Such a nice patient man. I'm inspired by your patience and diligence. I even would've waited through the phone call to finish the video if he hadn't edited it out. Thanks Jeremy.
Thank you!! Finally someone willing to help! Everybody in the internet just too triggered if you try to fix your HDD yourself and don't event try to help. I don't care if I loose my data I just want to try to fix it myself.
Right? I have a drive with 10 years of work on it that IT has been "backing up soon" for the last 4 years. It finally failed during the eclipse.. No backup. When I told the story to a recovery company suddenly their $300 initial quote became $2000. I'm not a fan of ransoms, so here I am watching Jeremy.
Forgot to say thanks I've been looking for days to see what could be the problem. Thanks so much for digging into this and giving me a bit of hope that I can recover the important things from the drive.
I have the same seagate external but 8TB and as usual, I had bought TWO exact same ones in 2017. One will be my donor drive. Actually the firmware you mention is one or two 8 pin ROM chips (starting with numbers 25) which stores calibration information unique to each set of platters, such as bad sectors identified at the factory, etc. The ROM data can be transferred programmatically like you had done, or the original ROM can be removed and replaced on a controller board of same version/revision number. To remove, you need surface mount tech hot air rework station, as a traditional pencil electronics soldering iron won't let you work with these fine pins. One of my drives won't spin up (bad controller board - USB board is ok). So I would transfer all data off my donor drive since I'm retiring both drives. Swap ROM from bad drive to donor drive board. Need hot air rework iron station, liquid flux, desoldering braid, solder paste (all for surface mount tech electronics) Now if you still don't have a working drive, then time to pop the cover off to see if the head isn't parked, which you should spin the platter while moving the head to the parking ramps Then ... look at head swap (plenty of videos here, using the plastic from blister pack for pills, ok for 1 time fix vs expensive head removal tool which keeps the heads from touch each other)... bit more complicated for this drive as you have 12 heads, 6 platters so need 6 head separators and lots of luck) I've done hobby electronics since the 80s and the surface mount tech is new to me, so time to update my toolset and supplies off amazon and get to work!
*2019 some new info* Maybe not "new" info but over the last few years (2017 video) I believe more hard drives have used a method to calibrate the read/write head position that makes recovery bad drives almost impossible. Many (all now?) new hard drives need to calibrate the read/write head position due to very small fault tolerance. So on FIRST USE they move the head around and record the numbers to a chip on the circuit board. If you replace the circuit board those numbers are lost so the read/write head can't read the existing data no matter what. Not my area of expertise but Linus from Tech Tips talked about this in 2018 or so. AFAIK if that's the case you can only get data off of the drive by professionals removing the drive platters... though in theory the drive could rediscover it's positional head data if newer drives had some sort or recalibration update method in conjunction with the OS (i.e. offset postion and attempt to scan for file table until you find the data)... all this underscores the need to have some sort of RAID or automated copy backup setup for crucial data.
175,000 Views and not a single dislike. It is a great video and story. I have the same problem. The video is a testament to his patience and methodical determination. Thanks for making the video.
Had the same problem except my head moves back and forth 10 times before the drive quits spinning I tested it with a good drive and so the power supply seems to work fine. Seagate Barrucuda 2TB.
the reason a controller board does not work if moved to another disk drive is not the firmware code itself but the data contained within that firmware. That data contains a map of bad sectors. Every hard disk has a lot of bad sectors after manufactured, but these are logically removed when tested at manufacturer facilities by listing them on a table of bad sectors that is saved inside the flash memory, along the firmware. This table is large enough to contain many bad sectors. So you cannot move a controller board to another different disk drive because the map of bad sectors would be completely different.
EXCELLENT stuff mate . I have the same problem, but with a 2.5 laptop drive one erabyte . I opens6up the drive and it does exactly what you said . It spins for a little while the heads move back & forth and then it shuts off. I will definitely contact PCB solutions and mention your UTUBE channel. Thx a million 😁👍🏻
Make sure to backup the data right away after you have opened a hard drive case and fixed it so it runs. After you have opened a hard drive case it is almost certain that the life of the drive or data on it is short.
@@chakubanga1 Would've probably been a good idea to mention at all what you base that comment on. But it's true that whatever dust finds it's way into a drive after being opened by a non-professional in a non-clinical environment will reduce the lifespan of a harddrive guaranteed. As to how much, depends on the amount of dust around. After all, we all know that every single room has plenty of dust hanging around in the air - all we need to see it is a sunny day and a beam of sunlight coming in the otherwise dark room to reveal all the floating particles.
Fantastic! You've given me hope. Turns out I have 2 of the Seagate drives (a 3T and a 2T) that are both not reading. One (the 3T) is the exact situation you described, with the spin up, arm swing, stop spin thing. The other (2T) is making a repeated beep-like noise which sounds to me like the arm just swinging back and forth repeatedly, trying to read. I decided to experiment a bit, too, and thought I'd try one Seagate board on the other drive to see if it might work (hypothesis being that repeater arm is bum, but board might be good, so I used that one's board). Turns out, the problem from the 2T drive was present on the 3T when I switched their boards. I didn't bother checking the other way as logic says that this shows the malfunction origins to be in the boards - like you said. So, here I am, making notes as to which board goes with which drive, and preparing to send off for new from PCB solutions. I'll update once I have the new boards with the transferred firmware. Thanks so much!
@@Grecster97 I sent the boards off, got them replaced etc, but still no joy. I may look at taking the actual drive out and putting it in to a reader I know works - potentially losing that reader, but it's only 500MB, so no real loss. I'm fairly certain there are family photos on the 3T from my daughter's Make-a-Wish trip and I would dearly love to recover those.
