Multiple Sudden Failures of 3+ TB Seagate Drives

dsafford29

Prominent
Aug 14, 2017
2
0
510
A few years back I bought a 3TB Expansion Desktop Harddrive and thought it worked so well (despite the speed limitations) that I went out about a year later and bought a 4TB and ~6 months later a 5TB. Put a good portion of my things on all 3 (I'm fairly experienced and always have multiple backups) and stored the 3 and 4 in my server room. Ready for the real kicker? I brought the 5TB over to my mothers house (in case of a fire or whatnot) and stored it in her computer room.

Just recently after a windows 10 upgrade my server's OS drive went bad so I replaced it and reinstalled windows. Brought out the 3TB but the light no longer was coming on and I couldn't hear it spinning. All three have been in storage since the initial data copy... so it's surprising to have this one fail... but I know it happens.

No big deal. That's why we have backups... so I brought out the 4tb. Same deal. At this point I check my power, I check my cables, I check everything... and I'm starting to panic. Frantically I pry open both of the enclosures (carefully, not my first rodeo) and pop the hard drives into my primary gaming PC (very new, nice mobo). BIOS doesn't detect them at all. I pour over all the articles talking about various boot methods and whatnot, but none of it seems to apply.

Run over to Mother's and delicately bring back the 5TB so I can save my child's pictures/birth video/etc. and start this process over again. It too will not spin up in it's external enclosure... no lights. It too will not do anything when removed from the enclosure and plugged into to sata.

I'm not booting from these so I don't think UEFI boot is advice I can work with, and I've tried them in a Windows 10, Windows 7, Ubuntu and Mint computer... all failed me.

So I think it's the controllers in the enclosure, and the controller board on the drive. I have literally never seen a quadruple failure in less than 14 days and am beside myself trying to find a solution... but there don't seem to be any good answers. These are just really terrible drives.

Worth noting I have numerous other HDDs that were stored in the same area as the Seagates, and they all work fine (Including a 2TB free agent Seagate drive) so it's likely not anything with the area it was store (a constant 72 degrees with under 40% humidity in the summers). Hoping someone out there has an idea, because I literally can't afford recovery... which is why I was backing things up so hard in the first place. I need to know if there are any ideas to force a little more life (other than cold) or to get working replacement controllers... I'm comfortable doing anything but opening the HDD itself/platter-work.
 

dsafford29

Prominent
Aug 14, 2017
2
0
510


Unfortunately they were in storage beyond the length of the warranty. (Buying from newegg precludes you from the manufacturers warranty.) When I attempted to contact Seagate after none of them worked they refused to assist because the serial numbers on the drive were "not known". I advised them they came from newegg but it didn't matter as the numbers weren't valid and they wouldn't look at the receipts. I then contacted newegg who tried to tell me to go back to the manufacturer. At this point I'm just going to buy 2 more drives (big waste of money, considering the quality) and scavenge those controllers in the clean room at work. Seagate refused to sell the controllers for the drive independently.

In my opinion this is just dirty business by seagate... who were kind enough to offer recovery for $650. Triple drive failure (despite other drives of theirs stored next to these that work fine including the much less expensive Freeagent models) and inferior parts. It does have a happy ending though... I get to spread the warning to all of you and I found I had copied all my most important data to the first TB drive I ever purchased. I'd still like to recover what is on the 4 and 5, but as I said previously I'll have to wait until the new drives come in for decent working controllers.

As for the end of your comment, $550 is a fairly large purchase for consumer end equipment (regardless of wealth I don't know a lot of people who like to throw that away). We are currently considering a large capital purchase of drives at work, but I will see to it personally not one of them is Seagate after the way this went down.... so I guess we'll never know how they are with big purchases or larger product failures.

Interesting side note, per my conversation with Newegg I was outright told that I should have bought a more expensive drive as these are not recommended. Brought up the fact some of them have 4 star ratings and was told to have a good day. Looks like I am on my own.