Seagate data recovery — every family, every era.

As the largest shipper of hard drives, Seagate is the brand we encounter by far the most, not necessarily the worst in terms of reliability, but simply the most ubiquitous. There are also limited patterns that can be identified as to how these drives will fail. Drive models intended for desktops tend to have service-area faults. The drive appears to spin up with no problem; however, upon completion of detection, it either reports an incorrect size, or it fails during this process. This means the internal firmware used by the drive to describe itself to the computer has become corrupted, and the repair is terminal-level firmware work; there is little if anything that can be done mechanically. Clicking heads will occur across all brands including Seagate and indicate failure. Wherever they are found, clicking heads will always require the same response. Power down your device and follow our clicking guide. Failure within external units occurs most commonly at the USB bridge level instead of the actual disk. In cases like these the external unit may report a dead drive when in fact it is still operational. A structural element of note regarding cost associated with DIY repairs is due to many recent high-capacity Barracuda units using SMR (shingled magnetic recording). On failing drives, long clones take significantly longer to complete, and put much more strain on the drive than owners would typically anticipate. This is another good reason for leaving cloning to a piece of hardware designed specifically for that task.

While Seagate does muddy the waters a bit when they sell both recovery and replacement (under very similar names), we do need to clarify. If you are purchasing a Seagate branded product that comes pre-bundled with Seagate’s recovery plan (Seagate Rescue), then this would be a reasonable first step in attempting to recover your lost information. The bench service however will pick up where Seagate Rescue leaves off: OEM drives, most external hard drives that did not originally have Seagate Rescue, cover has expired, claims have been denied, or you simply just want to send the problem to a local company you can call. The hardware warranty replacement (i.e. get a new working drive) should always be kept completely separate from file recovery: our service recovers your data, and your drive remains yours to take advantage of the warranty coverage after. Need to know what a specific serial number is entitled to? Seagate’s website will provide you with this information instantly. Either way, the diagnostic test provided by the bench service is absolutely free.

The recovery is done using platform-level tools (for Seagate) which work under the operating system to repair the faulty drive. Bad service area: the firmware can be rewritten or recreated so the drive will describe itself properly. Failed mechanically: new heads from a matching donor are placed into the drive. Whatever failed on the drive, one careful pass of imaging is made, head by head if necessary, gently retrying each head as needed to ensure your files are safely transferred off the image of the damaged original. We use the exact same methods in our hard drive service to recover all makes of hard drive we receive with only minor adjustments based upon the firmware family specific to each model, including models such as the current IronWolf through to the Momentus laptops and even older Maxtors, now part of the Seagate brand. Our written quote is provided after completion of the free diagnosis. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data.