The same thing happens to me too just now. The Hard Drive starts to spin and then the reader's arm goes across twice, and then it stops. I hope you're right about this.
@Ashutosh Jha Mine got messed up by opening up the hard drive to see why the arm reader got stuck. I thought it was the PCB board, but it wasn't. The only way that I got the arm reader unstuck is to unscrew the middle of the hard drive and that's it. If the arm reader works again, screw the middle back on but never open op the hard drive.
I have a similar problem with my 2.5inch seagate backup plus drive. Was transferring some data off it when the transfer was interrupted midway. Long story short, the drive clicks 6 times when powered on and then stops spinning. Just ordered a new pcb board and will transfer the firmware over. Hope it works (crosses fingers)
I've got the same problem with a diferent HD. (A external samsung drive with 1tb) I try your method, but using a exact same circuit board of my HD. I just bought a new one with the same firmware. It worked! Thanks a lot!
I believe you could probably do this firmware transfer by yourself using a serial cable and some open source software. Also, maybe you'd have to weld a jumper somewhere to do so, but this is the kind of info it is possible to find on the Internet. Anyway, you did a very good job, thank you for sharing!
Yes I saw the videos. On how to do a firmware transfer. Looked Way Beyond my capability. I needed to purchase a new board. And the cost of having the guy doing the firmware transfer at the same time didn't seem to be much more money. I thought it was worth it. It's been awhile since I did that and my hard drive, it is still working. Although I only use it as a backup not a primary
Thank you for giving me hope - I will try this method. I think it might be it, because the power cable was pulled as it dropped. The arm was in the wrong place first of all, but after correcting I had this error. Spins, clicks, power down. If it is a pcb power issue, then I will love you forever.
Thank you!!! Mine does exactly this and the data recovery place said I needed new heads but I’ll try this before paying the $1100 they tried to charge me!
Got the same problem but the only replacement boards i can find are from the US, and shipped here cost about 100 dollars thanks to insane shipping payments
Have a couple of older (not 3gb) seagate drives that shows same symptoms so i can just assume that it's the boards wrong there to, wonder if one can transplant the platters into another hull som how.
@@deejaykaczmarek1921 The problem may be in the PCB but the BIOS chip cannot be replaced, if you buy the same PCB and replace the BIOS chip the solution may work. So Jeremy's solution works.
how to check the drive to see if anything was written to it before it stopped working? the white light on my wd external drive doesnt come on, it worked on my old pc, not on new one, i tried a laptop i couldn't figure out. please help. I can still rma wd but dont want to until i verify nothing is on the drive.
Seagate is the problem. I've had 3 failures in a row from them in the last year. Never buying them again. WD, Samsung or maybe Toshiba is the next HDD.
my circuit board in half and thinking i throw it away and replace it! but i made a big mistake! i contact the place but they need the circuit board and i dont know what to do now?
I have a 2tb seagate portable external. Only used it for installing my ps4 games on. Not 100% sure how long i had it. Maybe 2 years. I decided to move some games over from the hdd to ps4 and after about 20 mins it said i removed the drive and error. I never touxhed it and its never been dropped, etc. Everytime i restarted ps4, it just bleeps twice and nothing. Sounds like its spinning though. After so many attempts, it doesnt even light up, but you can hear clicking noises. My only issue is that as it is only for the ps4 games, it may cost just as much to mess around to fix a hdd that cost £69 in the 1st place. So you end up just buying a new one. Unless someone knows how much it costs cheaper and where that is?
nothing wrong with my hard drive or power supply i have replaced them both and still the same problem even with the new hard drive any ideas please? but some times it runs for hours without any problems
If you really got spare money to spend on storage that will safely backup your data, instead of these pricy black boxes you can get raid massive of 4 disks so when one of 4 disks will be dead, you can safely and easily recover your data, but you will have to replace for newer disk. That is more expensive compared to single hard drive, but I believe it is worth it.
He explained that; Even if the circuit board is the same, they're always updated with the latest firmware with each new production version... so if there's been any firmware updates between the manufacturing of the circuit boards themselves, then they're the same hardware, but with different firmware.
Hello jeremy i have the exact same problem with mine the arm goes back and forth twice then stops. Pc will not read my drive. I have tried emailing memory express but no reply and pcbsolutions in canada told me they cant fix it its a mechanical problem. What do I do? Thanks chris
Unfortunately, the new PCB did not work for me. My hard drive still fails to spin up. It still fails to be recognized by the BIOS. Strange Thing = the OS asks me if I want to initialize the hard drive. However, it only states that the disk has 1/8 of its capacity. So, I will keep trying.
@@vnagaravi My hard drive is dead. I sent it to a data recovery company, but they couldn't fix it. All I can do now is hope that someone develops some new technology for recovering hard drives. If you experience hard drive problems then I seriously suggest calling a data recovery company as soon as possible.
you can desolder the rom chip from the bad one to the new board and everything will work, probably need help from mobile phone repair workshop if you cannot do desoldering and soldering, the company did the same thing to the board, but probably they already have the firmware, they just flash it onto the rom chip and solder it back
Hi. I have got a new pcb card from the company you mention. Still the exact same problem. Is the clone correct or is there something else I forgot ?? I hope you have some extra tips. I can orde a disk on eBay with the same model number. Is that an option??
About how long does getting a replacement from PCB Solutions take? I had my PCB board shipped there a week ago, contacted customer support but they still haven't given me a straight answer on where it is. What was your experience like?
@Jeremy Yuen Cars - THANKS, this is just the thing that was solution for my hdd problem, same two-spins-stop. Switch hdd PCB board with same hdd, and switch firmware chip!!! still working like new, of course just to get my data back and will go back for refund. Thanks, this is THE ONLY solution on this problem on youtube, and its the right one !!
