Seagate ST5000LM000 5TB One Touch Data Recovery

At Zero Alpha, we specialise in Seagate ST5000LM000 5TB One Touch data recovery. These drives can suffer from common problems such as firmware corruption, bad sectors, and mechanical failure, often making the data inaccessible. Our team has the expertise and equipment needed to safely recover your important files from these large-capacity portable drives.

Common problems for the Seagate ST5000LM000 5TB One Touch

• Firmware corruption (drive may not initialise or show incorrect capacity)

• Bad sectors developing over time (leading to slow or failed reads)

• Heads degradation or failure (clicking, buzzing, or no detection)

• Motor or spindle seizure (drive not spinning up)

• USB-SATA bridge failure (especially if the port is damaged)

• Logical corruption (file system errors, partition loss)

• Drops and physical shock damage (common for portable drives)

• PCB (circuit board) failure due to power surges

• Encryption-related issues (if Seagate’s hardware encryption is active)

ST5000LM000-2AN170 Data Recovery Case Log

18Oct 2023: The drive was clicking and spinning down. Detects in kernel mode. Techmode patch.

Model : ST5000LM000-2AN170
Firmware : 0001
Capacity : 5 TB (9 767 541 168)

Terminal output:

19Oct23 MHA SWAP. Drive was ticking. Unlock techmode patch. Took 10 minutes to come ready. Waited after that another 5 minutes. Reread HDD ID. Utility start. No terminal access. Went busy again in 2 minutes with spamming in terminal output : SP Regen FAIL@LBA=0x0000E576. Turned off the drive. Turned back on, let it seat for 2 minutes. Unlocked tecmode patched and spammed terminal. Got terminal access. Tried to initialise utility-did not work. Edit HDD ID via terminal. Turned off the drive.Turned back on,unlocked techmode patch. Stays busy. Does not ID.

Terminal output:

Windows Creation Tool Deletes partition data recovery caselog

15Nov23: Customer brought in the drive :Seagate Backup Plus ST5000LM000. The drive was used to create bootable windows creation tool. Customer deleted this windows creation tool partition which was 32gb. He split the drive into 2 partitions and Created a new Volume of 2tb. Other 2tb were not allocated. It shows the partition but no data in it. He did not have back up of the data. No SMART Errors.

Dropped ST5000LM000-2AN170 making buzzing sounds data recovery caselog

17May2023: the drive was buzzing.Stiction release. Techmove patch. MRB. A1 M11. Built heads map. Got all data back.

pcb 100794976 rev c

ST5000LM000-2AN170 Corrupt PRI copy of MCMT Data Recovery Caselog

16Apr24: Drive has corrupt primary copy of MCMT. No terminal access. Shorting read channel did not help. LDR to RAM did not help.

18Apr24: Used light swap/hot swap method to gain access to terminal. Backed up important system files, modified SMP and cleared the MCMT.

18Apr24: No access to data area after repairing MCMT.

28May24: Issue likely a result of tech mode unlock patch. The SED config is marked as bad.

29May24: Fixed the SED configuration. sys file 1D2 was recovered from contents of 1D1 (located at byte offset 0x22000, length 0x2000 bytes for this case). After writing this to the drive and removing the terminal unlock patch, we have unencrypted access to the data area at full speed! All of the customer's data was recovered.

SP213: Restore: EXCEPTION: Scratch Pad Restore Failed, the MS may contain errors

Note that this error still remained in the terminal even after DA access was obtained.

Terminal Output (initial)

MC051: MainPOR: EXCEPTION: Corrupt PRI copy of MCMT
MC051: MainPOR: EXCEPTION: Corrupt PRI copy of MCMTMS UDE detect during recon   LPCDisc=00 27D2B643 0027
MS Read Fails: 3E95AF00,0000D938
Update Mask - 000000013E95C2D8 - 00000001 - 00
Update Mask - 000000013E95C2D9 - 00000001 - 00
[...]
LED:0x000000BD FAddr:0x00005E43

Terminal Output (after fix)

Boot 0x80MMD45010001   
SpinUp
TCC:001D

Trans
Tech Unlock Handshake: 0xCFE6C19C
Reply:
Rst 0x80MMD4501001   
(P) SATA Reset

RAW OFF
PASS
Channel Tracing Offset Value load....................................................................................................
MCMainPOR: Start:
Media Cache Data Base  02463B71D8
Check MCMT Version: Current
Both copy is same!
SP213: Restore: EXCEPTION: Scratch Pad Restore Failed, the MS may contain errors
MCMainPOR: MediaCacheDiscStateFlags 0000002A  MCStateFlags 00020041
6Gb Max Speed lowered to 3Gb for Intel bug
Send Status: COMRESET seen
FIS34

ST5000LM000 Data Recovery Case Log

Terminal Error Output:

Flash boot code Digital Signature Verification failure!
0x0020
0x0020
0x0020
0x0020
0x0020
SEA5 Boot ROM 1.0 (7/31/2015)
Copyright Seagate 2015

31Jul23: The drive is failing to initialise and defaults to boot rom loader mode. Customer explains that this hard drive has been to another business where data recovery has failed. This problem is well known for incorrect rom chips. We inspected the electronics for potential interference and found damage done to the pcb.

It's very clear that an inexperienced technician has been tampering with this drive. We found scratches all over the PCB. These scratches are a clear indication that somebody hasn't been taking proper care of the PCB. There is heat damage done to the spindle motor connector. This demonstrates someone who is inexperienced with soldering. Heat should never damage a PCB. The BIOS chip has been physically tampered with. It is out of position and not making correct contact with the PCB. This is likely the reason for the terminal error message output.

Tested ROM chip is correct serial ID WINBOND 25Q16JWS10 2048KB

With rom correctly soldered pcb only: Boot 0x80MMD52L20001

PCB Connected to drive:
Boot 0x80MMD52L20001    
SpinUp
TCC:001B

Trans
Rst 0x80MMD52L20001    
(P) SATA Reset

Family is A1, M11 Boot Rom Mode is accessible

Seagate BarraCuda 5TB ST5000LM000-2AN170 Data Recovery Case Log

13May24: This hard drive had zero activity at all. No signs of spinning up or LED activity. It was removed from the enclosure which is a USB plug. It tested ok via SATA mode.

ST5000LM000-2AN170 Data Recovery Case Log

25Nov24: This drives clicks/buzzes. Comes ready, but with no data access. Patched ROM and disabled non-system heads. Backed up firmware. Cleared MCMT and disabled background tasks. Reboot and upload MCMT to RAM, also enable write protection. Drive has full data area access. There's some terminal output while reading, so increase the baud rate to get better read speeds.