How to open a Seagate Backup Plus Drive
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- The drives in my Seagate 4TB enclosures were the ST4000DM000 model drives. I am told there are other models out there in these drives, but I'm not sure how to tell without opening the box. Good luck. Also, if you don't have any guitar picks, many commenters have had luck using a cut up credit card!
UPDATE: I contacted Seagate after one of my drive failed. I tried entering the serial number of the internal drive for warranty purposes, but they did not allow this. I had to use the external case serial number for warranty. keep this in mind in case you need to warranty your drive (keep your cases, or at least the serial numbers that go with each drive as a reference).
I ended up sending in just the bare drive without the case in my RMA. They did not like this and I had to call and explain to them that their own RMA instructions stated not to ship any power cords or cases. That's right their instructions said not to ship the case, although it was later clear that they did want the case since this was an external drive. I talked to the rep on the phone and explained that I thought they just wanted the drive. She manually pushed the RMA through and I received a new drive in the mail a few days later (with the case on it).
More than a decade later and this video is still insanely helpful. Thank you for saving me when I thought all was lost!
A decade later, and this is still so very helpful, thank you! Found an old drive while moving, couldn't have saved it without you!
After 13 years still came so useful this video awesome
Just wanted to give you a thanks for this tutorial. Normally I want to keep the enclosure as tidy as possible after shucking for "reasons," and I'm glad you gave that option.
I had the same issues as described by many with this particular drive--unreliable USB connections dying in the middle of transfers, on and off, very hard to troulbeshoot. I figured I'd put the enclosure out of its misery, so being slick was less important in this case. But the location of the tabs you pointed out made it much easier. Kudos!
EDIT: Don't know if it was mentioned here, but the USB controller on this external enclosure alters the data writing structure so it is not directly usable on a PC. You cannot take the drive with data out of this enclosure and connect it to a PC and be able to read that data. Same thing vice versa, you cannot take a HDD out of a PC and connect it to the USB adapter and read the data off of it. If you have valuable data, you'll need to back that up before connecting it to the enclosure/taking it out of the enclosure, and then reformat the HDD.
Cannot believe they made a bullet proof case
for a failure of a hard drive!! thanks for the tips
this hard drive failed me once, after it lost 2tb worth of data but today it failed me again when it stopped working altogether. I've had mine for 4 years now. I think WD is better for external hard drives.
right??? i had it maybe a couple months and then ka-splooey.
@EverythingHax bro same mine is 7 yrs old and i use it for downloading movies. Have 900 gb of movies :> and also backup of all my cameras and phones. Still a beast atleast to me
@@davida6146 I got no problem with this drive although two separate WD "My Book" drives completely fucked me up twice (main partitions just disappeared overnight and could not be restored). Conclusion: "Destiny is all!" ;-)
I don't think this procedure is possible without 7 guitar picks. Thankfully I had them on hand. Excellent video.
I was thinking the same, good thing I play guitar, no need to run to the music store!
Small flat blade screwdrive worked just fine.
I have one of these 2TB HDDs for ages. It decided to die i.e. wasn't detected by my laptop. The HDD was spinning so I decided to invest in the guitar picks. The amazing accuracy of this video is why I am writing this comment. It worked like a charm and my HDD is now attached to a TechNet HDD enclosure and all the data is still there! can't thank you enough good man Danny. Thanks for making this video!
Where in the world are you??? You saved me and my life as I had all my life on my HD, when it suddenly failed to power up. I contacted Seagate who are bastards and said that they are not warranty for my Data, but just the HD, I sat there literally shaking, researching all og Google when I came across your Vid. Didnt have any guitar things, but took all my credit cards out and used the corners. My HD is not attached via SATA direct to my PC, and my life has got some light back. Now copying all my data, and I feel very teary and thankful. Thank You. (now Seagate can take this and store it where the Sun dont shine). I'm very attached to my meories, some bits I dont even remember, and when I see a photo it sinks me back into memory lane, better than any drug or medicine,
Glad I could help! Take the opportunity to buy another drive and begin a proper backup regiment.
iamthebadapples
hi can i connect it directly to sata cable & power? without removing the case of course. (by removing the dock only)
All hard drive manufacturers are bastards when it comes to warranties. I had the same problem with Western Digital. If you have something (photos, video, music) you want to keep, store it on several hard drives or quality DVD or CD-Rs.
