Seagate Barracuda is no more

[flateric]

I got a perfect Xmas present from Seagate. One of my HDDs, 750 Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, went to quiet whistling and clicking and then became unvisible even from BIOS. 'This parrot is no more'.

Surprisingly, it has 90% of my aerospace stuff I have collected since ca.1994.

I know perfectly that I should go to the data restore center, but a question is if anyone have experienced the same problems - most of all, I'm interested about chances of data recovery...with damn Seagate...reward company paid me for being thier returning buyer.

 

[MIRAGE 4000]

Welcome in Informatic World !

0-1-0-0-0-1-1 .....

engraved in stone ! ;D ;D

(the only solution : X2 each beat you have) :

 

[Matej]

As we share a lot of stuff, if you won't be successfull with the recovery, you have some 25 - 30 GB of data right here. Tell me if necessary.

 

[Skybolt]

Don't panic ! A good data recovery service will do miracles (it did it for me a year ago....). Will costa bundle, though, at least 600-1000 euros (and 50 euros just to diagnose). They do incredible things now, the service I used was even able to replace the heads assembly in the disk... so they saved the a** of an absent minded financial operator who forgot to make back-ups of his order-log...

 

[flateric]

No panic here. Only hope that discs themselves are not physically damaged.

 

[Skybolt]

My advise is to not "use" it anymore. If there is a problem to the heads, the more they go the more they scratch. The data recovery service has special software that test every single heads assembly and use them selectively.

 

[flateric]

OK, I must admit that I've made several attempts to boot from the boot DVD to look up at the things...if previously I have seen it in BIOS, now I can't...HDD doesnt make loud crack sounds, it can be heard that drive is worling (i.e. disks are rotating) and making very quiet tic-tac sounds...data restore here is from 200 to 600 bucks for SATA drive of such a size...but no chance that you can be cheated (i.e. you got dead controller block repaired in a matter of minutes, but you can be said that all the lab staff spent a week trying to reanimate your HDD from the ashes working sleepless in the clean room).

Interestingly, HDD is on warranty till 2012, and Seagate offers you restore service (not in Russia, though) based on principe 'no data recovery, no payment'). Damn, THEY WANT ME TO PAY FOR DATA LOST DUE TO THEIR FAULT PRODUCT?