How to recover hard drive from a firmware problem?

Asked By FireFly99 5 points N/A Posted on - 08/05/2011

I have a Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA hard drive, in which it suddenly cannot be detected in the BIOS. I already connected the hard drive to different motherboards, but it still cannot be detected in the BIOS. I also searched it in the Internet and here are the links that I found.

BARRACUDAS FIX

Help with Barracudas

Seagate has provided firmware update downloads, but it only works with those hard drives, that are just about to fail or those hard drive that are still detectable in the BIOS. My Hard drive is non-detectable in BIOS.

I would like to ask help to recover my hard drive due to important company files I need to recover. Is there other solution to my hard drive problem?

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Best Answer by Sharath Reddy

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Answered By KevinN 5 points N/A #99722

How to recover hard drive from a firmware problem?

One solution to this problem is to get an identical drive.  It has to be the exact same brand and capacity and preferably with the same firmware revision. Then carefully swap the circuit boards of the hard drives.

If the problematic drive was bought by your company in bulk, chances are the other drives that were bought at the same time have the same board and you can use one of those.

Take note though that tampering with the boards will surely void your hard drive's warranty and you will no longer be able to return the drive to Seagate for replacement.

Hope this helps.

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• Posted on - 08/14/2011
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Answered By Sharath Reddy 590495 points N/A #99723

How to recover hard drive from a firmware problem?

Maybe your hard drive gave in after it was exposed to a very high temperature while it was operating. Maybe this happens while you are using it. The temperature in the environment also adds up to the total temperature of the hard drive while it is being used. But normally hard drives are created to withstand certain heat levels. It will not easily go down even during high temperatures.

I have an odd way of reviving an undetectable hard drive and I already tried it before on my very old IDE hard drive that is the same case as you are, already undetectable in the BIOS. It worked for me and I was able to still use it even for a few months before it finally went down. Detach your hard drive from the CPU then put it inside a plastic bag. Make sure that the plastic bag doesn’t have any tiny holes in it where water can penetrate. You can use 1 or 2 plastic bags just to make sure that the hard drive is tightly sealed from water. Then put it inside the refrigerator’s freezer for about 24 hours to expose it to extremely low temperature. Remove it after 24 hours then let it defrost or something for a couple of hours. After that, try connecting it again to the CPU and check if the BIOS can now detect it.

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• Posted on - 05/17/2012
• Question Category: Disaster Recovery