Did you need any software to pull the data off this drive? Im about to do a recovery on one of these and my client is feeling right where you were. Seagate wont recover data due to liability issues and its too much of a hassle. You cant just open up a hard drive and move parts around. You need a clean room and it is technically very cost prohibitive.
*ALL HDD FAIL SOONER OR LATER... YOU CANNOT BLAME THE MANUFACTURER IF **_YOU_** DON'T HAVE A COPY OF YOUR DATA WHEN THERE IS A HARDWARE FAILURE!*
*YOU'RE LUCKY THAT YOU WERE ABLE TO RESCUE YOUR DATA, BUT TBH, YOU DESERVE TO HAVE LOST THE LOT AFTER NOT BACKING IT UP!*
*SO STOP BAD MOUTHING SEAGATE OR WD, OR WHOEVER, AND START BAD MOUTHING YOUR OWN STUPIDITY AND SHORTCOMINGS, BECAUSE **_THAT_** IS WHERE THE REAL FAILURE OCCURRED, NOT THE HARDWARE!*
My external hard drive's casing stopped working a few weeks ago, and I took it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy for help on the matter, and they told me to break the casing "carefully" with a hammer. Thank you so much for this video!
LMAO
Oh my, tell them Thor wants to know their location! Using a hammer is barbaric and unwise!
Thanks mate , great help . Its good manners to thank a person who helps you ,my parents taught me that much
But you're still not rich and famous
Thanks for the video. The guitar pick is essential for phone repair as well. I know this video is a bit old but i see people stopping by including myself. I've opened a few of these now and i just wanted to add if you actually Start at the sticker it takes about a min. That's what that tab is for under the sticker .....a starting point. They don't want you to get into them so they cover up the weakest part with a sticker hoping you will avoid that area. I'm surprised it doesn't say "void if removed" on it. Lol. Anyway just pull the sticker and start from there. After the first clip pops put your thumb in the middle the grill with unit in the palm of your hand and squeeze firmly pressing your thumb into the grill and lift with force with your other hand (thumb to thump pulling upward) and the clips will just pop it should just pop apart. If that doesn't work for you then follow this gentlemen video but like i said start at the sticker tab. Good luck everyone Best regards Luci
Many thanks for this video! Guy in the guitar shop was a little bemused when I told him why I wanted 10 guitar picks for taking a HDD apart, but it worked perfectly! Thanks again!
Andrew Pike ha!
yep! I was just getting ready to order a new 2TB SSD for GoPro video storage, when I remembered I have an old 3TB Seagate backup unit with the same exact enclosure laying around that I never use anymore. I fiddled around with it, trying to figure out how to open it up in order to snag the drive and thought.... "somebody at some time must have opened one of these and made a video" - How perfect is that? I only had 1 guitar pick, but a flat head screwdriver did wonders. I have no use for the enclosure, so I didn't care if I marred it all up. It went into the trash anyway. I have an external HD docking station that I swap out hard disks.
I know this is an ancient video, but thank you!
I sent my failed drive in to the "repair" shop so they could extract the data to another drive. They sent it back after they advised they could not get the drive out of the case!
Thanks to your video, I'll be taking the drive out and trying again for the data recovery when I present them with the bare drive!
Woo Hoo! Worked a treat!!!! You're a champion! Thanks for posting this!
Great tutorial. I had to take the case off because the footplate/power no longer functioned. I bought another 3.0 reader from amazon, but the prong wasn't the same length and wouldn't reach inside. So I needed to take the enclosure off, since that was the only thing preventing me from reaching the drive. I didn't want to damage the case just incase I still needed it. The guitar picks were the trick, I was trying myself - but couldn't figure it out with out literally breaking it. soooo Thank you!
