Is this HDD dying?

[GibsonSGKing]

I have an external drive that I've been using forever. It's USB, a seagate, 500gb, brown with an orange strip in the front that glows. That's about all I know about it. All of the sudden, when I plug it in, it isn't recognized by my computer. I've checked disk management as well, it's not there. Is this drive dying, or what? I'm not really concerned if it's just the enclosure, but idk... I had a lot of stuff on it...

 

[Cabbs]

It could be some connections in the enclosure are bad. I had one that had a faulty USB port and would cut-out ever so often. I ended up pulling the drive out the enclosure and mounting it internally.

First I would try a new USB cable and go from there.

 

[GibsonSGKing]

It could be some connections in the enclosure are bad. I had one that had a faulty USB port and would cut-out ever so often. I ended up pulling the drive out the enclosure and mounting it internally.

First I would try a new USB cable and go from there.

Good idea, I didn't even think of trying that. I'll report what happens with a new cable in a minute

Yeah, new cable didn't do anything, and I know for a fact that this one works (it's the same one I use to connect my phone)

 

[Cabbs]

Sounds good. Is this drive under warranty by any chance?

 

[GibsonSGKing]

also, when I unconnected the USB from the enclosure (something that usually turns it off) it just keeps spinning the drive, and it doesn't ever seem to go into sleep mode or whatever it is when the drive slows/stops spinning. I'm starting to think it's the enclosure...

EDIT: I don't believe it is, I think it's around 3.5 years old, IIRC seagate warranties are only around 3 years, correct? It may be even older than that, actually... and I don't have the packaging it came in either.

Tried it on another computer (xp 32bit, usb2.0), doesn't work on there either

 

[Cabbs]

You could try using this to find out: http://support.seagate.com/customer/warranty_validation.jsp?form=0

If it's not, I'd just take it out of the enclosure and put it in your case. That'll tell you if the drive works or not.

 

[GibsonSGKing]

Yeah... I don't think I have any info, and it's not really worth sending in anyhow. I'll just yank it out of the casing.... oh well I guess

Speaking of taking this out though... you wouldn't happen to know how would you? there aren't any screws anywhere haha

 

[Cabbs]

The screws in mine were hidden under the rubber feet. If yours doesn't have any, it might be a snap-together case where you would have to pry it apart.

 

[GibsonSGKing]

I first suspected the rubber feet, and then found that you had to snap apart the bottom, then the bottom screws off, and then there are little screws that hold together the actual enclosure. I didn't have a screw driver around that fit the screw, but I'll get one later tonight/tomorrow and install it. I was actually considering of making it an internal drive anyhow, I just hope it was the enclosure that was faulty...

Thanks for the help by the way

 

[Remeniz]

This is the reason I detest USB external drives, cause it's usually the USB interface that craps out leaving you with a perfectly usable internal drive anyways. lol

Let us know how you get on cause I have a mate who swears by USB external drives, even though half of his don't work or are failing, and he's reluctant to believe me that he can strip them and use the drives inside as internal drives.