Peter Velichkov's Blog

One not-so-beautiful morning I woke up just to find out that my Seagate 7200.11 500GB hard drive is not detected from my BIOS. Unfortunately it was a well know problem which have three solutions:

1. Replace the hard drive with new one from where you got it and lose your data
2. Send it to Seagate for data recovery and wait a month or more
3. Fix (or totally screw) it yourself

Of course as some-kind of geek I chose the last option and successfully repaired my drive following the MSFN forums guide. Check the photos for more details of the process.

Summary:

1. If you have Seagate 7200.11 be sure to  check if it is affected and if is still running flash it with the latest firmware
2. If you are planning to repair it yourself be sure to know how to solder
3. You will need quite a few parts and tools. It took me two days to prepare
4. Most of the cellphone cables have what you need inside. I used a Nokia datacable.

PS: I’m NOT responsible for any damage or data loss you might experience

PS2 (in Bulgarian): Ако ви трябва помощ при възстановяване на данни от 500/750/1000GB хард диск Seagate 7200.11, който не се появява в БИОС-а или е с размер 0, драснете ми едно писъмце и ще се опитам да помогна.