My drive is dated 12/2013 and I've run 1tb partition backup for a pc and the other 1tb for media on a Raspberry Pi that's nearly ALWAYS on for about 5 years without fail so I have no complaints. I have had a few bad sectors but it's been running another year since disk repair. Only reason I'm taking it apart is to use the enclosure for a 4tb backup instead. Anyway, THANKS A MILLION DAN! I didn't really need it cosmetically perfect but you never know if you're going to bust of EVERY little tab in such a ridiculously hermetically sealed stupid plastic hard drive coozy. TWO THUMBS UP!
This just helped me this morning. I was able to replace the dead drive with a drive from an old desktop that was headed for recycling. Thank you!!
THANKS!!! This enclosure doesn't seem to work with Linux (openSUSE 13.2 x64), so I transplanted the drive into a generic enclosure. The Seagate enclosure tried to work, but threw a lot of errors in dmesg, and eventually locked up, regardless of usb2 or usb3 port. Yet, it seemed to work fine in Windows. Interestingly, the generic enclosure maps the drive differently than the Seagate, so the previous data was not readable. Seagate is doing something funky, because I can put other drives into the generic, and they read fine.
Thanks a lot for posting this, very useful. I am using this drive (3TB version) as a TM backup on a Mac, and had been experiencing intermittent problems and suspected the enclosure. Bought a new enclosure, swapped over the drive and now all good!
5 years later and this video helped me so much! Started out using old gift cards but ended up just using a small pocket knife to pry the case off. It's well past warrant now anyways. Thanks again sir.
Thanks so much for making this video, super helpful! One thing to add, if you are a guitar player, chances are you have different gauge picks. During the process of opening the HD, I use my Thick picks on the easy sections and keep them in the sections that are done and switch to a single thin (or medium) pick to work the harder areas.
There is a huge help and a great explanation! Guitar picks made all the difference, as did the detailed instructions. Got the case off of my Seagate 4TB with no damage at all to the case. Saved me a hell of a lot of trouble. I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to share this.
Thanks for making the video. This is tomorrow's project for me. I always wait until my external drives are out of guarantee before taking the drives out.
Awesome tutorial! It really helps to have someone who has already figured this out to post so we can preserve the warranty in case the drives fail!
And they do!
I would never know how to open the case without this video. Thanks for helping.
Thank you so much for this! I used black sticks because I'm musically incompetent and managed to get it out without damaging the hard drive of the enclosure!!
This was a terrible enclosure for us - the sata - usb adapter stopped working really early, and replacements couldn't fit because the hard drive's contacts were recessed - you totally saved us here :)
Thank you for making this video. My USB port on the base broke, and I couldn't access the hard drive. Seagate was useless in assisting in getting the drive out of the case or with a simple base replacement. With the data & power connectors recessed in the case, it made the use of a docking bay impossible. Thanks again.
This worked perfect. Was nice to see an easy to follow disassembly that is concerned with keeping the case intact. Thanks!
Very detailed instructions! It was a little painful watching you struggle with some of the tabs, but I'm glad you showed that, because it's what we can expect.
Thanks for the info. After 7+years its started clicking and getting read errors so i need to pull it out to check the heads (in a clean room if i can) but i needed to get the case off.
Its always handy to know where those clips are. Cheers.
Perfect instructions! My enclosure died today, and I wanted to salvage the drive. Thanks for making it an easy project.
This was a pretty good step-by-step but I found that it was easier to open the last three clips - two on the top (not the bottom as he keeps saying) and the one next to the label - by removing them from the inside through the gap in the case that is created by removing the others. I used metal pry tools for this but even a screwdriver would work if it is thin enough.