I tried this have the same issue but the board swap didn't work, still getting the head moving over the platter twice then nothing. Anything else I can try? Thanks.
@@Lastchance2030 I've taken the drive out of external case and have it connected to an external enclose, the drive got very hot before it died so I thought the usb connector board in the external case had fried but I still have the same issue bypassing it.
I got a new asusu laptop, E402N, the hard-disk work for 5-10mins and making a bit more noise than usually then the laptop turns off... Any suggestions please
Could you suggest me some solutions? My laptop have sata 500 gb drive. It stops during working. It runs 30 to 40 minutes then stop responding. After restart it again works and do same.
Hey I'm from South Africa and the same exact problem with my Seagate 3Tb(same as yours). How do I go about ordering me that circuit board as you mentioned?
Hi. My needle/head goes back and forth and it looks like the disc doesn't spin at full speed. I can't read the harddrive on my PC. Any ideas? Regards Andrew.
hello sir, can you write down the company that can copy firmware fron pcb board to another? and send it on a new pcb ? how much this repair cost you at the end ? many thanks in advance pete .
Sir Your effort is worthy but very complicated. My WD old Sata drive spins and moves the Head once upon powering on. I think I will overhaule and try to correct it. Thanks for the Video.
Can circuit failure be caused by fall damage on hard drives? I have the same problem as his but it was caused by fall damage. I don't know if the circuitry is fried because of it. I have opened the hardrive and there is no apparent damage to the disk itself. Please I need someone to answer this before I buy a new circuit, we are all in this together!
OSMADO ,dont open hard drive. You may lost all data. It need clean environment, dust free. The disk inside the hard drive is like mirror and it attracts dust and reading arm on it has very sensitive thing. Do whatever you do without opening it. I mean circuit board replacement, but keep all the original details of drive with you, professional may need that information if you failed to get dada
So you don't think the circuit board may be damaged? because it does the same sound the gentlemen was mentioning in the video. Disk rotates, reader moves twice then disk stops rotating.
this happened to me I think I need new firmware. bought the some Seagate drive but it's not spinning the power light comes on but it doesn't run the drive.
I have faced the same problem with my hard disk. It is start to spinning while is power on but it going to stop 5 seconds after. I think the RAM is problematic in the hard disk circuit board because all other parts is OK (like capacitors, resistors and diode)
Hello thank you for the video! Very helpful in the diagnose. I also found out another issue. I actually used the correct power supply and I believe it caused some kind of short. I actually found a problem and I am not sure if Seagate is even aware of it. QC should have caught this problem although they might not have QC. I worked for Sony a great many years ago and I was part of the engineering team during the industrial VCR systems during that time. a very common problem is poor solder joints. I inspected the board that has the USB ports and also where the power supply jack plugs into. its not part of the HD. there were two terminals with very poor soldering. in fact, a can type capacitor is soldered into those terminals. the capacitor is the one next to the power jack port and was very loose, the solder was making a poor connection on the board. As I inserted the power supply jack, the capacitor would move very slightly but enough to cause a short. Me and you are probably the only ones who would do component level troubleshooting. just for safety you should check that capacitor connection. just wiggle it slightly and look at the 2 terminals. I had to use my magnifying glasses to get a better look at it. I can send you picks to have a better Idea what I found I just don't know how to send them to you outside of TH-cam. I decided to put the HD in a new external enclosure because i never used the front USB ports anyway. I emailed the company where you sent your HD board and they sent me a new one.
I've just done the same thing, completed my PCB replacement and unfortunately no luck at all, it did not work for me. I think the magenetic head may be faulty on my device, I will see if I can source an old donor HDD and do the replacement myself.
PrettyThingsRock main website can be found here -> www.onepcbsolution.com What you need to do is browse their site till you find the board you have and need. Once you’ve got it fill out the details here -> support.pcbsolution.com/firmxfer.php
Bro how you got all that patient and attention, if i gonna be you, im just buy a new hard drive.. such a great man, recording and telling his journey about recovering harddrive to people.. respect 🫡
Great Video!! I am having issues with mine. The USB does not recognize my Seagate. Device cannot start. (Code 10). In the Device Manager there is an Explanation mark on the USB Mass Storage Device. Model Number: ST2000DM001 Family: BARRACUDA 1.5TB. Appreciate any assistance you might be able to offer me. Thank You
I feel like HDD manufacturers are intentionally make HDD's so vulnerable to make people buy extra back up drives fearing data loss or use expensive recovery services. I mean, why is it just if even one small part malfunctions everything is lost? If that small cheap-to-manufacturer PCB can easily get broken, shouldn't HDD manufacturers include a spare one or at least sell them separately? And why add a unique firmware so that the PCB cannot be changed. Companies like Apple does a similar thing (the fingerprint sensor does not work if it is replaced) and consumers criticised Apple for it as an anti-consumer behaviour. Imagine how many non-techy consumers have thrown away HDD's that could perfectly be usable by replacing that cheap PCB.
I'm not sure if this will help or not. I opened the case the head is parked. The drive spins up I hear some clicking. But it is not picked up in Bios or in win 10. After the PCB change are you able to retrieve the data?
Thanks for this but all the repetition made it quite confusing for me. Also I'm not sure if you were dealing with just one piece of hardware that you replaced, or there were two boards. What works is the main thing we need to know. What didnt work is just food for confusion unfortunately.
