READ THIS | If your model 7200.11 Seagate Barracuda drive ST3500620AS has stopped working.

[sarkabrezany]

hi, my hdd does not work. please help me. SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.11 500GB SATA 3GB model ST3500620AS fw HP12 !!! many thanks

[barkway]

how can I tell what kind of drive I have? I've checked everywhere I can think of "system info, device manager,etc). It says nothing anywhere about a manufacturer or model number.

[sarkabrezany]

my problem is hdd, not pc. hdd is Seagate Barracuda 7200.11  ST3500620AS -  troublous ... i lost my data ... i will pay many euros for it ...

thanks

[lilbluebike]

I found these posts after much frustration with HP and two different computer stores locally.  After buying a new hard drive and installing it, and finding a fix did exist for my old hard drive, I decided to trust Wayman Ng.  It was totally worth it.  One of the computer stores told me I could purchase a new hard drive with the same numbers as my Seagate 7200.11 and try to replace the logic board on the old one with the new one.  I was lucky that when I searched for the hard drive, all these posts came up. 

I emailed Wayman and for less than $100 (including shipping) I was able to get all my data back.  I don't live near him locally, but in another state.  He asked me to send it Priority USPS mail in bubble wrap and I received it back less than a week after I mailed it to him with a check, a note and a phone number and email address.  He even called to say when he would be mailing it.

The hard drive now works and I would recommend Wayman if you have this problem with your Seagate Barracuda 7200.11.

[Frutchy]

Hello Pegasus and others for whom this might still be of interest (I know, it is an old topic).

I do IT assistance in France for SOHO users and came across such a bricked drive today at one of my customers.

I used Pegasus method, I happened to have a similar drive in one of my computers.

The interesting thing is that my nonbricked drive was similar, yes, but far from identical.

It also was a 500 Gb Seagate but model number was ST3500320AS.

The 1 digit difference, 3 instead of 6, means it is a drive with a 32 Mb cache instead of 16 Mb on the ST3500620AS dealt with in this topic.

Also, the customer's drive was sitting in a Dell computer. This is not really relevant, it only meant that I had to pick up the fix from the Dell web site since the drive firmware was Dell patched. The firmware version of the bricked drive was DE12 and Dell published DE13 with an update which generates either a HD or a floppy with the fix.

My own drive was a retail version with a regular Seagate firmware. Later on it proved through Seatools that my drive had the same risk as well, there was an update to my own firmware as well!

As Pegasus, I mounted the electronic board (PSB) from the bricked drive to the nonbricked drive and booted with this modded drive in place from the floppy..

I got the same knocking sound, but I was warned, wasn't I?

• The difference though is interesting:

In my case, the modded wouldn't show in the BIOS at all.

I guess this was due to the difference in cache size and perhaps also the firmware version.

But since everything was in place, I decided to continue the process, although no drive was found by the BIOS.

So the Seagate fix launched itself, searched a bit, then somehow managed to find the drive and...

... FIXED IT!

The rest of the process was fully identical to what Pegasus described:

• I mounted the updated PSB back onto the bricked drive and put the drive back into my customer's Dell computer.
• Started it, and worked!
• I reassembled my own drive and tried it out.
• Got the same kind of problems and decided to low level format it. This Is still running at the moment and I am quite sure the drive will be back into order again.

If you want to use this variant, just be sure that the bricked drive is the only one available in the computer where you run the firmware update.

Thanks to Pegasus.

The other solution is beautiful as well, but needs quite some skills. this one only needs a similar drive.

[sharmrp]

Hi folks,

I hope someone on here can assist - my son bought an IQ500 just under 2 years ago and it's been working fine with no issues - 2 weeks ago it just stops working.  The pc will turn on, we get the HB screen with the F8/F9 selections - F11 will not work but I can get into boot menu, diagnostics etc which I can access.  

The hard drive is no longer showing in the BIOS screen, I haven't been able to reboot from the supplied recovery disks and as it's over 18 months old (uk) the warranty has expired.  When I called HP they didn't even mention the Seagate issue and just quoted me under £300 to fix the issue.  It was only when I came online that I saw this was a problem and now I think this is what has happened but HP aren't interested.

I am quite useful with pc's but not even sure where I can find the drive number of the hard drive to see if it is one of the Seagate drives that were affected. 

Can anyone give me a heads up as to where I can source the drive data to see if it is a Seagate drive that was affected, and seeing as we didnt' know there was an issue (even though you register the pc and hp must know what pc's were affected - nice of them to let us know by email instead of quietly via forums that we wouldn't check), how do I get seagate/hp to assist in fixing it when it seems an inherent fault?

I hope someone here can give me an indication of where to look....

Thanks in advance

Sharon

[dianebrat]

If it's not showing in the BIOS then you need to remove the drive to ID it. It's not hard, the upgrade manual from the HP web site for your model will give you step by step instructions on how to remove it. Diane

[sharmrp]

cheers - will give it a go.

Sharon

[jale_d]

Hi guys,

This has happened to my HP touchsmart 1Q500 last week. I'm completely devastated that this has happened! I did not recieve any update about the hard drive firmware and usually updates come straight to my PC. I've read everything posted here but I'm hopeless with PCs so I haven't tried doing anything myself because I really don't understand!

Does anyone in the UK, London, know anywhere or anyone that will fix this or help?!

I've taken my Touchsmart to PC world and they've basically refused to change the hard drive because apparently it's too complicated! I really just want my data recovered and my PC to work!

I haven't contacted HP cos I'm out of warranty and will they even take it in to repair it?

Any help will be much appreciated!

Thanks, Jale

[Frutchy]

Hello jale_d,

There is a person called Wayman in the US about whom you will find information in this thread and he can help you professionnally.

I managed to unbrick mine (see higher up in the thread) and can offer you to help you out with yours under roughly the same conditions as Wayman, so something like the equivalent of 100 USD and shipment costs.

I run a computer repair shop in the Paris area, France.

I have no idea about shipping costs from UK to France and back, but it should not be that expensive I think.

If you are interested, send me a picture of the PCB of your hard drive and I can tell you the chance of success for unbricking it (I say chance, because there is always a risk that it doesn't work out properly).

My mail adress is : ronald.dat and behind the at-sign you put pcservices-france.com

Yours sincerely,

Ronald