Thank you my friend. I would have ended up taking a hammer to it without your video. As many other commenters below, mine failed and I'm having to strip it down to recover the data.It is top heavy and constantly falling over on my desk.
That was perfect, thanks so much! My Seagate died in under 2 years and I needed to pull it out to put it in my test bench to at least try and kill any data in it before thinking about returning it.
Dear Danny, thank you very much for this great video. It helped me a lot because the plastic cover of this external drive has fragile USB3 connections and the power adapter delivered in the package, both are unfortunately weak connections resulting in connectivity problems over time. You solved my problem!!!
I sadly did not have any guitar picks to use to open this with. But a flat head screwdriver i did. Sorry i found this video AFTER. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the video. I've taken a lot of drives apart and learned if you don't see how to open it after five minutes just put it down and check youtube, save yourself the migraine. I've got a 4tb here with sporadic io errors, removing the hdd for someone that wants the drive for bulk transfers (does not need reliable) and I want to reuse the USB3 enclosure as a USB adapter for some other loose drives. (to replace my USB2 adapter) So I didn't care about the case, just didn't want to go dremel on it. Knowing to pull off that crappy faceplate was the secret sauce and I just got out a medium screwdriver and had it open before the video was halfway through. Good nuff!
Thanks a bunch, this was easy and loads of help! My docking station went bad and had to get a new SATA Adapter to connect to it.
Great instructional video that works like a charm. Thank you for taking the time to post it up.
Thanks buddy, pretty much every other teardown review\guide was useless, you actually show where the tabs are.
Really helpful :)
Old but gold! Thank you for taking the time to show us how is done.
Thank you so much for this tutorial. After the first two times I really got the hang of it and went to town on my last 2 drives. I did indeed find that these are the internal drives ST3000DM001 :) Good thing I ordered a bunch of guitar picks, the first go-round bent quite a few tips.
I used a universal adapter and f'd up the polarity and burnt out the power supply so i ordered a usb to sata cord to try and save all my work. Thanks so much for the help, i literally thought it was bricked!
Your video is awesome! I did not have any guitar picks but was able to open it using old grocery stores and library cards. Thank you so much.
I really needed the last part on how to remove the silver tray. Thanks a lot!
How many cases did you damage learning where all the plastic locking tabs are located? Looks like massive pain to get the drive out. Thanks for sharing this hard-learned knowledge. I mostly followed your directions. Understanding the plastic "lid" to this drive is always opposite the SATA connector on the end really helps with oriendation. First time opening such a drive, and knowing "roughly" where the tabs are located helped a lot. I had more success with "sliding a pick" from the side of the tab, then sneaking over to where the tab is located. Once you get two tabs released, the rest is pretty easy to disassemble. Not sure this was worth my effort. My 4TB drive appears dead. Does not spin up or anything when put into a known good USB 3.0 external enclosure.
I appreciate the careful and thorough walk-through. I got about 2.5 picks in and said "fuck it" -- just ripped that bad boy open.
Thanks for taking the time to make this video. It really came in handy. I could not have done it without your help!
Thanks a gazillion for the how-to and the tip on guitar picks, never would've thought of saving my disk on my own without you ;P
That's the most useful and accurate guide of how to disassemble it. Thanks a lot from Russia)
Thanks for the video. Spent the better part of an hour before I broke down and searched.
That was friggin genius! Luckily, I had a box full of guitar picks next to me 😂
you seem like a really nice person Danny. Hope the last 10 years has been good.
Thanks a lot Danny, was struggling opening the case until I found your video, extremely helpful!!!
I have a failure, taking it apart, thanks man I am taking it apart because YOU showed me how! Thanks again so much!
Worked great, now have these set up in their cozy raid. Thanks on the walkthrough.
A very very useful Video clip. The power supply & the adapter failed in my Go-flex desk top failed & I was not able to get a replacement. Your video was very usful. Carefully followed the steps using old debit cards & very sharp pointed knife. Successfully removed the Hard disk (1 TB ) to recover the data s, (about 0.8 TB).,like photos, movies & Music., using my external HD box. Thanks once again..