I did the same opened up to find the 2 sweeps & a beep followed by a stop of the drive spinning came home one day i think my cleaning lady bumped it of the desk so a drop i have also replaced the PCB with a duplicate which clearly wont work i.e firmware so this is my last hope short of spending a load of cash on a series data recovery . The drive was under a year old so if it works i will be over the moon
I am confused by your story. How did the company send you 2 drives of the same "firmware"? That is impossible as the firmware is transferred by physically transferring the chip from one PCB to the other. Every "firmware" chip is unique. If your first one got lost then so did your "firmware" chip. This means they would not have a compatible firmware chip to place on the new board to send you another... I say firmware but its not really firmware, its actually calibration data from time of manufacturing and its unique to each and every hard drive. Makes me think they just forgot and gave you a story. Or possibly that your hard drive is one of the models that does not need "firmware" to be transferred in the first. Not all hard drives require it.
They didn't just send him a drive with the same firmware. Did you not listen to the video? He said he first ordered the same harddrive, it didn't work, then the same circuitboard and that didn't work either, exactly because of the unique data/firmware they have. Only when he found someone to flash a new circuitboard with the original's data/firmware, then it worked. So in other words; Luckily the old broken board still had the firmware/data intact so it could be cloned to another circuitboard. How would they "forget and give him a story", taking in consideration that they sent him a new circuitboard and it then worked?
@@sarcasm-83 It's you who needs to watch it again mate. Why would he order the hard drive from a "specialist" in the first place? It was supposed to be a clone, firmware swapped of the one he was trying to fix. That's the point of the specialist. Otherwise it would just be a regular old hard drive of the same model. Could buy that anywhere. No data recovery specialist needed. Think about it
@@vseanw *He didn't order a harddrive* at the end, dude. Here's a timestamp 5:25 .... He sent his circuitboard over to the service, so they cloned that chip's firmware over to an identical circuitboard and then they sent that new circuitboard with the old ones firmware to him and that was what eventually worked. He TRIED to just buy the "same" harddrive and use it's stuff, but that failed because of the firmware differences.
@@sarcasm-83 You are so dense kiddo. They sent him a board with a "firmware transfer" that's why he was dealing with them..... The "new board was lost in the mail. Watch the video...... Around 7 minutes. You clearly do not know this so I will explain... Slowly. A "firmware transfer" is when they literally swap the calibration chip from one circuit board to another. There is only one chip with that information on it on the entire planet and it's for the original hard drive. You cannot "transfer firmware" without transferring that chip. They then sent him the new board with the transfer complete. Aka the calibration swapped to the new board. There would be no point in sending this new board without the firmware transfer as it would not work... At all. It was lost in the mail as the guy said. Then the company went "above and beyond" and sent another new board. How is this possible?? The calibration chip / firmware transfer was already attached to the supposed board they sent in the mail and "lost". There is only one of these chips with the calibration information needed for that specific hard drive in the world. If it's lost in the mail so is the information. There is no sending another one. But apparently the company sent another one. This is unexplainable and the reason for my post. But you keep thinking you have a clue. It's good fun for me.
Such a nice patient man. I'm inspired by your patience and diligence. I even would've waited through the phone call to finish the video if he hadn't edited it out. Thanks Jeremy.
Thank you!! Finally someone willing to help! Everybody in the internet just too triggered if you try to fix your HDD yourself and don't event try to help. I don't care if I loose my data I just want to try to fix it myself.
Right? I have a drive with 10 years of work on it that IT has been "backing up soon" for the last 4 years. It finally failed during the eclipse.. No backup. When I told the story to a recovery company suddenly their $300 initial quote became $2000. I'm not a fan of ransoms, so here I am watching Jeremy.
Forgot to say thanks I've been looking for days to see what could be the problem. Thanks so much for digging into this and giving me a bit of hope that I can recover the important things from the drive.
I have the same seagate external but 8TB and as usual, I had bought TWO exact same ones in 2017. One will be my donor drive.
Actually the firmware you mention is one or two 8 pin ROM chips (starting with numbers 25) which stores calibration information unique to each set of platters, such as bad sectors identified at the factory, etc. The ROM data can be transferred programmatically like you had done, or the original ROM can be removed and replaced on a controller board of same version/revision number. To remove, you need surface mount tech hot air rework station, as a traditional pencil electronics soldering iron won't let you work with these fine pins.
One of my drives won't spin up (bad controller board - USB board is ok).
So I would transfer all data off my donor drive since I'm retiring both drives.
Swap ROM from bad drive to donor drive board. Need hot air rework iron station, liquid flux, desoldering braid, solder paste (all for surface mount tech electronics)
Now if you still don't have a working drive, then time to pop the cover off to see if the head isn't parked, which you should spin the platter while moving the head to the parking ramps
Then ... look at head swap (plenty of videos here, using the plastic from blister pack for pills, ok for 1 time fix vs expensive head removal tool which keeps the heads from touch each other)... bit more complicated for this drive as you have 12 heads, 6 platters so need 6 head separators and lots of luck)
I've done hobby electronics since the 80s and the surface mount tech is new to me, so time to update my toolset and supplies off amazon and get to work!
Sir, this is just the best. I'm experiencing the exact same problem, you saved my memories :")
Just sent my board off to them. We will see how they do, thank you so much for posting this! Great job sharing!
Could you send me the link so I could send mine please? I would appreciate it so much!
I have just watched this video. You are an excellent teacher. I have the same problem. Will contact them for a new board. Thanks so much.
Did you finally contact them?
I had my board out and in the mail in 1 hour.. Thank You, hoping for a 4 ter working drive in a couple weeks.
Did it work for you?
If you happebn to see this, did you try it and have success ?
