Earlier this year I turned on my Seagate external hard drive and was greeted with a continuous beeping sound. Could this be my very first experience with hard drive failure?
Way back in 2006 I bought my very first external hard drive – a whopping 300GB for just under BND300. It served me well over the years but was eventually eclipsed by it’s larger (& cheaper) brothers that came after. But this Seagate was hardy and managed to outlast a 1TB hard drive bought in 2009 which I had to retire because something was rattling around inside it.
I relegated the Seagate drive to storing long-term archival data that I probably didn’t need but wanted to hold on to “just-in-case”. Every year as part of digital spring cleaning I transfer files to it from my computers and portable hard drives. I suspected that the inner mechanisms of the drive had failed due to lack of use.
I took a video of myself turning on the drive, making sure the beeping was picked up by the microphone, and sent it to several IT repair shops asking if they could fix it. Given the drive’s age I wasn’t holding out hope for a repair but rather a cheap rescue; I wanted to get the files but didn’t want to pay much for it since they weren’t all that important. Only 1 shop said they’d give it a try if I brought it in so I made a mental note to do that one day if I had the motivation to make the 20-minute drive.
Instead, earlier this week I found myself parked in front of a shop that was a mere 5 minutes from my home. In front was a 3-foot sign advertising PC repair services within. I’d come to drop off some documents at a neighbouring office but could not ignore this literal sign from the universe. I went in and showed the technician my video. He told me to bring it in and he’d see what he could do. Even though it was the busiest of days it seemed to be finally working in my favour because I would be back in this exact area in a matter of hours. So after handling some other stuff I went home and packed up the Seagate in a bag along with a spare portable hard drive so the technician would have something to copy the files to.
A few hours later I was back in the shop. I handed him the Seagate and he dutifully plugged it into his computer. I could hear the beeping from where I was stood 3 feet away. He walked across his work area and retrieved something that hadn’t crossed my mind: another power brick.
And it turns out he was right. The hard disk was fine (kind of, more on that later) but something was wrong with my power brick. I let him keep them both for a day to see what magic he could work.
24 hours later I was back. He’d copied all the files to the portable hard drive and said they could order a new power brick for BND60 if I wanted to. He also told me that my Seagate had bad sectors (not really surprising given its age) which made the $60 price tag a little too high for my taste. A quick search on eBay Malaysia turned up some options but I’ll have to do more research before committing to anything. Given its age, I’m not sure if it’s worth spending any more time and money on it. But like my Asus Zenbook, I can appreciate all the years it gave me.