Data Recovery from Seagate 7200.11, 7200.3 & ES.2 hard disk drives

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, 7200.3 & ES.2 series of hard drives can develop a unique problem that causes access to the data they contain to be lost. This problem is apparent on 7200.11 & ES.2 drives with the following capacities: 500Gb, 750Gb, 1Tb and 1.5Tb. Fortunately, Data Clinic are able to fully recover the data from these drives.

Example Models:

• Seagate Barracuda 7200.11:
  ST31000340AS, ST3750330AS, ST3640330AS, ST3500320AS, ST31500341AS, ST31000333AS, ST3640323AS, ST3640623AS, ST3320613AS, ST3320813AS, ST3160813AS
• Seagate Barracuda ES.2:
  ST31000340NS, ST3750330NS, ST3500320NS, ST3250310NS
• Seagate Momentus 7200.3:

Unique failure symptoms:

• The drive will power up normally (no ticking noises, errors etc) but will not be recognised by the computer
• The drive will power up normally and be recognised correctly but will report a size of 0 bytes
• The drive will power up but report SMART errors on boot

Cause:
The fault stems from a firmware issue that set an invalid boundary value for the drive’s ‘circular event log’. Where this coincides with a particular test pattern being placed in the system tracks of the reserved area by some of Seagate’s post manufacture ‘tester’ applications, the event log pointer is incremented beyond its allowable boundary. This is detected as an ‘Assert Failure’ by the drive which ‘freezes’ as a self-protection response. Once this occurs the drive is remains inoperable however many times it is subsequently powered up. The unpredictable nature of the problem means that it is near impossible to say whether or when drives with the firmware in question will fail.

What should I do?:
Call the Data Clinic and talk your problem through with us on 0871 977 2525, or fill out our auto-form and we”ll call you back