I have a WD 3.5 Hard Drive where you plug into wall and laptop. It wouldn’t pop up on my MacBook. Tried everything and ended up taking the hard drive part out of the device. Put that in a new dock, still didn’t work. I hear it spinning, the light turns green, then red and it’s quiet. I really need help as there is tons of original family pictures from years and years ago.

In 2013, I dropped my 2009 MacBook off a deck. It still ran fine so I didn’t think anything of it until I went to open it again the next day and it wouldn’t boot. Yes I know I should’ve backed it up immediately but I was young and dumb. I was living in the Caribbean and the only computer guy on the island said the hard drive (SATA if that matters) booting capability was lost and had to be replaced. He quoted me $500 to recover the data (maybe) but I was too broke to pay for it. Fast forward to today, I now live in a midsize town on the mainland, and the hard drive has been sitting in bubble wrap in a sandwich bag in my file cabinet for 13 years. I can finally afford the $500 but am assuming it will be more expensive now. If I were to bring it to my local computer guru, would it be realistically possible to recover data from that old of a unit? If so, how much might that cost?

Hi, hoping someone can help with what’s best to do. I have one portable seagate HDD 2tb hard drive and one seagate expansion desktop drive HDD 2tb that have both stopped working. When I plug them into my MacBook they will make a mechanical jamming sound every second or so. They won’t appear in finder or even in disk utility so I have no way of accessing them. How do I fix this? Tia! I’m based in the south of England if that’s any help :)

Guys pls I need help Hard drive prices are already high globally and for someone like me in Iran the price is to the moon

So I have a WD 1tb HDD for my xbox and weeks before it had 14 pending sectors

I did a full format via chkdisk I think the name was and after that I checked and drive was fine

But today I tried moving a game from it to my Xbox but it got stuck at a certain point I scanned and it has 24 pending sectors of C5

Idk what to do now

So pls help on how to fix this without wiping data on the drive

I'm hoping to get some perspective from people who have more experience with NAS drives and RMAs than I do.

This was actually my first hard drive warranty claim, and honestly the whole experience has left me pretty discouraged.

A few things up front because I want to be fair.

I understand hard drives are extremely fragile.

Looking back, I probably should have packaged it more aggressively, such as using a rigid box with significantly more cushioning, and I also should have made sure the shipment carried a declared value matching the drive.

I'm not trying to avoid responsibility for that.

My frustration is that I relied on Seagate's published RMA instructions because I assumed they reflected an acceptable way to return a drive.

Timeline

• Purchased a brand-new Seagate IronWolf Pro.
• The drive developed a problem while still under warranty.
• Opened an RMA through Seagate.
• Followed Seagate's return instructions.
• Packaged the drive in an antistatic bag inside a bubble-wrap envelope because that was one of the options specifically listed in the instructions.
• Sent the drive back.

A few days later Seagate informed me the drive had sustained severe physical damage during transit and denied the warranty claim.

I completely understand why the warranty excludes physically damaged drives.

That's not what I'm arguing.

They advised me to pursue UPS.

I contacted UPS and learned something I wasn't aware of:

The shipment only carried $100 declared value.

So even if UPS approves the claim, I'll recover approximately $100 on a drive worth several hundred dollars.

I also asked Seagate for photos of the shipping package because I assumed UPS would want to see the condition of the package.

They told me the only evidence available is a photo of the damaged drive itself.

At this point I'm left in a situation where:

• I followed Seagate's published RMA instructions.
• The drive was allegedly damaged during transit.
• The warranty was denied because of that damage.
• UPS's maximum liability is approximately $100.
• I'm responsible for the remaining loss.

Again, I recognize there are things I would absolutely do differently now.

If I had known how much financial risk I was assuming, I would have:

• Used a rigid box with substantially more padding.
• Asked about increasing the declared value or purchasing additional shipping coverage.
• Probably gone well beyond the minimum packaging guidance.

But this was my first experience shipping a hard drive, and I relied on Seagate's published instructions because I assumed they represented an acceptable return method.

I'm currently asking Seagate if they'll consider a one-time goodwill accommodation. I'm not asking them to ignore their warranty policy.

I'm mostly posting because I'm trying to understand whether this is simply how HDD RMAs work or whether there's another avenue I should pursue.