*2019 some new info*
Maybe not "new" info but over the last few years (2017 video) I believe more hard drives have used a method to calibrate the read/write head position that makes recovery bad drives almost impossible. Many (all now?) new hard drives need to calibrate the read/write head position due to very small fault tolerance. So on FIRST USE they move the head around and record the numbers to a chip on the circuit board. If you replace the circuit board those numbers are lost so the read/write head can't read the existing data no matter what. Not my area of expertise but Linus from Tech Tips talked about this in 2018 or so. AFAIK if that's the case you can only get data off of the drive by professionals removing the drive platters... though in theory the drive could rediscover it's positional head data if newer drives had some sort or recalibration update method in conjunction with the OS (i.e. offset postion and attempt to scan for file table until you find the data)... all this underscores the need to have some sort of RAID or automated copy backup setup for crucial data.
175,000 Views and not a single dislike. It is a great video and story. I have the same problem. The video is a testament to his patience and methodical determination. Thanks for making the video.
well there are dislikes lmao
Had the same problem except my head moves back and forth 10 times before the drive quits spinning I tested it with a good drive and so the power supply seems to work fine. Seagate Barrucuda 2TB.
Did it fix the problem? Because mine does the same. 10 times.
Thanks for the info. I am having that problem. I will follow your instructions and let you know how it goes.
the reason a controller board does not work if moved to another disk drive is not the firmware code itself but the data contained within that firmware. That data contains a map of bad sectors. Every hard disk has a lot of bad sectors after manufactured, but these are logically removed when tested at manufacturer facilities by listing them on a table of bad sectors that is saved inside the flash memory, along the firmware. This table is large enough to contain many bad sectors. So you cannot move a controller board to another different disk drive because the map of bad sectors would be completely different.
EXCELLENT stuff mate .
I have the same problem, but with a 2.5 laptop drive one erabyte .
I opens6up the drive and it does exactly what you said . It spins for a little while the heads move back & forth and then it shuts off.
I will definitely contact PCB solutions and mention your UTUBE channel.
Thx a million 😁👍🏻
Make sure to backup the data right away after you have opened a hard drive case and fixed it so it runs.
After you have opened a hard drive case it is almost certain that the life of the drive or data on it is short.
You are an idiot
@@chakubanga1 Would've probably been a good idea to mention at all what you base that comment on.
But it's true that whatever dust finds it's way into a drive after being opened by a non-professional in a non-clinical environment will reduce the lifespan of a harddrive guaranteed. As to how much, depends on the amount of dust around. After all, we all know that every single room has plenty of dust hanging around in the air - all we need to see it is a sunny day and a beam of sunlight coming in the otherwise dark room to reveal all the floating particles.
Thanks, for your time to make such hopeful video
Fantastic! You've given me hope. Turns out I have 2 of the Seagate drives (a 3T and a 2T) that are both not reading. One (the 3T) is the exact situation you described, with the spin up, arm swing, stop spin thing. The other (2T) is making a repeated beep-like noise which sounds to me like the arm just swinging back and forth repeatedly, trying to read. I decided to experiment a bit, too, and thought I'd try one Seagate board on the other drive to see if it might work (hypothesis being that repeater arm is bum, but board might be good, so I used that one's board). Turns out, the problem from the 2T drive was present on the 3T when I switched their boards. I didn't bother checking the other way as logic says that this shows the malfunction origins to be in the boards - like you said. So, here I am, making notes as to which board goes with which drive, and preparing to send off for new from PCB solutions. I'll update once I have the new boards with the transferred firmware. Thanks so much!
Did everything work out for you Stephanie?
@@Grecster97 I sent the boards off, got them replaced etc, but still no joy. I may look at taking the actual drive out and putting it in to a reader I know works - potentially losing that reader, but it's only 500MB, so no real loss. I'm fairly certain there are family photos on the 3T from my daughter's Make-a-Wish trip and I would dearly love to recover those.
Top bloke! Thank you kind sir!
The same thing happens to me too just now. The Hard Drive starts to spin and then the reader's arm goes across twice, and then it stops. I hope you're right about this.
@Ashutosh Jha Mine got messed up by opening up the hard drive to see why the arm reader got stuck. I thought it was the PCB board, but it wasn't. The only way that I got the arm reader unstuck is to unscrew the middle of the hard drive and that's it. If the arm reader works again, screw the middle back on but never open op the hard drive.
Thanks you for the trick! You are so kind and patient!
Did this solution work for you on sea gate drive?
hey can you give the site to the guys who send a new board ?
I have a similar problem with my 2.5inch seagate backup plus drive. Was transferring some data off it when the transfer was interrupted midway. Long story short, the drive clicks 6 times when powered on and then stops spinning. Just ordered a new pcb board and will transfer the firmware over. Hope it works (crosses fingers)
Did it work for you?I have the same issue.
update please
would also like an update on this please
I've got the same problem with a diferent HD. (A external samsung drive with 1tb)
I try your method, but using a exact same circuit board of my HD. I just bought a new one with the same firmware.
It worked! Thanks a lot!
yess!! Exactly. same problem with my Samsung Drive 1TB. can please Help? I Live in India
Im having same hard drive with same problem call you give the solution
imgur.com/a/HVlSCIy
I believe you could probably do this firmware transfer by yourself using a serial cable and some open source software. Also, maybe you'd have to weld a jumper somewhere to do so, but this is the kind of info it is possible to find on the Internet. Anyway, you did a very good job, thank you for sharing!
Yes I saw the videos. On how to do a firmware transfer. Looked Way Beyond my capability. I needed to purchase a new board. And the cost of having the guy doing the firmware transfer at the same time didn't seem to be much more money. I thought it was worth it. It's been awhile since I did that and my hard drive, it is still working. Although I only use it as a backup not a primary
Felipe Abou , no, only the ROM chip needs to be taken out from the old drive and you need to solder it on to the new PCB.
