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Drive Details: Seagate Exos 16TB (ST16000NM001G - 2KK103) HDD
Age: Installed May 2019
Usage: Should have around 5-6TB of data

Yesterday morning this drive was at 100 activity without any read/write actions taking place. I initially thought a process had locked up the drive, so I restarted the machine. When that did nothing, I performed a CHKDSK and began a virus scan and defrag. Both of them froze, probably because the drive was already at 100% activity. This was when I remembered SpinRite from all the SecurityNow podcasts and decided that I should give it a try. I figured SpinRite would easily fix the problem as the drive was online and 'accessible'. I installed SpinRite to a USB drive and set it for a level 2 scan on the Seagate. After an hour or two the SpinRite threw an error saying 'the hard drive is no longer responding to commands' at 0.0230% complete at sector 7,184,807. I attempted to run SpinRite again from this location, but am now presented with the errors shown in the pictures.

I have also booted the machine back into Windows 11 and the affected drive will show in disk management, but says its not initialized. An Ubuntu live disk says nearly the same thing with 'cannot read superblock'.

How do I get past this error and get SpinRite to attempt to recover the data on this drive?

I appreicate your time and help.
Dan

Something is very wrong with that drive. I recommend shutting down your computer, disconnecting both of the cables to that drive for 1 minute, then plugging it back in and trying again. If that doesn't help, it's probably dead.

I'd love to get a debug log if you're willing to share. Launch SpinRite with the DIAGS parameter, then exit. ZIP up everything in your SRLOGS folder and upload it here.

Thank you for the quick response! I disconnected, reconnected with the cables attached, tried different cables, and an enclosure. I ended up sending the drive to a professional service to recover the data.

I actually have a different disk size problem and I hope someone has a suggestion how to fix this. I have a 5 terabyte drive (see picture) with a SATA interface. However, SpinRite only recognizes the drive as 500 gigabytes (see picture). EaseUS also only recognizes 500 gigabytes. I used to see more space on the drive but did some manipulation with various partition programs and now the rest of the drive does not appear to be there. I ran CHKDSK /f and nothing changed. Does anyone have any suggestions?

That sounds like a firmware problem, you'll need to find a data recovery lab. Take a look at https://www.datarecoveryprofessionals.org/member-listing

peisnerd said:

(see picture)

Click to expand...

The file size limit on this forum is 500 kB for each attachment. You'll have to resize your pictures before uploading.

Thanks so much for the responses. I did not realize the file attachment limit was 500 kb. I have resized my pictures and attached them. Again, my disk is 5 terabytes but the computer only shows 500 gigabytes. Shadow- - you suspect this is a firmware problem, but where? I get the same result no matter which computer I attach this external drive to. My original thought was some sort of corruption in the root directory of the disk but I am not familiar enough with the low level structure of disks to fix this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I suspect you may be connecting the wrong drive to the computer. The 5 TB drive is a Seagate, but SpinRite sees a 500 GB Western Digital drive. How are you connecting the Seagate to the computer running SpinRite?

Are you connecting this 5TB Seagate drive to a SATA port or a USB port?

I have seen one drive's ID somehow get transferred to
another drive, an idiopathic DRIVE firmware overwrite, so
the 5TB Seagate could have a 500GB WD identity
somehow overwritten into it's firmware . . . though
I cannot imagine how to do such a thing again or on
purpose.

More likely is the presence of a 500GB WD drive while
intending to test a 5TB Seagate drive.

Simplify.

Remove ALL drives EXCEPT the 5TB Seagate drive
intended for testing.

If the 5TB Seagate 'shows up' as a 500GB WD, then the
5TB Seagate drive's FIRMWARE has been somehow
corrupted.

Field service might get to the data by swapping in an
identical drive circuit card from a matching 5TB
Seagate.

Otherwise, it's off to a Seagate recovery service.

The big question... Is this actual lost data that needs recovering, or just letting SpinRite check drive? Because if it's lost data you really need to reach out to a data recovery lab, such as https://www.300dollardatarecovery.com/

Other options available here: https://www.datarecoveryprofessionals.org/member-listing

I'm always happy to help UK based people with data recovery, often for free if the drive still works. But outside the UK the postal costs are just too high.

In an attempt to solve my problem I tried cloning another drive to this one. This is probably how the firmware got corrupted. Does anyone know of a way to fix the firmware on this hard drive or is my only choice to find another 5 terabyte Seagate drive to clone to this one?

The firmware is in the service area, that's not accessible without special tools, so you won't be able to fix it with normal drive to drive cloning. What is your primary goal here for this drive?

If you are trying to recover data, don't do random things that will make the drive worse.

Why not take another pic of drive and how it's being connected, just to double check things.

Since my last post, I went to the Seagate site and downloaded the firmware update. The update process is complicated, so I will try to do it in the next few days if I have time. In the meantime, I currently have no useful data on this drive, so it is not a tragedy if I cannot fix this. Nevertheless, I would like to get the whole 5 terabyte capacity if possible.

Good Luck!

At the Seagate site, I downloaded their tools and ran the quick test on this drive. As you can see from the image (disk 4), the serial number and firmware are blank. Therefore, the firmware has been corrupted and I am hopeful an update will fix it.

Have you tried "Set Max LBA"?

I have a clone dock that clones without a PC, and it
copied the source drive info to the target drive,
firmware and all - ouch.

How did you clone?

I also have a clone dock that clones a drive independently. I tried it late this week by using a multiterabyte drive as the source but it also did not work.

peisnerd said:

At the Seagate site, I downloaded their tools and ran the quick test on this drive. As you can see from the image (disk 4), the serial number and firmware are blank. Therefore, the firmware has been corrupted and I am hopeful an update will fix it.

Click to expand...

What’s curious is that the drive is detected to be connected over USB? That should be listed as SCSI, SATA or SAS…

Don’t apply firmware if it’s really detecting over USB, because some commands might get blocked

Cloning Docks should not be cloning firmware, that's just bad. Firmware modules are configured differently to each drive, when they get cloned onto the wrong drive that runs the risk of opening up soo many problems. Like your seeing here. When a 5TB Seagate drive thinks it's a 500GB Western Digital drive, that's very bad. Without a backup of the original firmware modules, I don't see a way to fix it.

I imagine the cloning dock programmers, probably some
kids just out of technical school, no real-life end-user
field experience, never have any quality control testing
over their work, no one chaperoning them, no one
looking over their shoulder, no time to patiently test a
variety of cloning conditions, no stack of ersatz drives to
mix and match and mess up, and at best, they probably
slapped two identical drives into them to test, and
never noticed that the firmware got copied.

It's actually a neat feature if needed, like now, to clone
the firmware BACK from a 100%-matching working drive.

I'll keep my firmware cloning dock forever, marked with
a big red X, reminding me never to use it to clone except
when wanting to send firmware to an otherwise
unresponsive 100%-matching drive.