This is the followup video to our “How to Disassemble a Seagate GoFlex 3TB External USB Hard Disk and Use it Internally” video from 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnAmM-BJFtY

The following is a response I sent in April of 2014 to a reader who asked, what should he do if the disk makes no noise when it is plugged in and specifically asked about replacing the base:

There are several items here I will address separately:

  1. We sell a lot of these devices and have had ONE bad base and ONE bad external power supply so those are definite possibilities, but unlikely
  2. If the disk is bad, I would do one of the following:
    1. Remove the disk from its plastic prison (as per the video) and connect it to a PC as an internal disk, if it spins up

i.      See if it shows in your MY COMPUTER as a disk… if it does, copy all the data off immediately

  1. If the disk shows but you can not copy the data, try GET DATA BACK FOR NTFS (http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm ) and install it on your primary drive (NOT the defective one)
    1. The software is just $80 and it works VERY well on dieing disks
  2. If the disk does not spin up I would CONSIDER sending the disk out to a physical recovery company in your town

i.      These companies will remove the platters from your disk and then copy the data to a new disk for you

  1. I have had to do this twice in 20 years and at about $2500 each, I thought long and hard about it
  2. Try changing the search city to your city after you click this link http://www.bing.com/search?q=hard+disk+recovery+calgary
  3. Note that MOST of the companies that say they do repairs, just ship them out to someone else, so I would call and ask if they have a clean room and do the work themselves.

I hope this information helps.


2 Comments

Ray Cahill · October 21, 2012 at 7:25 am

I was told you had printed instructions for this , do you ?

    Ian Matthews · October 21, 2012 at 10:15 pm

    Not too much detail… Just what is on this site.

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