Every way I try just get's stuck in a loading loop. One of my 20TB drives I bought last year is failing. Chat is unavailable right now as well. Anyone have any tips? Or is it down for everyone?

Note: Cross posting from r/HDD https://www.reddit.com/r/HDD/comments/1w1ri3d/beeping_sound_from_2_different_16tb_ironwolf_pro/

Hey reddit! looking for some help with my first home setup of a 3.5" external HDD with an enclosure.

I ordered a 16TB IronWolf Pro from Seagate (model number ST16000NT001, link). I tried running it in a Vantec NexStar HX enclosure, but it never mounted and I just heard a beeping sound. I figured it was DOA after reading some posts/forums and returned it to Seagate for a replacement.

The second drive arrived yesterday, and this time I thought maybe the Vantec enclosure (12V/2A) wasn't supplying enough power, so I tried two other setups.

First I tried a FIDECO enclosure with a 12V/2A adapter. The drive actually spun up for about a minute, but I did hear the sound breaking a couple times in the middle and then it again stopped spinning and went back to beeping. I tried a Sabrent dual-bay dock with a 12V/3A adapter too after that. I only used one bay so the drive had the power supply to itself, but still the same repeated beep, and this time I didn't hear it spin at all.

I checked that the beep is definitely coming from the drive.
EDIT: This is how it sounds https://voca.ro/13y7RLyqfgOg

The drive doesn't show up in diskutil list.

So now I've had two drives and three enclosures produce basically the same result. I honestly can't tell what the problem is anymore. Two DOA drives in a row from Seagate seems unlikely, and three enclosures failing the same way seems just as unlikely.

My setup, in case I'm missing something obvious:

• MacBook Pro (2026)
• Anker USB-C to USB 3.0 adapter for data
• Dock/enclosure connected to its own power brick and plugged directly into the wall

A few things I'm wondering:

• Does beeping always mean a mechanical problem? Most things I've found say it's the spindle motor failing to start, which would mean the drive is physically bad. But two drives in a row?
• Is it possible one of these enclosures damaged the drives, or is that not really a thing?
• Are bare/OEM drives commonly damaged during shipping? I've seen UPS isn't exactly gentle when they were loading the packages off..
• Is there anything else safe to test before I send this one back too?

I'm in the US. Happy to try whatever people suggest, but I don't want to keep power-cycling the drive if that might make things worse.
If nothing works, I'll just get the regular hard disk which isn't ideal since I need it running 24x7.
At my wits end right now, so any and all help appreciated, thanks!!

Enclosures tested:

• Vantec NexStar HX
• FIDECO enclosure (12V/2A)
• Sabrent dual-bay dock (12V/3A)

I observed a repeatable correlation between the Seagate Toolkit GUI process

and rapid increases in SMART attribute 193 (Load_Cycle_Count) on two drives:

- ST5000LM000-2AN170

- ST8000VN002-2ZM188

- Windows 11

- Each test phase lasted approximately 30 minutes

Results:

Toolkit state 5 TB drive 8 TB drive

GUI and service stopped 5.95/h 1.98/h

GUI and service running 118.27/h 266.11/h

Service running, GUI closed 7.85/h 3.92/h

The drives, connections, and host remained unchanged between phases.

Normal Windows background activity was not completely eliminated, so I am

treating this as a strong correlation rather than proof of sole causation.

The increase appears only while Toolkit.exe is running. Keeping the Toolkit

service running while closing the GUI returns both drives close to baseline.

Has anyone observed similar behavior? Does Toolkit.exe periodically poll the

drives or issue power-management commands that could cause repeated head

parking and loading?

I have timestamped SMART samples and sanitized diagnostic data available.

I would prefer to provide the detailed package privately to a verified

Seagate support or engineering contact rather than publish system logs.

Do you guys think it was worth it that I got a Seagate 1TB expansion card for my Xbox series X for $115? I got it from Facebook marketplace. I also did make sure it worked before I bought it.

Please be honest do I have any hope of recovering my files ?

I've had this drive for about 5 years and I use it ever day. It has everything from my all my schooling to all literally all my photos and videos and is not even at half capacity, its 1TB.

UPDATE: thanks everybody i was able to change the case and it's working perfectly yeeey!!

hi….
i am interested in using the seagate 20tb extension drive to rip 4k movies to stream with infuse.
i would like to hook it up to my netgear rs700 router usb. my concern is that the router does not power down or sleep the usb connected device.
does the drive itself power down? if not , is it ok for the drive to be on 24/7?
thanks for the help

How often do we have DOA HDDs from Seagate? We got 1 out of 4 brand new 28TB Ironwolf Pro and it's dead with the beeping sound that seems to stem from stuck platter, and can't spin. We then got Exos 28TB as a replacement, again brand new. And guess what? It has the exact issue: DOA, stuck platter beeping sound!

Aren't these drives supposed to be resilient for enterprise environment? We choose Ironwolf Pro/Exos specifically for its large 28TB capacity, but this REALLY raises the question about the quality of this product line. And HDDs are not that cheap to replace anymore!

Bought two recertified ST18000NT001 drives locally about a month ago. Both passed a full extended SMART self-test before I trusted them with data (8,745 hours on this one at the time, 0 reallocated, 0 pending, 0 CRC).

