There are many types of sounds that can come from a hard drive, but beeping is one that means there is something seriously wrong with it.
I have a Seagate External HDD, srd00f2, that until yesterday was working perfectly. I can not think of anything that has changed, other than that the drive is no longer being recognised by Windows, and is beeping when connected. When you plugin Seagate hard drive to the computer, it starts beeping. It seems like it’s moving, but actually, it doesn’t move. You feel bad at the moment, right. Don’t worry Because we provide some effective solutions through which you troubleshoot Seagate hard drive beeping. “I have a Seagate portable 350GB hard drive, and recently.
The beep of death is one of the last sounds you want to hear when it comes to where your data is stored, but it doesn’t mean your data is lost forever either!
The beeping noise comes from the spindle motor trying to spin. Beeping is not a sound you want to hear coming from a external hard drive. When you hear a Seagate external hard drive beeping, that drive is telling you “Houston we have a problem!”. Hey I have a portable Seagate 500 GB hard drive. It’s only few months old and has been working fine till last weekend when I switched it on and it suddenly stopped working. I mean it does not sound like normal and it’s making a beeping sound. This is a very low sound but it is there when I get close to the portable hard drive to hear it.
What does a beeping drive mean?
Beeping is similar to clicking, however clicking can sometimes, and to a degree, be normal. Beeping can never be normal. If your hard drive is beeping it will sound similar to the video below.
Beeping, in most cases, means there are one or more components inside the hard disk trying to move but can’t. It’s stuck.
Usually it’s the actuator arm and head stack stuck: either under the parking ramp, or on the platter. This is called stiction.
However, it can also be the motor or spindle.
If your data is worth anything, each of these instances means trouble and requires a clean room and some professional help.
There is always a temptation to try to do this yourself, at least to open the drive to check it out. Do not fall into that temptation.
I have ruined many beeping external hard drives messing around with this, but thankfully the data on the drives was not valuable to me.
Seagate External Hard Drives Troubleshooting
What hard disk manufacturers beep the most?
There are no particular types or makes of hard disks that are immune to the dreaded beeping noise. Laptop, desktop, internal, external, and even RAID array devices and drives are prone to failures causing the beeping sound.
Seagate External Hard Disk Beep Sound Effect
Manufacturers like: Western Digital (WD), Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung, Toshiba, Lacie, iOmega, Drobo, Synology, Dell, HP, WD, QNap, and Buffalo all have the same types of drives, and all can find themselves in conditions causing beeping.
Beeping caused by stiction of the heads
The reason for this is the read/write heads inside are very delicate and any damage to them can end up scratching the platters where your data is written to.
Unsticking the heads in this situation might be the easy part, however in some instances if the drive is continually powered in this state it can cause them to stick even harder.
The heads can become easily damaged during the process of unsticking them. The platters can also become damaged during the process.
Sometimes you will not notice the damage without the use of a high powered microscope, which can involve having to remove them. When a drive has multiple platters and heads, the risk becomes greater. Read more about stiction and stuck heads here.
Beeping caused by bad hard drive motor or spindle
Hard drives have a motor and spindle that are used in spinning the platters around at high speed. If the platters cannot spin at proper speeds then the drive will not initialize.
Beeping will be caused by a burnt, broken, or seized motor,as it is trying to spin the platters but they can’t move.
Install Seagate External Hard Drive
Beeping will also be caused by a spindle that is stuck or broken.
In this case there are few advanced options that only data recovery professionals know of, and one of them is performing a platter swap. This also requires a clean room and alot of experience as each drive is different. Read more about bad motors and spindles here.
Do not worry when you hear the beep of death, life has not ended!