Just got one of these. I wanted to use it with sata for games, but I also use it to play games on my wii through USB back up and movies through my roku. I took an old sata cord and removed the clip on one side and shaved it down around the connector with a sharp knife to make it fit into the sata conection. make sure to not leave any plastic sticking off so it doesn't get stuck. Now I just disconnect a couple cords and put it back on its base and go use it somewhere else when I need to.
Thanks, exactly what I needed. Didn't think I could do it without breaking it.
Thanks! No guitar picks, so i just pried up at each spot mentioned and yanked; the side popped right off.
Cheers for this, just bought this external HDD and this guide helped me take it apart without any damage.
Thanks. I need to disassemble my 3TB Seagate, and I appreciate your detail in the video. Once I do it hopefully I can use the drive again. It appears I have a power issue but I think the drive itself is okay.
Thanks for the tips. I used a putty knife instead of guitar picks, and it worked out fine.
God bless you buddy.. Your video helped me a lot to pull the hard-drive from the casing... I used expired credit cards though... It worked like charm... Thank you so much..
Great idea. Way more "meat" then a a pick lol
Drives overheating after 11 years of use its finally going on me, hoping i can clean it out we will see thanks for the video! I use it as a media storage device for my network.
Thank you for the awesome video instructions. I used my expired bank cards instead of guitar picks. My 3TB drive stopped powering on after I accidentally plugged the drive in with my laptop's power cord. Both plugs look exactly the same.
This HDD really heats high up to 60 Celsius. It needs more vent holes and active cooler. Thanks for your video!
Nice job. I didn't have any guitar picks handy but, I used the solder lugs the you use to ground a component to a chassis and that worked great.. Thanks
Hey nice man. I dropped my drive (same one) and it stopped working. I figured it was something to do with the enclosure so i popped it out to try it out and see if it works just as a drive, nice vid, sub
Hey Bud... using the instructions on the video, were you able to recover any data from the drive you dropped? even after two years, your answer may gives hopes to my issue. Thanks in advance.
Thanks, I was wondering why mine wasn't turning on. I would plug it in - the light would turn on and then shut off 5 seconds later.
Opened it up with a screwdriver, and the drive was insanely hot. What's more the plastic casing apparently makes the drive harder to cool, although it does make it look nicer.
Very useful Video, following thee instructions I was able to get my drive our without any damage. Thanks for sharing this.
great work! best video I've seen for this yet!....if you need to do a warranty claim, are you easily able to put it back in the case? or will they take it back outside the case?
Thanks iamthebadapples, I was having a hard time finding the first clip, once I knew where it was after you got it open I was able to apply pressure with my thumb below it in the center and it came apart easily after that. Bought three of these at Costco back when they were cheaper than 3TB internals were going for and now to put them in a raid :) (yep they sat in my closet for a while while I was moving, then building my iSCSI target server)
glad you made this video :)
glad i could help
Extremely well done - Saved me a ton of time - Thank You Very Much.
How did you ever discover this system of opening the Seagate drive enclosures ?
Thank you so much!!!
I just took out my drive successfully~ :)
Fantastically detailed video. Thank you for taking the time to upload this.
P.S. Nice melody at the start!
This is awesome thanks for posting this I had a dead drive and wanted to open this Pandora's box! Great video
Thanks for the help! Happy New Years to you!!!
Nice video. I must say, I must be one of the luckiest people on the planet (based on some of the Seagate f-word hatred I've read - lol). I've got four 3TB Seagate external drives ranging from 1-6 years old. All still working, one that I've successfully taken apart (see wonderful video above) and used for other purposes. I like that I have a nice re-useable case as well as the cool SATA power supply for testing. Thanks!
Great little video. Perfect for my situation. Thank you for taking the time to put it together.
