Shucking a portable HDD

[The Electroclassic]

Hi LTT, couple of months ago, I posted that my personal Hard Drive had failed. No weird noises, so no indication of physical damage, it was just that macOS and Windows stopped reading it. Today, I tried to connect it to a Linux laptop (Ubuntu, I think the latest LTS) and it read at a painful slow speed. Now, the enclosure gets pretty hot when reading, which gives me a little bit of hope and leads me to believe it might be a "controller" (is that what it's called?) issue. My drive is a 2TB Seagate Expansion Portable. Now, to the question, has anybody tried to shuck any Seagate drive? How hard it is? Where can I get a new controller & enclosure for it? It might die in the process?

 

I have lots of questions and I'm willing to try things to regain access to my drive, you see, I have all my projects and Sample Library in it, you know, the usual stuff.

Thanks in advance, guys!

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, The Electroclassic said:

Hi LTT, couple of months ago, I posted that my personal Hard Drive had failed. No weird noises, so no indication of physical damage, it was just that macOS and Windows stopped reading it. Today, I tried to connect it to a Linux laptop (Ubuntu, I think the latest LTS) and it read at a painful slow speed. Now, the enclosure gets pretty hot when reading, which gives me a little bit of hope and leads me to believe it might be a "controller" (is that what it's called?) issue. My drive is a 2TB Seagate Expansion Portable. Now, to the question, has anybody tried to shuck any Seagate drive? How hard it is? Where can I get a new controller & enclosure for it? It might die in the process?

 

I have lots of questions and I'm willing to try things to regain access to my drive, you see, I have all my projects and Sample Library in it, you know, the usual stuff.

Thanks in advance, guys!

You can definitely shuck the drive. You just have to pop the casing off - though sometimes you'll break the casing in the process.

 

Once you shuck the drive, inside will be a regular bog-standard HDD (either a 2.5" or a 3.5", depending on formfactor). At that point, you can literally just connect it to a PC like any other HDD (SATA Data Cable + SATA Power Cable).

 

If you don't have a desktop PC available, you can buy a USB HDD dock. Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Docking-Station-Support/dp/B0099TX7O4/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=usb+hdd+dock&qid=1582387992&sr=8-5

 

I wouldn't bother buying an actual replacement HDD Enclosure (though you can definitely buy those) - as even if you can get the data off this drive, you'll want to toss it as soon as you've retrieved your files. Though I suppose if it's working okay in the Dock, you can run a full set of tests, checking the SMART data, and running the Seagate SeaTools diagnostics software (run both a short and long test, while it's plugged into the Dock or via a SATA cable).

[The Electroclassic]

Quote

If you don't have a desktop PC available, you can buy a USB HDD dock.

I think I have a dock at work. From an old broken desktop HDD (also from Seagate, now that we mention it.), you reckon it might work? Would the voltage affect the disk? it's a dock for a 3.5" and mine is a 2.5".

 

As for the tests, is there a page or a wiki I can consult on how to run them? I usually work on macOS, but on my laptop I do have a Bootcamp partition as well as another Linux laptop.

[dalekphalm]

12 minutes ago, The Electroclassic said:

I think I have a dock at work. From an old broken desktop HDD (also from Seagate, now that we mention it.), you reckon it might work? Would the voltage affect the disk? it's a dock for a 3.5" and mine is a 2.5".

If the drive fits in the dock, it'll work. They all use the same voltage.

12 minutes ago, The Electroclassic said:

As for the tests, is there a page or a wiki I can consult on how to run them? I usually work on macOS, but on my laptop I do have a Bootcamp partition as well as another Linux laptop.

As for the test, there are lots of guides online you can find.

 

You'll want to grab one of these tools:

https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/support/downloads/seatools/

 

The top one is a bootable tool, which means you install it onto a USB drive, and it'll boot to the USB instead of your regular OS. They also make an installable Windows and Linux version (you install it as an application onto Windows or Linux). I don't believe there's a Mac version, so you'll either need to create a bootable USB, or you'll a Windows or Linux computer handy.

[dizmo]

You can shuck it, and it might work, but I'd still replace the drive.

External hard drives aren't the same quality as a desktop hard drive.

Buying an internal + enclosure would result in a better device.

[The Electroclassic]

UPDATE:

 

Pried the thing open. It was way more difficult than I expected, but nothing that a Cutter and a Dunkin' Donuts gift card can't solve. Now, I'm guessing the controller is behind that aluminium foil, any idea on how to remove it without messing with the drive itself?

 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

Cut the foil along the top and bottom (sideways), so you can see how the controller board is attached to the drive. In most cases, the controller board is just plugged into the SATA/Power ports via friction.

[The Electroclassic]

UPDATE 2:

 

Got to the controller. Turns out the aluminum foil was just that. Foil. Now, gotta locate the dock. I'll keep updating.

[The Electroclassic]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Cut the foil along the top and bottom (sideways), so you can see how the controller board is attached to the drive. In most cases, the controller board is just plugged into the SATA/Power ports via friction.

It was

[The Electroclassic]

Update 3:

 

Found the dock, and plugged it in. It makes what I believe is a normal noise. macOS is refusing to read it. To even acknowledge it on Disk Utility. I recorded a snippet of audio if you believe it's a disk failure, welp then we're done here.

 

update3.mp3

[The Electroclassic]

Final update:

 

i might start saving money to send the drive to drive savers. Lesson learned. Back up everything kids. Invest in hard drives and backblaze. Don’t forget to follow me so you can laugh at the consecuentes of my own stupidity.