Thank you for giving me hope - I will try this method. I think it might be it, because the power cable was pulled as it dropped. The arm was in the wrong place first of all, but after correcting I had this error. Spins, clicks, power down. If it is a pcb power issue, then I will love you forever.
hey, have you find a solution for your hard drive? because I'm having the same issue thanks!
Really well done video, i have the exact same problem down to the unit, sooooo i guess i will check the board, thanks mate :)
Thank you!!! Mine does exactly this and the data recovery place said I needed new heads but I’ll try this before paying the $1100 they tried to charge me!
Did you get your data off the sea gate drive?
I have a SeaGate with the same issue you have. Im going to try get a new board with the same firmware. thank you
Wish he would have put a link for the company. I can’t find them on eBay
Got the same problem but the only replacement boards i can find are from the US, and shipped here cost about 100 dollars thanks to insane shipping payments
Have a couple of older (not 3gb) seagate drives that shows same symptoms so i can just assume that it's the boards wrong there to, wonder if one can transplant the platters into another hull som how.
you save my day :-) Excellent Experience sharing video ... Thanks
Yes this is exactly what I was looking for, thanks a lot !
Did this solution work for you?
@@deejaykaczmarek1921 The problem may be in the PCB but the BIOS chip cannot be replaced, if you buy the same PCB and replace the BIOS chip the solution may work. So Jeremy's solution works.
Thank you for sharing this and your efforts. Unfortunately, the PCB firmware transfer did not fix my issue. But it was worth the try.
Didn’t work? Ever get the data off it
how to check the drive to see if anything was written to it before it stopped working? the white light on my wd external drive doesnt come on, it worked on my old pc, not on new one, i tried a laptop i couldn't figure out. please help. I can still rma wd but dont want to until i verify nothing is on the drive.
hi Mr.Jeremy, can you share Canadian firm connection or ebay link
I’m having this exact same issue right now, same drive and all
This is exactly my issue on my same model as this. I am sending it to PCB solutions now!!
Did you problem fixed?
Seagate is the problem. I've had 3 failures in a row from them in the last year. Never buying them again. WD, Samsung or maybe Toshiba is the next HDD.
they want us to spen more money on unessesary recovery
'
OMG, is that true? Thanks for enlightening the rest of us!
the company you mentioned does not do any work on pcb boards nor do they sell them.
my circuit board in half and thinking i throw it away and replace it! but i made a big mistake! i contact the place but they need the circuit board and i dont know what to do now?
I have this same problem, but my is a Seagate Sata thin HDD,. So I do not know where the firm ware is located.
I have a 2tb seagate portable external. Only used it for installing my ps4 games on. Not 100% sure how long i had it. Maybe 2 years. I decided to move some games over from the hdd to ps4 and after about 20 mins it said i removed the drive and error. I never touxhed it and its never been dropped, etc. Everytime i restarted ps4, it just bleeps twice and nothing. Sounds like its spinning though. After so many attempts, it doesnt even light up, but you can hear clicking noises. My only issue is that as it is only for the ps4 games, it may cost just as much to mess around to fix a hdd that cost £69 in the 1st place. So you end up just buying a new one. Unless someone knows how much it costs cheaper and where that is?
nothing wrong with my hard drive or power supply i have replaced them both and still the same problem even with the new hard drive
any ideas please?
but some times it runs for hours without any problems
If you really got spare money to spend on storage that will safely backup your data, instead of these pricy black boxes you can get raid massive of 4 disks so when one of 4 disks will be dead, you can safely and easily recover your data, but you will have to replace for newer disk. That is more expensive compared to single hard drive, but I believe it is worth it.
If you can get the same circuit board of Ebay, why do you need the firmware upgrade?
He explained that; Even if the circuit board is the same, they're always updated with the latest firmware with each new production version... so if there's been any firmware updates between the manufacturing of the circuit boards themselves, then they're the same hardware, but with different firmware.
Hello jeremy i have the exact same problem with mine the arm goes back and forth twice then stops. Pc will not read my drive. I have tried emailing memory express but no reply and pcbsolutions in canada told me they cant fix it its a mechanical problem. What do I do? Thanks chris
This video helped me
Did it make clicking noise while spinning
Sent the board to Canada, had the board cloned. Exact same problem. Spins for 5-6 seconds then stops and says unrecognized. Can it be the motor?
That sucks
Translation: Replace the PCB (the green board).
My new PCB is in the mail. I'll have an update in one week.
Thanks for the video.
please update as soon as possible. thanks
Unfortunately, the new PCB did not work for me.
My hard drive still fails to spin up. It still fails to be recognized by the BIOS.
Strange Thing = the OS asks me if I want to initialize the hard drive. However, it only states that the disk has 1/8 of its capacity.
So, I will keep trying.
You need to swap the BIOS chip from the old PCB to the new one.
@@0-Elias-0 did you did the hard drive
@@vnagaravi My hard drive is dead.
I sent it to a data recovery company, but they couldn't fix it. All I can do now is hope that someone develops some new technology for recovering hard drives.
If you experience hard drive problems then I seriously suggest calling a data recovery company as soon as possible.
Here is the company referred to:
www.onepcbsolution.com/
I have the same problem with a Western Digital. I'm going try this. Thanks.
