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Tag: Seagate

  • Toshiba Desktop Hard Drives

    Western Digital Toshiba Drive
    Western Digital Toshiba Drive

    Western Digital want to buy Hitachi Global Storage. The FTC will only allow this if WD sell of some manufacturing capabilities to Toshiba. This seems to be due to some anti-competition type laws. The strange thing is that Toshiba don’t currently make 3.5″ drives, so perhaps we will see some strange Toshiba branded WD drives? Who knows.

    Maybe it will be like when Maxtor were bought by Seagate and brought out the STMXXXXXXXXX drives, which were simply Maxtor branded Seagate drives.

    Complicated stuff. Read the overview at Slashdot which has links to the FTC etc.

  • ST9320421ASG Head Crash

    This hard drive was from a Macbook Pro. As you can see in the image, loss of data was caused by a severe head crash.  The damage is so severe you can actually see through the top foil layer to the glass platter beneath. Another good reason why Mac users should make sure they backup regularly.

    ST9320421ASG Head Crash
    ST9320421ASG Head Crash

  • RAID 5 HP Smart Array E200i Recovered

    Smart Array E200i SaS Drive
    HP Smart Array E200i SaS Drive

    We have just competed a successful recovery from an HP Smart Array E200i RAID array. Not a standard case this. It had x3 DG146BB976 2.5″ SaS drives, two of which had been overwritten with a new RAID 1 mirror.

    We found the disk order which was not the same as the labelled numbers. This is often the case. Also, due to the rebuild that had occurred we had to drop one of the disks and virtually rebuild it using the parity information from the other disks.

    3 DG146BB976 SaS ST9146802SS Drives
    3 DG146BB976 / ST9146802SS SaS Drives

  • Seagate Head Crash

    This Seagate ST31000333AS 1TB drive suffered a head crash resulting in severe media damage. The contamination caused by the damage can be seen on the disc surface as well as the internal filter. The filter is usually white but is now silver metallic in colour as a result of the contamination. The customer did not have any indication that this was going to happen.

    Seagate Head Crash ST31000333AS
    Seagate Head Crash ST31000333AS

     

    Seagate Head Crash ST31000333AS
    Seagate ST31000333AS Filter

  • Thai Floods Also Hitting Seagate

    Last week we wrote about the Thai floods affecting hard drive manufacturer Western Digital. It now appears that the floods are causing problems for Seagate. Although not directly affecting their own manufacturing plants, the floods are causing problems in the supply chain, which could cause delays and shortages getting their drives to market.

    Read more at the Register

     

  • Badly Damaged Heads

    Working inside a broken hard drive today we came across some of the most damaged read / write heads we have ever seen. First, below is an example of how the heads should look. Notice how straight they are at the ends. Then below are the damaged heads. They are at 90 degrees to the discs (tomb stoning) and would have been scraping the inner disc surfaces to pieces. Bad times!

    Good Seagate Heads
    Good Seagate Heads
    Bad Seagate Heads
    Bad Seagate Heads

    If you ever hear scraping, scratching or screeching noises from your hard drive, turn it off as soon as possible. If left too long, it could scrape all of the magnetic coating off the discs until there’s nothing left to recover.

  • Apple iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program

    We at Dataquest have been aware of the problem with 1TB Seagate drives for some time. It is pleasing to see that Apple are also recognising the problem and are offering their customers a free swap out. These drives are mainly seen in iMacs, but you may also get them in the Mac Pro so make sure your back ups are up to date.

  • Dataquest part of Novatech’s New Managed Services

    Dataquest’s specialist data recovery services incorporated in Novatech’s bespoke IT & Telecomms hardware solutions. Novatech can now offer their customers the complete worry free IT Solution. In partnership with Novatech, Dataquest will provide their customers with 24/7 Data Recovery support.

    Novatech Blog (Dead link removed)

  • More Seagate Momentus Drive Failures

    We are still seeing these drives failing even after nearly 4 years. This just shows that there is no specific time stamp when these drives are going to fail. So anyone out there who still owns a original mac book with its original drive needs to make sure a regular back up is in place.

    See Our Previous Post

  • 3TB Seagate Drive

    A new 3TB drive is looming on the horizon, yet this may not be the breakthrough it seems. There appears to be major problems in the way older versions of Windows handle drives above 2.1TB. Windows XP and below will be unable to make use of these drives in any meaningful way, with some reports suggesting that only 990MB  of usable capacity would be available to these vintage operating systems. It sounds like one more nail in XP’s coffin. If you need this mountain of storage it seems like it’s time to ditch XP already!

    Read more on Slashdot