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Question

Does this sound like a mechanical or electrical problem.

Dec 22, 2011 3:40AM PST

This is the sound a a newly failed Seagate 750 GB Internal Drive. The drive will have access for a couple seconds, and then hum, continuously.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Hard to tell.
Dec 22, 2011 3:47AM PST

But just about all 750GB drives are so new or under a year old that we would never do anything but get it exchanged under warranty.
Bob

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Answer
Additional info.
Dec 22, 2011 5:06AM PST

I'd like to add that we need to recover information if able. A $120 drive is not as important as the information on it.

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One can only guess
Dec 22, 2011 9:13AM PST

The noise definitely sounds mechanical but I would run Seagate's "Seatools" anyway. This could better define the failure. It does sound like either a motor or bearing failure but could be something contacting the platters but this would require opening to confirm. If the circuit board was causing it, I'd suspect physical damage probably resulted anyway. Damage platters have a poor prognosis as far as data recovery goes. I'd say if Seatools returns a failure code, RMA the thing and cut your loses. If you send it in for data recovery, the process won't guarantee good results and will probably void any remaining warranty.

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Answer
Refrain if possible
Dec 23, 2011 10:43PM PST

The longer you play with the HD, the more likely it will fail entirely. If you haven't even removed the HD to try to copy data in some fashion outside of its owner's PC, then do so. That way you isolate the HD and see if the noise persists and attempt to retrieve data. You can then be ready to swap any PCB if need be. Otherwise, it's a mute point, saving the HD for any retrieval service should the customer want that.