cannot access seagate freeagent goflex ultra portable

[YanGao]

Sorry for me as a newbie posting on this pro forum. Just want to know if I can get my data back.

I have my seagate freeagent drive for a few years (>3 years). Works fine until about a week ago.

First the drive did not pop up after plug in usb. Cannot see it at all. The usb cable has been a bit loose so I ordered another cable which arrived two days ago. Still did not work. There is onely one drive in the disk (1TB).

So I plugged the drive in and opened disk manager. The disk is recognized there and shows it as healthy initially, but I cannot open the disk property. I unpluged the usb and pluged it back, below are what I got in couple times:
- The drive shows up in explorer, but when I double click to open, it take over 5 miniutes to read it, and then pop up something like Drive N: is not accessible.
- If I right click the drive and open property, it shows 0 bit (instead of 951GB); when I tries to check disk, it also take very long to try to read the drive but returns something like the drive is not accessible.
- One time after I plug the usb in, the computer found the drive, but pops up a windows asking me to format the drive before using it, and I did not format it.
- go back to disk manager, the drive was recognized as 951GB, but the status becomes RAW and unallocated.

I tried below ways to recover the data, assume (hope) its the logical damage:
- chkdsk does not work, it says chkdsk cannot do RAW format. When I change to chkdsk /f /r /x, it says cannot access the drive.
- tried EaseUS. Deep scan stuck at the beginning and find 0 file, after 18 hours still stuck at the beginning and always showing about 2:30 hours remaining.
- tried M3 Data Recovery. It scans for about 12 hours and at the end of the scan it pops up a windows says "the lost disk cannot be found".

I managed to open the drive cover. It seems a laptop hard disk inside. When I plug the cable with my laptop, I hear faint smooth sound like spining, plus a also small/faint but pulsive sound. The pulsive sound is small that you cannot hear it unless put your ear close to the drive.

So now I am stuck and a bit out of my wit, and I am looking for advice.
The data is important to me and I blame myself lots of times not replace the drive earlier.
There are couple things I can think of, and I am willing to try suggestions you may have.
- buy a SATA-usb cable with external power souce, like a link here. Assume its the low usb power supply that cannot drive the disk.
- open the disk to check if the reading head is stuck, assuming the faint pulsive sound is because of it. I am a mechanical engineer, but still fear that I could do something wrong and lose the data.
- find a local data recovery service, which I am willing to. Can you recommend a good one? I am a bit north of seattle.

Please advise what would be the best approach. Thank you in advance!

 

[Jared]

[post]9332[/post] - buy a SATA-usb cable with external power souce, like a link here.

A SATA - USB cable will only do exactly what you're already getting.

[post]9332[/post] - chkdsk does not work,

It's a good thing chkdsk didn't work, that might have ruined all hope of recovery. That tool is [glow=red]NOT FOR DATA RECOVERY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/glow] Or for any situation where important data exists and isn't backed up. All it would have done is try to force the filesystem to become mountable while dumping as much data as necessary in the process.

Since you mention it's a 2.5" drive inside and you already opened the plastic case, did you happen to notice whether it's actually a Seagate drive inside or if it's actually a Samsung? (perhaps you could post a picture for us of the label. We like pictures here. )

If it's actually a Seagate inside, the most likely scenario is that it has botched up firmware, most likely relating to the media cache. It's a common failure which will cause all of what you're experiencing. We fix several cases like this each week and most are a flat $450.

If it's a Samsung, it's more likely a failed read/write head and will probably be a more expensive recovery.

 

[YanGao]

Hi Jared,
Thank you for the quick respond and comments!
It is a Seagate drive as attached picture shows.
Do you think the data can still be recovered? Thanks,
G

 

[Jared]

It's definitely a Seagate, not a Samsung. Given that's it's not clicking and spinning down, it's likely the firmware issue, not a heads issue. Usually, Seagate drives will always click and spin down if it's the heads. It'd probably be a case that'd be at our Tier 1 ($450) rate if you sent it here (Providence, RI)

I don't really know of any good labs in the Seattle area, maybe someone else could recommend someone I'm not thinking of.

 

[lcoughey]

Seagate Free Play drives usually require a head change, sometimes multiples, and the heads are usually expensive. Not a DIY or cheap recovery most of the time.

 

[Jared]

Seagate Free Play drives usually require a head change, sometimes multiples, and the heads are usually expensive. Not a DIY or cheap recovery most of the time.

Yes, but his drive isn't clicking/spinning down. At least not from what he described, so I'm betting there's good chance the heads are still among the living.