Sushihunter

Yes, already looked into it. Problem is that it was a Refurb, and only had a 30 or 90 day warranty. Still, only 215 days! Funny thing is that SeaTools won't read a lot of the data on the Pipeline drive, yet the WD program will. Sadly, since this drive failed, I've read a number of reviews from others who bought Refurb Pipelines and many of them have failed. I understand that these drives are sold at a discounted price, but it has really turned me off of every buying another refurb drive again if I can't get a decent warranty period on them. In one respect, I did get lucky and was able to pull all but two files off of the drive. It took me all day to copy the directories over one by one, but I got them. Thanks for your input.

Yes, I kind of guessed that you might have a laptop. Also, I forgot to mention - this drive is USB 2.0 You might want to look at getting one that is USB 3.0 or 3.1 Good luck!

That drive should work fine if all you want to do is rip your Blu-Ray disks to .mkv. Though, I would consider one that will allow you to burn your .mkv files back to Blu-Ray disks for archival purposes. I've always bought LG branded DVD & Blu-Ray burners and have had good luck with them. Also, is there a reason why you are looking at an external drive, and not internal?

A few years back, I had about 6 Seagate 500GB 7200.11 HD's - EVERY ONE OF THEM FAILED! I lost tons of files. It was so bad, that I had to send 5 of them back for replacement at the same time! And one of those had already been replaced once before. Seagate was really good about replacing them, especially when I told them I did not want the same drive back. They kindly agreed and sent me a different model of HD. So far, they are all still working after about 7 years.

I always like to do a full format, re-name the volume, run some tests using SeaTools, and the WD equivalent. In the past, I've installed HD Sentinel, but haven't used it in a while. Of course, doing all this is no guarantee. I just had a 2TB Seagate Pipeline HD (refurbished), that I got from NewEgg.ca last only 215 days before going tits-up. I got lucky and was able to recover all but 2 files from the drive, but I'm still out about $60 plus many hours of my time. The scary thing is that I got no warning at all. It was working fine one moment, next it just blinked off of the screen and became inaccessible. For the full story:

Update: December 10, 2017 My original plans were to hook this failed Pipeline Drive up to my new LGA1151 computer and to use Periform Recuva to see if I could pull any of the files off of it and onto a WD My Passport HD. Otherwise, sending it to a place that specializes in fixing broken HD's. Well... After getting Windows 10 Home 64 installed and working, I hooked up the Pipeline. On booting, I got some messages stating that the Pipeline was being scanned for errors. After a few minutes, I'm looking at a "working" Pipeline HD! I quickly grabbed the WD My Passports HD and copied over the entire contents of the Pipeline, one directory at a time. Only lost 2 files: one HD movie, and one TV show. I don't know what W10 did that W7 couldn't do, but I got all my video files back except for two. Scanning the Pipeline HD, I am still seeing the same SMART errors that I posted a photo of here earlier. As I can no longer trust this HD not to fail again in the future, I have pulled it from the system and it will just be an emergency back-up in the event that I need any of the files on it. I don't see any sense in spending a lot of money on it when I can simply buy a new HD for probably much less than it would cost to fix this one.

Well... because it is a 2TB HD that is almost 3/4's full, and I don't have another empty 2TB HD to copy it to. I'm kind of afraid of getting into a position where I make it worse. Also, I'm right in the middle of setting up a new computer and would like to get that done before jumping into this box of snakes. So I thought it best to seek the advice of people who know more about this than me.

Yes, that is my suspicion, but not proven. I'm just waiting to pick up another HD, (this one won't be "refurbished"), before I get into this. I'm kind of busy putting together a new LGA1151 system, so this has taken a back seat. I just don't want to be rushed and do something that I can't recover from. I hear that there is a somewhat local company that can swap the control board - I'm saving them for my last resort. $$$ Thanks!

I have a refurbished 2TB Seagate Pipeline Hard Drive that failed after only 215 days since purchased. I believe that the files on the disks are OK, and that the problem is in the control board, or something similar. Drive was working fine one moment, then suddenly I was not able to access it. Then Windows started prompting me to format the drive to be able to use it. Needless to say, I have not formatted the drive. I can read the SMART info using SeaTools, and Recuvva let me see files on the HD. Nothing life-changing on the drive - just over 120 HD quality movies and a couple dozen multiple seasons of TV shows - it was about 75% full. I've pulled the drive from the system and will wait until I have some options for recovery before putting it back in. Any idea on how to get this drive up and running again without formatting would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!