind of error message) but the drive just won't start. So how do i fix it? I havent gotta clue about drives and would appreciate it if you could write the basic steps. Also if i take it back to pc world and say i want it repaired and not replaced would they do it? i guess probaly not because it is cheaper for them to just give me a new one. Thanks in advance.


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## NickShow (Apr 28, 2007)

My advice: If you bought that external within a recent amount of time, you might just be able to do what I and a few others did here which is unscrew that little circuit board on top and put the same one from the new one back onto the old one. That worked wonders for me.

Go back to wherever you bought the external and buy the exact same model. I know Maxtor has a couple different externals, so watch out. Find the one exactly like you bought and you may or may not be in luck.

When you disassemble the clamshell deal (which will be a pain, I warn in advance. Watch your fingers), and undo the enclosure inside, look at the model # and firmware # inside your dead one. Do the same for the new one. You probably won't be able to take the new one back should it be the wrong one, so do your best to get the EXACT same external you purchased. If it's like the one I had that Best Buy has about 63 trillion of, you should be okay. If you bought it a year ago, you might not be so lucky.

If all this does work, I highly suggest you buy the NexxTech drive enclosure Circuit City has . The best thing about it is that it has a power cord connection that won't fit anything else so you won't do that again. What happened to you is exactly what happened to me. Hopefully, your result will be the same.

If it works, the worst thing you'll have spent is another $150 on a drive that you could swap the circuit board out with if the platters themselves give out.

I also advise that you start spreading out what you have on there if it's full. Once it's gone and not a simple fix, you'll just kick yourself.

Good luck!


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## dnb1337 (Apr 6, 2007)

Thank You


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## UnivKen (Sep 9, 2007)

Hi NickShow !

Thats great news : replacing PCB and extracting data from undamaged HDD.

Btw, what screw-driver have you used to remove the PCB from HDD ?

The screw-head is having a Hexagonal star !! Hence normal flat or star ( + ) screw drivers are of no use. Whats the name for this speciaa screw-driver ?

thanks in advance!

Univken

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Get registered as a LINUX user : http://counter.li.org/


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## NickShow (Apr 28, 2007)

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=239384-16878-60272&lpage=none

That's the one I bought. Only $6. That has pretty much any size you'll need ever.

Don't get one in a computer shop or Best Buy unless really necessary. If you do, you'll pay nearer to $20. It's come in handy with two of my MP3 players when they futzed up, so it was well worth it.

It's only about as big as one of the fancier ballpoint pens, so it fits right in my laptop bag's pen holder.

But if you can't find that one, just look for a Torx wrench.


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