Seagate 7200.10 250GB - help!

Starting from yesterday, my Seagate 7200.10 250GB starts to behave strangely. This happens after I installed Kaspersky Internet Security 6. This morning I tried to start Windows but failed. I got file corruption error and cant read. I restarted and got worst. BIOS cant even detect my HDD. The HDD light is on all the time. Next I hear some funny clicking and knocking sound from my the Seagate. I think the drive is dead now. BIOS cant detect it. Anyone can help advice me what to do to revive my HDD? I want to backup some data before sending for RMA. Is my drive confirmed dead? Thanks!

Its dead, but it might just be that the disk is unbalanced. have the same problem with my ipod sometimes (chinese piece of junk hdd) and tapping it seems to help. if you do get the bios to recognize it, you can use symantec ghost to create an exact copy of the files and everything.

I think my drive is dead. I had another 7200.9 300GB and still running strong. It was made in Thailand. This 7200.10 was made in China. I guess China stuff are still not good. Going to send RMA. Anyone can tell me the cause of this problem?

wyemarn said:

I think my drive is dead. I had another 7200.9 300GB and still running strong. It was made in Thailand. This 7200.10 was made in China. I guess China stuff are still not good. Going to send RMA. Anyone can tell me the cause of this problem?

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I would agree... your drive sounds dead (no pun intended there btw)

If the data is really important... try letting the drive sit, totally disconnected for a couple of days, and then plug it in and see what happens. You need to be literally ready with that ghost program though, and whatever you do... do a sector by sector copy, ignoring bad sectors, that way you should get just about everything back (I have managed this twice over the years)

Also... I have 3 x 7200.10 250Gb drives that were made in Thailand, and have just picked up a 4th, and it was made in China.

Cause... out of so many great drives... there are always going to be some that squeek through, only to die after a short while. Drives and fans are after all the only piece of hardware in our PC's with moving parts, so I guess it's understandable that occasionally, something's gonna give.

wyemarn said:

I think my drive is dead. I had another 7200.9 300GB and still running strong. It was made in Thailand. This 7200.10 was made in China. I guess China stuff are still not good. Going to send RMA. Anyone can tell me the cause of this problem?

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1 drive really doesn't tell you anything about how good it is. Also, if this drive is relatively new (under a month old, which I assume it is) then it's not uncommon. Drives failing quite soon after being put into service isn't all that rare. As an example, my 7200.9 is just about a year old and if it failed, I would be utterly surprised. Called the bathtub curve of failure, many things follow it

Thanks for feedback guys. Never expect it to happen so fast. All my precious datas are gone now. I had a WD and still running strong after 2 years. My previous drive failures were Seagates too but with 5 yrs of warranty I thought this latest Seagates are going to be great. Dissapointed...

you can always try the freezer method. (stick it in the freezer overnight, might work till it warms back up)

K15 said:

1 drive really doesn't tell you anything about how good it is. Also, if this drive is relatively new (under a month old, which I assume it is) then it's not uncommon. Drives failing quite soon after being put into service isn't all that rare. As an example, my 7200.9 is just about a year old and if it failed, I would be utterly surprised. Called the bathtub curve of failure, many things follow it

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There was a thread somewhere or another that had pictures showing the Thailand- and China-made drives were visibly different, I think it was at storagereview.com forums. Remember Seagate bought out Maxtor, Maxtor's factories were in China iirc and we all know how good Maxtor's reliability is . I agree it's a stretch to make a conclusion based on one drive but it wouldn't surprise me if there are differences in build quality. Drives can fail for a number of reasons though, a small voltage surge for example at an inopportune time can kill any drive no matter how good it might be.

freakdiablo said:

you can always try the freezer method. (stick it in the freezer overnight, might work till it warms back up)

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My drive is still under warranty. Will that method void my warranty? Any links?

There was a thread somewhere or another that had pictures showing the Thailand- and China-made drives were visibly different, I think it was at storagereview.com forums. Remember Seagate bought out Maxtor, Maxtor's factories were in China iirc and we all know how good Maxtor's reliability is . I agree it's a stretch to make a conclusion based on one drive but it wouldn't surprise me if there are differences in build quality. Drives can fail for a number of reasons though, a small voltage surge for example at an inopportune time can kill any drive no matter how good it might be.

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BTW, I think maybe this 7200.10 is still new and therefore suffers with reliability problems. My 7200.9 was made in Thailand and comes with 3.AAH firmware. This 10 comes with only 3.AAC and the latest one is D. I just hope my replacement drive doesnt suffer anymore. Im not sure about factories but I know there are two version of 7200.10. The noisy and the quite one. Im fortunate to get the quiet version. Its quiter than my 9 but died faster...

wyemarn said:

My drive is still under warranty. Will that method void my warranty? Any links?

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As long as you don't tell Seagate you stuck it in the freezer it should be fine...but even if they found out, your drive's warranty shouldn't be voided. Freezer temperatures are usually around -18 degree C or 0 degree F. Seagate advertises that the hdd's lowest nonoperating temp should be -40 degree C.

MadMan007 said:

There was a thread somewhere or another that had pictures showing the Thailand- and China-made drives were visibly different, I think it was at storagereview.com forums. Remember Seagate bought out Maxtor, Maxtor's factories were in China iirc and we all know how good Maxtor's reliability is . I agree it's a stretch to make a conclusion based on one drive but it wouldn't surprise me if there are differences in build quality. Drives can fail for a number of reasons though, a small voltage surge for example at an inopportune time can kill any drive no matter how good it might be.

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Maxtors usually are made in Singapore, AFAIK. Mine are.

Also, Western Digital HDDs had a tendency to go bad. A while ago, the majority I came across that failed, which usually fail just like the way yours failed, bad sectors and a click of death when accessing the bad part, are Western Digital.

Maxtors, in particular, the slim models of their HDDs, the 6E030L0 and 6E020L0 are the most likely ones to fail. Unfortunately when those fail, unlike a Western Digital expect there to hardly be any warning, after it's been going good, a reboot, then the BIOS fails to detect it! Also, it probably is accompanied by a click of death too, but it's more likely to be quiet, thus you may not hear the click of death, unless you put your ear right up to it. Unlike a Western Digital, it's more likely to go right to a click of death even it was working fine just 1 minute ago!

That appears to be how Maxtors usually fail.

Western Digitals usually fail with the following symptoms:

Bad sectors and a click of death, if software attempted to access a bad part of it.

Some bad sectors, then the bad sectors can grow to 75 percent or more, thus only part of the HDD being accessible and it's likely that it will be fine if only the first quarter of it is accessed!


On a 1 GB version, it was still fine up to 238 MB. If you attempt to access beyond 238 MB of it, a click a death occurs and the software locks up.

Even SpinRite failed.

I just got reply from Seagate and they told me they have already send me the drive 2 days ago. I tried to track the waybill with UPS online tracking but not found. Anyone knows how to track Seagate's shipments? How long does UPS takes to ship my drive from Seagate? Thanks. I'm confused with Seagate's online RMA service.