2TB HDD stopped working, got another chip but still won't work

My 2 TB HDD Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS went dead a while ago, my windows froze and the HDD was never recognized again by windows! What did I do, I got another one with the same chip and I traded chips with my HDD, it doesn't even gets recognized by the motherboard, but it does with the original chip, I then tried a backup utility called Acronis true image 2010, I manage to get some files out of it but, the process in question takes ages to work, but I'm pretty confident I can backup the entire HDD... but would take about a month by the looks of it

So if anyone with more knowledge than me on the subject could help me out I'll be more than grateful, any ideas will be helping me, why it doesn't work with the other chip? Why did it die? I really don't know what is going on, but I sure can use the help, the HDD is about 1.3TB filled and I manage to get about 200MB thus far and 3 files were corrupted (I don't mind) all the rest was intact and working (video and audio and even software), please help I don't know what to do and I don't have 2grand to pay for the professionals of this area, when the HDD died it was only 2 months old, but since it was filled and I had no backup (not doing that again) I couldn't use the warranty or I'd just loose all my files

I'm using the CD ISO file created with Acronis true image 2010, so the HDD is recognized via DOS and the Mother board also recognize it, once I get into windows it install and it only vanishes when I try to access it, it gives me the same error on Windows 7 64 and XP, maybe someone with knowledge know exactly what is going on and it's easy to solve (I'd love that very much), Using Acronis I can access the folder structure as it was before, once I start copying things to my other HDDs it takes alot of time, mainly depending on how many files there are not based on size unless it's a really big file, but I can read the entire HDD, and as far as I can tell most of it can be backed up using Acronis

When I used the chip from the other HDD (Same nomenclature and very close serial number) it made a very weird noise, like it was reading a massive amount of data...

when it failed I was downloading games from steam onto it

I was using SATA 2 on both system and extra HDDs

sorry about the long post, any help is welcomed, even if you're not the expert if you have an idea it might help, I'm open to suggestions, thanks, I really like this forum guys

Does any one have any ideas, any ideas at all?

Hello evilalan, you could try this to diagnose the drive; | Seagate
Other than that if it really is failing then the only way forward is to do what you are doing and to try to save as much data as possible, which I would recommend before testing the drive as you do not know how long it may last.
I don't quite understand what you mean by changing the chip, but if you mean the attached circuit board you have to be real carefull not to damage it and when doing a swap you really need an identical circuit board NEARLY is not always good enough.

OMG! Changing the chip ! I must say you have ventured into a strategy which even a professional hardware engineer will dare not attempt on a HDD. (me for one.)

You should have straight away got into recovery mode once you were unable to read it and sought assistance. I only hope your adventure hasn't made the situation worse.

How many partitions did you have? Had you kept your data in seperate partitions?

I am not sure whether or not this suggestion will help you. I would try to run Test Disk from a CD and try to recover as much as possible. TestDisk Livecd - CGSecurity. Other experts who have used Test Disk under such adverse conditions may share their views since I have had no occasion to try that.

And of course there may be better suggestions.

pooch said:

Hello evilalan, you could try this to diagnose the drive; | Seagate
Other than that if it really is failing then the only way forward is to do what you are doing and to try to save as much data as possible, which I would recommend before testing the drive as you do not know how long it may last.
I don't quite understand what you mean by changing the chip, but if you mean the attached circuit board you have to be real carefull not to damage it and when doing a swap you really need an identical circuit board NEARLY is not always good enough.

Click to expand...

I did forgot to tell that I did diagnose the drive but the diagnose software couldn't read the driver as well, circuit board is what I changed sorry, I just went with chip for some reason

jumanji said:

OMG! Changing the chip ! I must say you have ventured into a strategy which even a professional hardware engineer will dare not attempt on a HDD. (me for one.)

You should have straight away got into recovery mode once you were unable to read it and sought assistance. I only hope your adventure hasn't made the situation worse.

How many partitions did you have? Had you kept your data in seperate partitions?

I am not sure whether or not this suggestion will help you. I would try to run Test Disk from a CD and try to recover as much as possible. TestDisk Livecd - CGSecurity. Other experts who have used Test Disk under such adverse conditions may share their views since I have had no occasion to try that.

And of course there may be better suggestions.

Click to expand...

The circuit board (sorry I called it chip...) is working, I and about 0,003% of the files seems to be damaged my problems is getting the rest out to another HDD in a somewhat fast manner at least

I didn't have any partitioning going on aside from the main one, I usually just buy another drive when they start getting filled up, (2 now for raid)

I did use the seagate recovery and test disc but, it didn't manage to actually read the HDD, it does recognize the drive at least, the Acronis software so far is the only thing that actually manage to not only recognize but also even backup data, and it does that quite well the issue is how long it takes, by how things happen I take that the drive stops working and starts working on and on

as the circuit board I researched alot before doing this and I followed procedure carefully, and the board is the same I checked this so many times, made sure that it was even the same model and firmware before even trying

thanks for the replies

No problem I hope you manage to save as many files as possible