A real-life case from Tom's Hardware: “I have a Seagate 500 GB external hard drive that when I plug into my computer, it starts to make a noise for about a minute or two. It doesn't sound like it's working properly … Neither my computer nor Disk Management recognizes it … Is there any way I can retrieve the data or get the hard drive working again?”

If your Seagate external hard drive is making a strange beeping sound like this user, it could indicate that the read/write heads or other components of the hard drive have failed, resulting in potential data loss. Don't worry; there are six methods you can try to address your hard drive issue. You can work through these solutions to fix the "Seagate external hard drive beeping and not recognized" problem and safeguard your data with professional data recovery.

Priority Task: How to Ensure Data Safety with Hard Drive Recovery Software
Solution 1: Clean Dust off the Hard Drive
Solution 2: Connect the Hard Drive to Another USB Port
Solution 3: Use Command Prompt
Solution 4: Try a Different Data Cable
Solution 5: Connect the Hard Drive to a USB Y-Cable
Solution 6: Connect the Seagate Hard Drive to Another Computer (Optional)

Priority 1: Ensure Data Safety with Hard Drive Recovery Software

A buzzing sound from your Seagate external hard drive and it not being recognized can lead to data loss. Therefore, you need to recover your data first. You can download professional data recovery software and start the scanning process to retrieve deleted files. To save your data, we recommend a practical hard drive recovery tool - tools Data Recovery Wizard. It can recover files from formatted hard drives, USB flash drives, and other devices.

Take steps to recover your data:

Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer using the correct USB cable. When you run Disk Drill, you should see it listed under "External Drives." The software supports all major external hard drive brands, including WD, Seagate, Toshiba, Lacie, SanDisk, Samsung, and more.

Select your external hard drive, then click the “Scan” button.

Select your Seagate external hard drive and click Scan

< strong > Step 2 : As the scan progresses, the software will find more and more of your lost and deleted data, displaying it in the scan results. The recovered files will be well organized. You can quickly locate your target file/folder by file type, or search for it by entering its exact name in the search box.

Recover Lost Data from Seagate External Hard Drive

Step 3: Preview the files found by the scanning algorithm of the Data Recovery Wizard. Select the files you want and click 'Recover'. To avoid overwriting your data, we recommend saving the recovered data to a different drive than the original Seagate drive.

Select the files and click Recover

After data recovery, you can try the following methods to fix the Seagate external hard drive beeping and not recognized issue.

Solution 1: Clean the Dust from Your Hard Drive

If your hard drive has accumulated dust, its internal components might be damaged and causing the beeping. Try cleaning the dust off of your hard drive with the following steps:

Step 1: Disconnect the Seagate drive from your computer and unplug its data cable.

< strong > Step 2:< /strong> Use compressed air to clean out dust from your computer, hard drive, and cable ports.

Step 3: Plug the cable back into the hard drive, and reattach the Seagate to your computer.

Solution 2: Connect the hard drive to a different USB port

Like the first solution, the USB port can get dirty over time, causing the hard drive to beep. So, if you plug your device into a USB port and hear a loud noise, try another USB port and see if the sound goes away.

Fix 3: Use Command Prompt

If both of the above methods work, you can use CHKDSK to check for backup sectors on the hard drive and recover readable information.

Step 1. Connect the hard drive to your computer.

Step 2: Type Command Prompt in the search box. Right-click it, and select Run as administrator.

Step 3. Type the command and press Enter.

Chkdsk X: /r

Note: X represents the letter assigned to your Seagate drive.

Step 4: Once the process is completed, reconnect the hard drive to your computer.

Solution 4: Use a different cable

A Seagate hard drive that beeps and isn't recognized might be due to a damaged cable. You can disconnect the cable from the drive and use a different one. Then, reconnect the hard drive to the computer with another cable.

You should verify that the beeping has stopped and that the device is recognized.

Using a USB cable

Fix 6: Connect the hard drive to a USB Y cable

It might be due to insufficient power. You can try using a USB Y-cable to ensure adequate power supply. Why use a USB Y-cable? It allows your hard drive to draw power from two USB host ports.

Plug the USB Y cable into your computer.

Here is a picture of a USB Y cable: usb y cable

Solution 6: Connect the Seagate drive to another computer (optional)

If all else fails, try connecting the hard drive to another computer. If the Seagate hard drive is still noisy, you may want to repair or replace it. But what if your important data is stored on the hard drive? You can run data recovery software to protect your data.

In short

Is your hard drive still noisy and not being recognized by your computer? In this article, we list 6 solutions. As per my recommendations, fixes 2, 3, and 4 might be more effective. A faulty hard drive can lead to data loss, so we suggest using third-party software to recover files from a damaged hard drive. Hopefully, these suggestions will be of help. If you have any questions or better approaches, feel free to reach out via live chat or email (support@tools.com).