Who was the company you used for the BIO transfer and new board?
you can desolder the rom chip from the bad one to the new board and everything will work, probably need help from mobile phone repair workshop if you cannot do desoldering and soldering, the company did the same thing to the board, but probably they already have the firmware, they just flash it onto the rom chip and solder it back
Hi. I have got a new pcb card from the company you mention. Still the exact same problem. Is the clone correct or is there something else I forgot ?? I hope you have some extra tips. I can orde a disk on eBay with the same model number. Is that an option??
how do we fix for the slim externals?? this is a desktop external, what about the portable slim externals?
how it work ? with new pcb & new firmware u mean ?
Has this worked for anyone? I’m tempted to contact company after opening it up
About how long does getting a replacement from PCB Solutions take? I had my PCB board shipped there a week ago, contacted customer support but they still haven't given me a straight answer on where it is. What was your experience like?
@Jeremy Yuen Cars - THANKS, this is just the thing that was solution for my hdd problem, same two-spins-stop.
Switch hdd PCB board with same hdd, and switch firmware chip!!! still working like new, of course just to get my data back and will go back for refund. Thanks, this is THE ONLY solution on this problem on youtube, and its the right one !!
What do you think about this problem ? @
th-cam.com/video/0E0M7vuTquE/w-d-xo.html
They look crazy expensive now
Sir please attach a link of hard disk tool to attach in front
Thanks for the video but please backup onto Toshiba or better drive
I tried this have the same issue but the board swap didn't work, still getting the head moving over the platter twice then nothing. Anything else I can try? Thanks.
Hey Jed fator read my post and maybe that will help. then again you probably gave up.
@@Lastchance2030 I've taken the drive out of external case and have it connected to an external enclose, the drive got very hot before it died so I thought the usb connector board in the external case had fried but I still have the same issue bypassing it.
I got a new asusu laptop, E402N, the hard-disk work for 5-10mins and making a bit more noise than usually then the laptop turns off... Any suggestions please
Could you suggest me some solutions? My laptop have sata 500 gb drive. It stops during working. It runs 30 to 40 minutes then stop responding. After restart it again works and do same.
Hey I'm from South Africa and the same exact problem with my Seagate 3Tb(same as yours). How do I go about ordering me that circuit board as you mentioned?
hi, Peter, I'm also in South Africa with the exact same issue Seagate 3Tb(same as yours). were you able to get it fixed?
Hi there
I’m having the same problem with my 3T Seagate barracuda , mind if I ask how much it cost for the firmware transfer ? Many thanks
Hi Jeremy I'm Jeff how can I contact you
i have drive can detect but not spin & incorrect function message after choose initialize disk use MBR disk management
Can you please post a link to the site you used get your new board.
Hi.
My needle/head goes back and forth and it looks like the disc doesn't spin at full speed. I can't read the harddrive on my PC. Any ideas? Regards Andrew.
hello sir, can you write down the company that can copy firmware fron pcb board to another? and send it on a new pcb ? how much this repair cost you at the end ? many thanks in advance pete .
www.hdd-parts.com/18042323.html
... page TH-cam his to link a Its
Sir Your effort is worthy but very complicated. My WD old Sata drive spins and moves the Head once upon powering on. I think I will overhaule and try to correct it. Thanks for the Video.
Can circuit failure be caused by fall damage on hard drives?
I have the same problem as his but it was caused by fall damage. I don't know if the circuitry is fried because of it. I have opened the hardrive and there is no apparent damage to the disk itself. Please I need someone to answer this before I buy a new circuit, we are all in this together!
OSMADO ,dont open hard drive. You may lost all data. It need clean environment, dust free. The disk inside the hard drive is like mirror and it attracts dust and reading arm on it has very sensitive thing. Do whatever you do without opening it. I mean circuit board replacement, but keep all the original details of drive with you, professional may need that information if you failed to get dada
Head crashed i guess ,if drive fall down
So you don't think the circuit board may be damaged? because it does the same sound the gentlemen was mentioning in the video. Disk rotates, reader moves twice then disk stops rotating.
As you mentioned the reason of falling down. It means No circuit damage.
If data is very important, contact www.stellarinfo.com/
this happened to me I think I need new firmware. bought the some Seagate drive but it's not spinning the power light comes on but it doesn't run the drive.
Awesome video, My seagate drive doesn't at all spin up. Can I ask what is the screwdrivers you use? or what the amazon link may be?
just to tell you HDD are not air tight unless they are helium filled !!!
Well they're still airtight enough for common room dust to not get in.
I have faced the same problem with my hard disk. It is start to spinning while is power on but it going to stop 5 seconds after. I think the RAM is problematic in the hard disk circuit board because all other parts is OK (like capacitors, resistors and diode)
Did you get your hard drive to work after? I have this problem now :(
Thanks sir very useful video
Hello thank you for the video! Very helpful in the diagnose. I also found out another issue. I actually used the correct power supply and I believe it caused some kind of short. I actually found a problem and I am not sure if Seagate is even aware of it. QC should have caught this problem although they might not have QC. I worked for Sony a great many years ago and I was part of the engineering team during the industrial VCR systems during that time. a very common problem is poor solder joints. I inspected the board that has the USB ports and also where the power supply jack plugs into. its not part of the HD. there were two terminals with very poor soldering. in fact, a can type capacitor is soldered into those terminals. the capacitor is the one next to the power jack port and was very loose, the solder was making a poor connection on the board. As I inserted the power supply jack, the capacitor would move very slightly but enough to cause a short. Me and you are probably the only ones who would do component level troubleshooting. just for safety you should check that capacitor connection. just wiggle it slightly and look at the 2 terminals. I had to use my magnifying glasses to get a better look at it. I can send you picks to have a better Idea what I found I just don't know how to send them to you outside of TH-cam. I decided to put the HD in a new external enclosure because i never used the front USB ports anyway. I emailed the company where you sent your HD board and they sent me a new one.