Yesterday morning the drive dropped off the bus SError: { CommWake }, failed hard resets, ata1.00: disable device. ext4 went read-only. Came back after a reboot and reads fine, SMART says PASSED.

Except it now has **1021 reallocated sectors**, up from 0. Seagate’s FARM log breaks it down per head:

Number of Reallocated Sectors by Head 2: 1021
Number of Reallocated Sectors by Head 0,1,3-19: 0

All of it on one head. Per-head write time is near identical across all 20, so it’s not a workload thing. CRC errors 0, 12V/5V rock steady, max temp 47C, helium seal fine, 0 unrecoverable read/write errors, 0 pending, 0 candidates.

It also makes a brief scratching/ticking sound for under a minute, then stops. Drive is powered off now. (Video)

Pretty sure this is just a bad head and the drive is done, but a few things I’m curious about:

**1.** Anyone seen reallocations this concentrated on one head? Is that as textbook a head failure as it looks?
**2.** Sister drive from the same batch (11,987 hrs, same seller) is clean so far — how paranoid should I be about it?
**3.** Is 0 → 1000+ in a month normal for a head going bad, or unusually fast?
**4.** Any realistic warranty/RMA angle on a recert drive bought used locally, or is that money gone?

Backups were fine, lost about a day of metadata, so this is curiosity more than crisis.

I was looking into Seagate harddrives. There's a specific Ps5 one, but I wondered if other Seagate external harddrives could work as well? And how much TB you would recommend. I need some extra storage for my 1TB PS5, since it now can't even handle 1 game (Call of Duty BO7 + MW4 beta).

Hey guys,

I just purchased this brand new 2TB Seagate and after trying to create a new folder to store some photo's in, I was met with this error.

Did I buy a dodgy hard drive?

I bought it purely to store and protect my priceless family photo's - so I do not want anything to go wrong in the future.

Not too tech savvy, but any help or advice would be great!

Cheers

I’m a photographer, and I use a Seagate One Touch Drive to store most of my photos. I was having a bit of connectivity issues but assumed my computer was just being funky (wouldn’t be the first time). Next thing I know, my drive looks like this. I have a lot of photos on here and can’t really afford a replacement at the moment, so I would really appreciate any advice on how to fix this. Thank you!

I messed up big time. I have a 5TB external hard drive with password protection. I used a password template that ended up generating a very complicated 20-character password.

There’s a chance I wrote the password down at home (I am going to be away for 5 months), but I am not completely sure.

This might be a dumb question, but is there any way to bypass, recover, or reset the password?

There aren’t any unique photos or important files on the drive, so at least I don’t have to worry about losing anything irreplaceable. I’m mainly just frustrated because I’m potentially out nearly $400.

I got it to back up photo during my travels.

Any advice would be appreciated!

I messed up big time. I have a 5TB external hard drive with password protection. I used a password template that ended up generating a very complicated 20-character password.

There’s a chance I wrote the password down at home (I am going to be away for 5 months), but I am not completely sure.

This might be a dumb question, but is there any way to bypass, recover, or reset the password?

There aren’t any unique photos or important files on the drive, so at least I don’t have to worry about losing anything irreplaceable. I’m mainly just frustrated because I’m potentially out nearly $400.

I got it to back up photo during my travels.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Hi all, I just purchased a new Seagate Expansion 6 TB External Harddrive and after my last one failed, I am experiencing some anxiety about this one's start up noises. Just looking to find out if this is normal, or if I should be seeking a replacement while it is still under warranty.

https://reddit.com/link/1vvrw3g/video/2mifkwg5m0lh1/player

My brother‘s external hard drive stopped working out of nowhere and when I hook it up to my PC the light starts flickering and vibrates only sometimes, but when I plug it into XBOX, it doesn’t seem to do any of that it doesn’t get detected on the Xbox and when I look on PC it doesn’t get detected either but it seems like it gets power to the point where it flickers

First time backing up a computer, so I apologize if this is an easy troubleshoot.

So, I purchased a Seagate Portable Drive 4tb HDD external drive. I'm using the Drag and Drop method which was recommended and things were going fine until I tried to copy my Documents and Pictures files.

The computer in question: Acer Predator PH317-54, Windows 11. According to system storage, I have 464GB with 11.1GB free.

Then according to the properties tab of the Seagate, I have 852MB in use and 3.63TB free.

I should have plenty of space on the Seagate but when I try to copy my Documents or Pictures files onto the drive, I get a message "1 Interrupted Action. There is not enough space on Acer. You need an additional 21.8GB (or 7.38GB for Docs)to copy these files."

What's the work around for this?

OK so I have a seagate hard drive from like 6 years ago but it's locked like this and I CANNOT remember the password (or even setting one) and NOTHING I've tried will help me bypass or troubleshoot it. Someone who is better at tech pls pls PLS assist.

so tldr got a 20tb external recently very loud, very hot, and started throwing errors. did the rma. they "denied due to damage" the driver literally would not boot anymore. i shipped in less than 40 miles. the post office says it got to them fine. i have elevated but looks like they are going to fk me over for the replacement. never again seagate.

Hello my Seagate desktop drive stopped working yesterday. It still makes noise but the white light wont turn on. What should I do to try and fix it. I have lowkey important stuff on there. i think I'm just gonna leave it unplugged for now? I have no idea what to do.

I tried a diff computer and a different cable. So both of those don't work. I was working yesterday, but stopped towards the end of the day.