Has anyone else experienced something similar with Seagate or another manufacturer?

Found my old AirPort Time Capsule in storage, hadn't touched it in 5 years. Powered it on, had to reset it to reconnect, then copied a few files off without any errors. Haven't gone through everything yet.

Anyone beat 5 years?

Toshiba canvio advance plus has the format option blocked out, how do you format a Toshiba drive? Keep in mind I don’t have a windows or Mac computer do I have to buy one to use this drive? Or do I need to download some software to make the hard drive work? Or is it cause it’s Toshiba and I should quality get a better drive?

Hello,

I bought 2 Seagate Backup Plus Hub 8TB about 8 years ago and use one and kept the other one as extra storage when needed and I finally open it a few weeks ago (about 8 years later after the fact still sealed in its box).

I put about 2TB of stuff on it and it died after one week. I connected, disconnected, reconnected and so on many times and it just doesn't show up.

I then thought maybe the USB on the enclosure fried or something so I opened it up from the enclosure and put it on my hard drive dock where it does shows up as a D: drive about 1 time out of 5 perhaps but only showed up as a D: without numbers or anything else. The drive logo appears with D: under and that's that.

Crystal Disk Info doesn't recognize it.

Also, If I reboot my desktop while it's plugged on my HDD dock, the desktop just doesn't reboot. The second I disconnect it, it reboot flawlessly. That said, when I take it off the HDD dock there is a magnet force pulling my hand for a few seconds so obviously something is working or alive so not completely dead.

That's all the troubleshooting I thought of doing here as I don't know much about drives or computers for that matter.

Since HDD prices are absolutely crazy now, 8Tb would be very handy so is there something I could do to bring it back from beyond or is it dead, dead, dead...? I don't really care about the data that's on it but I'd like to be able to reformat it to use it again.

Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I'm hoping to get some perspective from people who have more experience with NAS drives and RMAs than I do.

This was actually my first hard drive warranty claim, and honestly the whole experience has left me pretty discouraged.

A few things up front because I want to be fair.

I understand hard drives are extremely fragile.

Looking back, I probably should have packaged it more aggressively, such as using a rigid box with significantly more cushioning, and I also should have made sure the shipment carried a declared value matching the drive.

I'm not trying to avoid responsibility for that.

My frustration is that I relied on Seagate's published RMA instructions because I assumed they reflected an acceptable way to return a drive.

Timeline

• Purchased a brand-new Seagate IronWolf Pro.
• The drive developed a problem while still under warranty.
• Opened an RMA through Seagate.
• Followed Seagate's return instructions.
• Packaged the drive in an antistatic bag inside a bubble-wrap envelope because that was one of the options specifically listed in the instructions.
• Sent the drive back.

A few days later Seagate informed me the drive had sustained severe physical damage during transit and denied the warranty claim.

I completely understand why the warranty excludes physically damaged drives.

That's not what I'm arguing.

They advised me to pursue UPS.

I contacted UPS and learned something I wasn't aware of:

The shipment only carried $100 declared value.

So even if UPS approves the claim, I'll recover approximately $100 on a drive worth several hundred dollars.

I also asked Seagate for photos of the shipping package because I assumed UPS would want to see the condition of the package.

They told me the only evidence available is a photo of the damaged drive itself.

At this point I'm left in a situation where:

• I followed Seagate's published RMA instructions.
• The drive was allegedly damaged during transit.
• The warranty was denied because of that damage.
• UPS's maximum liability is approximately $100.
• I'm responsible for the remaining loss.

Again, I recognize there are things I would absolutely do differently now.

If I had known how much financial risk I was assuming, I would have:

• Used a rigid box with substantially more padding.
• Asked about increasing the declared value or purchasing additional shipping coverage.
• Probably gone well beyond the minimum packaging guidance.

But this was my first experience shipping a hard drive, and I relied on Seagate's published instructions because I assumed they represented an acceptable return method.

I'm currently asking Seagate if they'll consider a one-time goodwill accommodation. I'm not asking them to ignore their warranty policy.

I'm mostly posting because I'm trying to understand whether this is simply how HDD RMAs work or whether there's another avenue I should pursue.

Has anyone else experienced something similar with Seagate or another manufacturer?