Seagate Barracuda drives are often thought of as premium quality hard drives, which is largely true. The build quality of these drives is solid and they feel heavy and look good when compared to some other drives. They are however still susceptible to the same failures and problems which affect other hard drives.
More info about our Seagate Data Recovery Services can be found here.
Firmware Faults
A common problem with Seagate Barracuda drives is firmware corruption (sometimes known as SA Corruption). This is something which can be fixed without taking the drive apart, however sometimes the extent of the corruption can prevent it from being repaired at all. The usual faults are corrupt log files which prevent the drive from performing it’s usual startup routine. Once corrected, the drive can usually be accessed for long enough to extract the required data using a controlled imaging process. Sometimes further repair is required in order to continue extracting data. Corrupt firmware can be an indication that there is an underlying problem with the drive. For example, if the drive is writing hundreds of bad sectors into the S.M.A.R.T log, it is likely that there is a problem with either the heads or the disk media which is causing the errors. Although the S.M.A.R.T counters can be reset to zero, they will quickly fill up again. The best option in this case is to recover your data and scrap the old drive.
Hardware Faults
Seagate drives have been used in G4, G5 & Intel Macs from Mac Pros to iMacs and various other PCs, such as Packard Bell and Compaq machines. We now also see Seagate Barracuda drives which have been used in external USB / Firewire enclosures. This opens up a new problem which these drives were not originally built to withstand. ie. Shock. External drives can be shocked, either by being knocked over or dropped. If the drive is reading or writing at this time it could cause a head crash, as it would with most other brands of drive (although modern 2.5″ laptop drives have protection for this type of shock). If the drive was not in use at the time of impact, the motor can still become stuck and fail to spin up. The motor spindle is attached to the hard disk casting, so the best way to gain access to these types of drives is by transplanting the disk pack into a known good casting (with a good motor).
Seagate Barracuda drives are also prone to electronic damage caused by faulty power supplies or having the power connector incorrectly inserted. It is often necessary to repair the damaged PCB, as it contains unique information which would not be present on a donor part.
We have had a lot of success recovering data from these hard disks and as long as they haven’t been dropped or knocked over, we can usually recover then externally without moving into a cleanroom.
Leave a Reply