Nicely done and well explained. Hopefully you can get a better microphone. I have feeling you will make more of these! Especially since Seagate's failure rate(I/O errors) and rip off Chinese junk manufacturing will give you a life time career hobby. Thx Danny
Pretty good video. Helped me shuck the drive so i can begin data recovery
MVP right here, was looking for how to do this for ages! thanks!
Best disassembly guide I've ever seen ... thanks!
Thanks! I broke a few tabs, but got the drive out. I think the shield is an RF shield to try and keep the drive from interfering with other devices. It didn't work when I got it to close to my LCD display. Waves of distortion.
The guitar pick idea was awesome, thanks.
Great video. Very well done. Would never have gotten this apart without destroying it.
I have the exact same design but in 2 TB, Very helpful vid. I think I'll just leave mine set inside my PC once I get it hooked up, I did that with my old PC's drive..I just sit it loose in my new PC since I knew it's on a level area and not prone to jaring, Only thing is I don't know if I got a free slot on my mother board to do it now, I might have to go get a USB to Sata cable and just use that.
Hello and thank you very much. I used your precise instructions to securely pull off my hard drive and use it with another HDD in a NAS.
bought mine from costco 4 months ago, babied the hell out of it and just started chirping yesterday.
Wesley Barrilleaux The seagate drives suck. I bought 2 3 TB a couple of years ago and one died and the other is dying all during the same time period.
Yes, those 3tb do suck. I had two fail without the last month. And, Seagate isn't
one to honor warranties. You might buy a drive on X date, but it actually be an
older drive. I didn't know until now. So, I am out-of-warranty, even though, it was
bought in October of 2015. Never Seagate again!!!
Thank you for this! I'm hoping this helps my drive show up on my computer ❤
Way too much worl to deal with this way.. Bought 5 2TB for a RAID @ $99ea special. Pryed all with a flat head from the back. Popped into server, bam done! Now I'm rockin' a 6TB RAID with no troubles, man.
I purchased this same external 4tb drive on Amazon for 149. Yes it is a lot to take the drive out of the enclosure.
Very good video! I cut up some old credit cards to do the same thing. Thank you for sharing your work.
I got the same drive, I just used a nail-file type things to pop 1-2 of the tabs on the back to get enough grip, and ripped the thing open using brute force. Nothing was damaged except the one tab that I started on and I was very rough trying to get under there...
Excellent video! There are some really bad ones out there, thanks for the great, clear explination!
You can rig it without taking the HD outof its plastic case.
Just take off the microUSB 3.0 part, shimmy a SATA cable to have a longer thin part with a knife and just plug it into your PC and the power connector just goes in easy.
Least amount of effort and keeps the drive inside the casingm meaning Seagate has to oblige to their end of the warranty.
But on the other hand, it's a nifty box for hard drives to have.
Now I need to buy some guitar picks as I still think credit card are still too thick, don't want to buy a ifixit kit cause I think 5~8 picks would be cheaper and I wouldn't want to have to keep a cut up credit card in my tool box for my next project. lol
The "Seagate Backup Plus Drive" is better then the old "FreeAgent GoFlex Drive" which is in the same type on case but once it's plug to the computer it never seems to stop spinning hence it's half dead on me, could see the files but can't open the files or paste some of them to another drive. This video really helps a ton as now I can check if the PCB is bad or not (can be replace) or send it in for data recovery w/o breaking anything.
BTW what ComocosonoEWL said down on the comments make sense but at the moment I'm moving my files out at a snail's pace. I'll have to try that later.
Thanks for the great video.
Drawback with the newer drives is that the rubber feet and mounting screws are held on with brown gunk that shows you have been tampering with them.
Shame as mine are Barracuda drives and knock the spots off the WD Reds (both in speed and reliability) that have failed in my NAS. Wonder if I can find the drive type in the shop before I buy the next two to replace the Reds :-)
Had mine sitting in the closet since 2013 might as well use it lol, thanks for the teardown.
This worked! Thanks so much for sharing. Now just backing up all my files so I can re-format my drive . :)