Seagate Portable drive not blinking, not recognized

sonoferu

Senior member
Jun 6, 2010
286
5
81
I have a Seagate SRDOSPO Backup Plus Portable Drive. Couple of years old, worked fine for system backups until yesterday. Now its little white light at the top comes on when I plug it in, but it doesnt blink. And my Windows 7 desktop box doesnt recognize it, it doesnt show anywhere. I plugged it into 2 different laptops with Windows 8, same thing

Something died inside? I looked online for "Seagate portable drive not blinking, not recognized" and found lots of webpages but none have any useful information so far

Thanks
 

tweakboy

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2010
9,517
2
81
www.hammiestudios.com
Seagate / Maxtor donot know how to make drives ever since they hopped in bed with Maxtor. Maxtor makes the drives for Seagate now. Seagate used to be good until the merger. Stay away...

Try a different USB port or try a PCI card with USB 3.0 ,,,,,,, let us know.
 

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,292
62
91
Is it a USB-powered drive, or one of the externals with the power block?

I have 4 Seagate USB-powered portable drives, every once in a while the system won't recognize one or the other. If you have another cable, maybe swap it out. I'm going to guess either a bad controller or a bad cable.
 

sonoferu

Senior member
Jun 6, 2010
286
5
81
its a USB and alas I have only one cable. It has an end on it that is unlike any others I have [I have a pile of them]
 

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,292
62
91
its a USB and alas I have only one cable. It has an end on it that is unlike any others I have [I have a pile of them]


I have one that randomly disconnects. I have to unplug it, and plug it back in to reset it. It's been doing that for a couple years now.

...as does mine. OP, I would say try a new cable in a known good USB port (I've had issues with certain USB ports with that Seagate cable, too...) before worrying about the drive itself; I'm not saying it's not the drive, but based on what I have seen with my 4 drives (2 older versions, 2 newer versions) it's most likely the cable.
 

K7SN

Senior member
Jun 21, 2015
353
0
0
It could be the cable, but a higher chance that the drive has physical issues. Does it have any valuable data on it that isn't backed up?

+1

I suspect my title is what happens next but let me elaborate on the RecoveryForce's post.

Cables first, then depending on if you need to recover the data - proceed with caution

Since typically a backup drive has original data somewhere else, the first step might be to get another backup drive and continue backing up your important data.

The problem may well be the SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) has decided not to recognize the disk. I sometimes think SMART was designed to sell more disks.

Since it is not in warranty take it apart carefully, there is a typical (non-usb, hook up to a desktop) hard-drive in there, separate it from the controller board and test the drive in a machine; My hardware friend has a test bench where he can test the drive easily, (I let him do the hardware work for me and I write him code in return) but just run the wires outside the your desktop computer and see if it recognizes the drive. If it does, the culprit may be the controller.

If you need your data proceed with caution, if not try to reformat the drive. SMART isn't always correct.

Just my thoughts, last time I messed with a hard drive was to manual reset the boot sector to DOS from CP/M or something my friend had tried and after reformatting, could use the drive in his DOS machine. Ancient history, nowadays that's what techs are for at work and your wallet is for at home.
 

sonoferu

Senior member
Jun 6, 2010
286
5
81
I was just using it to store system backups using EaseUS Todo Backup, which took tons more space than any thumb drive would, so I have ordered a new backup drive and will just go on backing up with that.

thanks all
 

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,292
62
91
I was just using it to store system backups using EaseUS Todo Backup, which took tons more space than any thumb drive would, so I have ordered a new backup drive and will just go on backing up with that.

thanks all

Question: Is it one of the old Seagate drives with the controller that would 'unplug' from the drive, or one of the newer ones that has the one piece enclosure?