I've just done the same thing, completed my PCB replacement and unfortunately no luck at all, it did not work for me.
I think the magenetic head may be faulty on my device, I will see if I can source an old donor HDD and do the replacement myself.
Hi, What is the web address? Thanks
PrettyThingsRock main website can be found here -> www.onepcbsolution.com
What you need to do is browse their site till you find the board you have and need.
Once you’ve got it fill out the details here -> support.pcbsolution.com/firmxfer.php
So just a reminder this may not work for you. But that is the company I used to do my PCB replacement
Bro how you got all that patient and attention, if i gonna be you, im just buy a new hard drive.. such a great man, recording and telling his journey about recovering harddrive to people.. respect 🫡
Great Video!! I am having issues with mine. The USB does not recognize my Seagate. Device cannot start. (Code 10). In the Device Manager there is an Explanation mark on the USB Mass Storage Device.
Model Number: ST2000DM001 Family: BARRACUDA 1.5TB. Appreciate any assistance you might be able to offer me. Thank You
I feel like HDD manufacturers are intentionally make HDD's so vulnerable to make people buy extra back up drives fearing data loss or use expensive recovery services. I mean, why is it just if even one small part malfunctions everything is lost? If that small cheap-to-manufacturer PCB can easily get broken, shouldn't HDD manufacturers include a spare one or at least sell them separately? And why add a unique firmware so that the PCB cannot be changed. Companies like Apple does a similar thing (the fingerprint sensor does not work if it is replaced) and consumers criticised Apple for it as an anti-consumer behaviour. Imagine how many non-techy consumers have thrown away HDD's that could perfectly be usable by replacing that cheap PCB.
I'm not sure if this will help or not. I opened the case the head is parked. The drive spins up I hear some clicking. But it is not picked up in Bios or in win 10. After the PCB change are you able to retrieve the data?
hi could you send me the mailing address the company which replaced the board and very helpful video keep posting
Conclusion: you must have backup strategy. If you store data in a single device you will lose it.
Thank you, Captain Obvious
@@sarcasm-83 my pleasure, my unicellular friend
Thanks been having the same problem
Is PCB Solution still active?
Hode ʞestra if you mean the company then yes they are.
Thanks Jeremy
Thanks for this but all the repetition made it quite confusing for me.
Also I'm not sure if you were dealing with just one piece of hardware that you replaced, or there were two boards.
What works is the main thing we need to know. What didnt work is just food for confusion unfortunately.
Thanks for the video
I did the same opened up to find the 2 sweeps & a beep followed by a stop of the drive spinning came home one day i think my cleaning lady bumped it of the desk so a drop i have also replaced the PCB with a duplicate which clearly wont work i.e firmware so this is my last hope short of spending a load of cash on a series data recovery .
The drive was under a year old so if it works i will be over the moon
Barry, were you able to repair the drive?
i have the same problem and i live in canada so im gonna give it a try! and i sent an email
Link pls
I am confused by your story. How did the company send you 2 drives of the same "firmware"? That is impossible as the firmware is transferred by physically transferring the chip from one PCB to the other. Every "firmware" chip is unique. If your first one got lost then so did your "firmware" chip. This means they would not have a compatible firmware chip to place on the new board to send you another...
I say firmware but its not really firmware, its actually calibration data from time of manufacturing and its unique to each and every hard drive.
Makes me think they just forgot and gave you a story. Or possibly that your hard drive is one of the models that does not need "firmware" to be transferred in the first. Not all hard drives require it.
They didn't just send him a drive with the same firmware. Did you not listen to the video?
He said he first ordered the same harddrive, it didn't work, then the same circuitboard and that didn't work either, exactly because of the unique data/firmware they have.
Only when he found someone to flash a new circuitboard with the original's data/firmware, then it worked.
So in other words; Luckily the old broken board still had the firmware/data intact so it could be cloned to another circuitboard.
How would they "forget and give him a story", taking in consideration that they sent him a new circuitboard and it then worked?
@@sarcasm-83 It's you who needs to watch it again mate.
Why would he order the hard drive from a "specialist" in the first place? It was supposed to be a clone, firmware swapped of the one he was trying to fix. That's the point of the specialist.
Otherwise it would just be a regular old hard drive of the same model. Could buy that anywhere. No data recovery specialist needed.
Think about it
@@vseanw *He didn't order a harddrive* at the end, dude. Here's a timestamp 5:25 ....
He sent his circuitboard over to the service, so they cloned that chip's firmware over to an identical circuitboard and then they sent that new circuitboard with the old ones firmware to him and that was what eventually worked.
He TRIED to just buy the "same" harddrive and use it's stuff, but that failed because of the firmware differences.
@@sarcasm-83 You are so dense kiddo.
They sent him a board with a "firmware transfer" that's why he was dealing with them..... The "new board was lost in the mail. Watch the video...... Around 7 minutes.
You clearly do not know this so I will explain... Slowly. A "firmware transfer" is when they literally swap the calibration chip from one circuit board to another. There is only one chip with that information on it on the entire planet and it's for the original hard drive. You cannot "transfer firmware" without transferring that chip. They then sent him the new board with the transfer complete. Aka the calibration swapped to the new board. There would be no point in sending this new board without the firmware transfer as it would not work... At all. It was lost in the mail as the guy said. Then the company went "above and beyond" and sent another new board. How is this possible?? The calibration chip / firmware transfer was already attached to the supposed board they sent in the mail and "lost". There is only one of these chips with the calibration information needed for that specific hard drive in the world. If it's lost in the mail so is the information. There is no sending another one. But apparently the company sent another one.
This is unexplainable and the reason for my post.
But you keep thinking you have a clue. It's good fun for me.