Beeping Seagate ST3500418AS Data Recovery Steps

As you can see reading through this blog, beeping Seagate hard drives are almost always drives with stuck heads. I have an entire page dedicated to beeping hard drives if you want to learn more about the issue. The beeping sound comes from the platters not being able to spin up, which can be caused by a couple of different things:

1. Power supply issue. If the drive is not receiving enough power, it will not be able to spin up properly. This can cause beeping or buzzing sounds.
2. Power cable issue. While this is usually not the issue, something as simple as a bad cable can cause the hard drive to beep.
3. Bent spindle. If the drive was dropped, sometimes the spindle can become bent which causes the drive to not be able to spin up.
4. Failed motor. This is unusual, but it does happen. If the motor fails to work properly it will not spin up the drive and you will get a buzzing or beeping sound.
5. An issue with the PCB. The PCB controls the power moving to the different parts of the hard drive, so if the PCB is malfunctioning, it can cause beeping or buzzing, but it is not very common.
6. Stuck heads. This is the most common reason for a beeping or buzzing sound. The heads become stuck on the platter and that keeps the platters from being able to spin.

As a data recovery company, I usually get drives where the power supply and power cables have already been checked. I don’t think I have ever gotten a drive brought in for recovery where the power cable or power supply was the issue. Almost all the drives I get with a beeping or buzzing sound end up having an internal parts issue and require my affordable Lab recovery service.

Referral Options For Repair Shops

This particular drive came in from a shop that has been working with us for a while. Anytime they get a drive that they are not able to recover themselves, they recommend the customer come to us for the recovery. This shop used to work with one of the big recovery companies, but after seeing our success rate and our price structure they agreed to give us a try. 

They used to only see a couple of referral checks a year because their clients could rarely afford the recovery prices they were being quoted. Now they receive checks monthly because their clients are saying yes to the affordable prices we offer. Their customers really appreciate having the option of going with affordable data recovery, instead of with the big companies that quote thousands of dollars for recoveries.

If you run a shop or store and are looking for a good data recovery option, we would love to discuss our programs with you! Just contact me and let me know what type of projects you would be sending and I will get back to you with all your options.

Beeping ST3500418AS Diagnosis

Once I received this drive for recovery I opened it up in my cleanroom and saw right away that the issue was the heads being stuck on the platter. I was able to unstick them and move them off the platter using the proper tool. This tool allows me to lift all the different heads from the platter so no scratches are caused during the repair.

Once the heads were on the ramp, I removed the head stack and took a look at them under my microscope. It is important to check for any damage to the heads at all. Even the smallest abnormality can cause major issues, so checking them with a microscope is extremely important.

If anything was damaged, a head stack replacement would be necessary. But in this case, the head stack looked perfect. I installed it back into the hard drive and re-assembled it for testing.

Beeping Data Recovery

Connecting the drive to my PC-3000, I powered it on and ran the utility once it had successfully gotten ready and ID’d correctly. I did a quick heads test which passed and completed the process of configuring the drive for imaging.

The cloning of the drive on my imager went flawlessly with 100% of the sectors cloned without any errors. Sometimes there will be sections of a drive with bad sectors or some other issue. But this drive had no other problems besides the physically stuck heads.

Successful Seagate Data Recovery

Once the imaging was complete I moved on to recovering the data from the sectors. This process also went extremely smoothly with my data recovery software seeing the partition and recognizing all data without issue. I moved all the recovered files onto the new hard drive and let the client know it was ready for pickup. They were very pleased to have their data recovered at an affordable price.

If you have a Seagate or other type of hard drive that is beeping, please consider sending it to us for recovery. I offer data recovery nationwide through my mail-in recovery service. Just fill out my quick data recovery form to get the process started. Let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks for reading!

Drive info: Seagate Barracuda 500GB, ST3500418AS, P/N: 9SL142-302, Firmware: CC38, Date Code 1023-4, Site Code: SZ

About Author

Aaron Hook

Aaron has been working in the Data Recovery industry for close to 10 years. While proficient in all aspects of data recovery, Aaron has spent the last few years in a clean room mastering the onerous skill of reconstructing and restoring the internal components of a hard drive. He is now one of the few data recovery technicians performing local, in-house clean room services in the Mid West region.

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