Seagate Archive HDD Failure. No Crash, No Spin, Silent. Help?

I have a Seagate Archive HDD (Seagate (STEB8000100) Expansion Desktop 8TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for PC Laptop). It was in an external enclosure. I have several external hard drives including a WD. I may have accidently used my WD power adapter for my Seagate Archive HDD. Nevertheless, my Seagate Archive HDD is no longer working.

I bought several of these Expansion Drives. I opened another one and it is a Seagate Barracuda instead of a Seagate Archive HDD. I was just hoping to have a Donor for parts but no luck there.

I went ahead and ordered from an online website the exact match PCB boards to see if I can get this hard drive working by myself. I am not looking forward to sending this off to a Data Recovery Service, but I am thinking about it.

If someone could help me troubleshoot this a little beforehand to see if I can get this working without having to send it off that would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my thoughts.

The drive is completely silent, there was never a horrific ending to the drive. Like it is spinning up and crashing, knocking, beeping, whatever. Just one day I plugged it in and nothing.

Now here is the odd part. It seems like something is barely connecting because in keeps connecting and discounting in windows. You hear the Windows Notification that it connects and then disconnects. Sometimes it stays connected and you can see in “Computer Management” under “Disk Management” the drive. It is like it is barely connected on a sub low level.

What will happen is that in “Disk Management” a window will pop up and say you must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it. MBR vs GPT. Of course, after doing this, I get the error “The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error”.

Disk 2, red down arrow, Unknown, Not Initialized

Most of the time the partition data or the available space does not show up in disk management, but rarely it does show up, i.e., size of partition and available space to create a disk partition. However, even when that shows up it still gives me the error “The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error”.

My thoughts are that the drive is fully functional, but I may have blown a diode or something. The hard drive was sitting in an enclosure and had an extra PCB Board that was a bridge between the power supply and the hard drive. This other PCB board on the external enclosure is working perfectly. I popped out another Hard Drive from another enclosure used it on the bridge and everything works perfectly. So, I am not sure how the Seagate Archive HDD failed even when the External PCB power supply which held it did not.

This is what leads me to be that somehow the PCB Board is no longer working on the Seagate Archive HDD and this may be a simple solution. I ordered a new PCB Donor Board and was hoping all I must do is transfer the “Bios” and install the new Donor Board and everything works.

My question is troubleshooting.

Before messing around with my vital “Bios” chip. Can I just swap out my Donor Board to just see if power is restored and the drive spins up? I know I will not be able to access the Data however, I would be able to confirm that my other original PCB board is the main culprit. Then proceed to swapping the “Bios” chip on the Donor Board.

Will swapping the PCB board without swapping the “Bios” chip cause any “Data” loss or damage the Seagate Archive HDD?

Troubleshooting Steps

-1 Order Donor PCB Board
-2 Swap Original Board with Donor Board without Swapping Bios Chip
-3 See if Seagate Archive HDD powers on whatsoever, spins, etc.
-4 If powers on and spins up, swap out Bios Chip
-5 If Bios Chip is swapped and drive is still not responsive begin consultation with “Data Recovery Service”.

Another question is do I simply just send this off to a “Data Recovery Service” I would hate to swap out my Bios chip and make it more difficult for them to recover. However, if it is a simple PCB Board Swap and Bios Swap, I would prefer to do it myself.

Please feel free to give me any other pointers. I am just trying to perform some basic troubleshooting tactics before sending this drive off for an expensive recovery. I just have a feeling that this might be as simple as a PCB Board/Bios swap because the drive was never dropped, and in perfect condition. It is not that old either.

Thanks!

You think that using the WD adapter on the Seagate damaged the electronics.
What is the output voltage of the WD and the Seagate adapter?
As you opened the enclosure, did you try to remove the HDD and install on your desktop?

Megahertz said:

You think that using the WD adapter on the Seagate damaged the electronics.
What is the output voltage of the WD and the Seagate adapter?
As you opened the enclosure, did you try to remove the HDD and install on your desktop?

I think the WD could have damaged it yes. However, it only damaged the drive and not the bridge within the external case. The Bridge works find with another hard drive that is from another exact same case.

Seagate External Case = 12V 2A
WD = 12V 3.0A

Yes, I opened the enclosure and put the seagate in a 8 bay tower and did the same thing.

NeedsPractice said:

I think the WD could have damaged it yes. However, it only damaged the drive and not the bridge within the external case. The Bridge works find with another hard drive that is from another exact same case.

Seagate External Case = 12V 2A
WD = 12V 3.0A

Yes, I opened the enclosure and put the seagate in a 8 bay tower and did the same thing.

If both are adapters PS are 12V, changing one by the other won't damage anything.

What you mean by "did the same thing."?

Megahertz said:

If both are adapters PS are 12V, changing one by the other won't damage anything.

What you mean by "did the same thing."?

"did the same thing" meaning this drives does absolutely nothing. Does not spin up and is dead silent. No spin up, no beeps, no knocks or clunks. However, windows does pick it up on a sub low level and ask to initialize it but it can't because of an i/o error. When I put it in the 8 bay tower it just sits there and doesn't spin or do anything. However, something is talking to it back and fourth barely it seems.

With the drive connected to a SATA port on the desktop, launch Disk Manager (C:\Windows\System32\diskmgmt.msc).
Can you see the drive?

Megahertz said:

With the drive connected to a SATA port on the desktop, launch Disk Manager (C:\Windows\System32\diskmgmt.msc).
Can you see the drive?

Yes I see the drive in disk management. However, I can't do anything with it. It wants me to initialize it via mbr/qbt. Then it says it can't because of an i/o error.

If you initialize you will loose everything on the drive. Don't do it.
Is there any i/o error code?

Megahertz said:

If you initialize you will loose everything on the drive. Don't do it.
Is there any i/o error code?

no code. just says it can't be done.

“The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error”.

It seems the hardware controller has failed and must be replaced.
As the disk itself is healthy, the data can be retrieved.
Sorry, I can't help you.