I have an external seagate freeagent goflex desk 3TB drive.

Solution
Hey there again, desktopbrett!

I'd strongly recommend you to try testing the external using its manufacturer's diagnostic tool, now that you got the drive detected in the system. You should be able to find this utility on their official website and it will allow you to determine the health and SMART status of the HDD.
There is a very high possibility that it's faulty, so I'd suggest you to consider consulting with a professional data recovery service.

Keep us posted, though.
SuperSoph_WD

JaredDM

Honorable
This drive does not use encryption so you can try just directly installing the internal drive into your computer using the computers SATA ports and power supply to see if it's just a bad bridge. Most likely the drive internally is a ST3000DM001, which is the worst hard drive ever made.

It is odd for them to stop spinning though. Usually they are either clicking and then spinning back down, or sound normal but just won't mount to the system. Confirm if it is spinning, then let us know.
 
Welcome to the community, desktopbrett!

I'd strongly recommend you to try the HDD with a different USB cable. It's possible that the one you are currently using is faulty and not supplying the HDD with enough power. I'd also try connecting it to a different computer and see how it will get recognized there. Have you checked Device manager and Disk Management? Can you recognize it there?

I'd definitely NOT suggest you to take the hard drive out of the enclosure before checking your warranty. If you do take it out, you'd void the warranty and you won't be able to get a replacement from the HDD manufacturer.

Keep us posted with the troubleshooting.
SuperSoph_WD
 

desktopbrett

Reputable
Jan 11, 2016
4
0
4,510
Thanks for the tips all. When plugging the drive in, the power light on the bridge turns on, but the 4 LED lights next to it are off. I notice that the OS tried to connect to the drive or at least the USB bridge part bc the remove safely USB icon shows up and it shows as a device in devices and printers. I have Windows 10 home. It does not appear in Disk Management or the drives in explorer. I haven't tried device manager yet. But it is weird that the drive is not spinning. As to the warranty, this drive was purchased in 2012, I doubt its still under warranty.
 

desktopbrett

Reputable
Jan 11, 2016
4
0
4,510
Ok, I plugged it into a Sata/power to USB adapter I have and this is what it reads under device manager, which it does show under Disks that it is a Seagate:

Device SCSI\Disk&Ven_Seagate&Prod_USB\000000 could not be migrated.

Last Device Instance Id: USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_&Prod_USB_DISK_2.0&Rev_PMAP\071025F35415C206&0
Class Guid: {4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Location Path:
Migration Rank: 0xF000FC00FFFFF120
Present: false
Status: 0xC0000719
 
Hey there again, desktopbrett!

I'd strongly recommend you to try testing the external using its manufacturer's diagnostic tool, now that you got the drive detected in the system. You should be able to find this utility on their official website and it will allow you to determine the health and SMART status of the HDD.
There is a very high possibility that it's faulty, so I'd suggest you to consider consulting with a professional data recovery service.

Keep us posted, though.
SuperSoph_WD
 
Solution