Hard Drive Demolition

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uwjester

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So about 2 years ago, I bought a 400GB Seagate external hard drive for backing up family pictures, documents, whatever. It basically looks like this:
Seagate.jpg


Well, the other night, I noticed that the damn thing wouldn't power up any more. I could press the power "switch", switch being very generous here, it is more of a soft switch than a real switch, and you could hear the drive spinning up. As soon as you took your finger of the "switch" the thing lost power. Add to that, I couldn't access the drive while it was powered up. I think, "OK, there is a problem with the controller board, I'll just pull the drive and put it in a new enclosure." Wrong!

torxPlus.jpg


Meet the torx plus bit head. Notice the 5 points instead of the usual 6. Also notice the hole in the middle. That is because torx plus screws have a safety pin in the middle. I can't find this specialty piece of crap anywhere and a quick google search comes up with a reason. You have to be specially certified to even buy one of these security bits.

So, am I going to spend $40 on a bit for a drive that may be dead? Hell no! 20 minutes with a dremel tool can bypass any security the folks at Seagate felt they had the right to impose on me.

HardDriveDemolition-after2.jpg


And, guess what? The damn drive works like a charm in its new home.
HardDriveDemolition-after1.jpg


I don't know what the point of the post is, but I'm pissed that Seagate didn't just use a normal friggin screw. Guess I just wanted to vent a little.

Always wear safety glasses.
 
You can buy those bits. I got a set from auto zone one time to replace an ignition in a vehicle, if nothing else they're on ebay for $20 just search for "5 point torx".
 
Amazon and Harbor Freight have them for under $10 per set. Seeing as there was no reason to save the enclosure, there was no need to wait for shipping.
 
I looked on ebay and amazon, but I didn't see any for cheap and the ones I did see, I didn't think would work. The screw is at the bottom of a 1" deep, 1/4" diameter hole. I didn't think the collar that holds the bit would fit into the hole and I didn't think the bit itself would be long enough to touch the screw and the collar. Besides, why spend $20 for a drive that could be dead.

Regardless of whether or not a $5 bit could of worked, why not use a screw? Seagate obviously didn't want me to be able to get to the hard center inside the chewy shell. To what purpose? Did they think I was going to put a different drive in there? Are they trying to make sure I don't void my warranty?

Now there's an idea. I should get online and describe the problem, get an RMA, and send that mess to seagate. "I think somethings wrong with this."
 
Seagate harddrives themselves last forever. Ive used some 4-8 gb drives for ferring info around and these things are almost 10 years old.

Im lucky to get 2 years out of a WD
 
Gotta love my Seagate drives...and the 5 year warranty :D. But yeah, I'd never buy an external drive; it's just cheaper/better to buy an internal dive and an external enclosure, imo.
 
Yeah, that's what I do. The day I can buy an external hard drive for less than it costs to assemble my own is the day I'll but one. Until then, I'll keep being cheap and buy the parts separately.

I have a Maxtor 300gb SATA in my desktop right now and I'm not thrilled with it.
 
I don't know, I got the 750g Seagate Freeagentpro for $195 a while back and it even came backup software. I did add up the cost of everything to build it at the time and came up with over $200.
 
Thats exactly what happened with this one. After the rebate, the drive was much less than an internal. I don't think I even needed it at the time, but the price was too good to pass on.
 
@RadicalEd, Just to clarify, a full size external hard drive is an internal hard drive, just mounted in an enclosure. Especially with Seagate, you always get a "normal" model Seagate-brand internal drive inside of your Seagate external enclosure. The part number often matches retail, in fact.

LaCie ships mostly with Seagate's inside, but I have found numerous Toshiba/Fujitsu in their smallest portable lines - especially circa 2001-2005. My F.A. Porsche 320gb LaCie drive is in fact a Seagate 3.5" Barracuda 320 inside.

Other manufacturers, well... YMMV. I'm a Seagate enthusiast myself. (Own Barracuda 20gb, 80gb, 160gb, 250gb, and 500gb internal drives)
 
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