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LaCie 1TB Big Disk Drive Failure....Or Not

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There are days when you just have to say, "I fuckin' love the internets!!", more on that in a minute. I bought a LaCie 1TB Big Disk a couple of years ago and it slowly became my "everything disk". The only problem with this external drive is that it is setup in a RAID 0. This means that the data is 'striped' across two 500GB drives for performance. But, if one drive fails then you lose all your data!

Very recently the drive decided to start making some strange noises while struggling to start up. The drive would also emit a loud hissing noise while running. This started to freak me out since I had nowhere to back up 1TB. I debated a while and then bought a Drobo last week! Now I have 4TB usable on the local network :)

After playing around with the Drobo I decided it was time to fire up the LaCie and back it up. Sure enough the LaCie drive failed to mount. It sounded like it really wanted to but it just couldn't. Sadness!

My first google on the subject was "lacie big disk extreme sucks" (realizing later mine was not 'extreme'). The third hit was a blog post entitled LaCie Big Disk Extreme Failure. Now this is where the love of the internet comes into play. The post had around 100 comments on it. Two of them described what was happening to my drive perfectly. The first describing the startup woes:

problems included; bad booting up, clicking noises, freezes and a complete failure to mount (link)

And the second:

The power supply adapter a made high pitch sound (not very noticeable unless up close) and upon opening the board had burnt brown areas and the capacitors where bulging out the tops. (link)

I had not noticed this noise coming from the power adapter, but low and behold mine was making the same sound. So what was the solution in the end? A new power adapter. WTF! Internets FTW! I decided that I'd shell out the $30 on the chance that it might work. Power supply arrived yesterday, and now my drive is fully functional and backed up to my Drobo!!! Happiness!

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Power adapters

Posted by David at Apr 18, 2009 05:31 PM
We thought the battery/mobo on my wife's laptop was fried for the longest time because it would only run when it was plugged into the wall, no charging whatsoever. Then her power adapter broke and we ordered a replacement, and the damn thing started charging and working like a normal laptop.

LaCie

Posted by David at Jun 29, 2009 09:28 AM
Wow I thought it was the Lacie drive itself making the loud hissing sound. I'll be damned, its coming from the power adapter.

LaCie

Posted by agolbon at Jul 05, 2009 09:53 PM
I tried my LaCie 1TB external hard drive yesterday, and blue light keeps flashing and the power supply hisses. Did changing the power supply fully fix the issue?

LaCie Drive Not Powering UP

Posted by Rob at Jul 05, 2009 09:53 PM
My Lacie 1TB extreme drive is also failing to power up. And my power adapter is also making a hissing sound of some kind. I guess I will also try getting a replacement power adapter and cross my fingers.

LaCie Drive Not Powering UP

Posted by David at Jul 07, 2009 11:26 PM
Hey guys I just ordered a replacement power supply from UnityElectronics.com for about $30. I'll let you know how it works out.

LaCie Drive Not Powering UP

Posted by David at Jul 16, 2009 01:05 PM
Hey guys the new power supply did the trick. The LaCie 1tb is back in action!

LaCie Drive Not Powering UP

Posted by Stephen Merchant at Aug 10, 2009 08:00 AM
Hey,
I just wanted to say that Lacie's power supplied SUCK.
I have a 1tb Big Disk and on my 3rd power supply which a couple of week ago decided to die....so now trying to argue with lacie to get my hands on power supply number 4, recover all the required data and then moving to a more stable external drive!

It's like the old Zip Drive click of death all over again!

LaCie

Posted by Paul Ingram at Aug 24, 2009 08:07 AM
Mine is hissing too. I unplugged it and rattled the thing around a bit while the platters were spinning up and the second half of the drive spun up! I'm going to replace the supply, but this got me back to work for at least a few hours this evening. Thx for the great tips!

Thanks!

Posted by Phuul at Sep 15, 2009 10:50 PM
I am so glad I found this. My drive failed last week. Since the disks are in RAID 0 I figured one just died. However I was sitting around today and figured I could do some research on failures and possible recovery and I found this post. I had another LaCie power brick laying around, same model and swapped them. Instant drive recovery. This makes me wonder if my other LaCie drive that "Failed" a year ago had the same issue. More to the point, I just moved and maybe swapped the power bricks between the two when setting up. Hmmm. Anyway thanks again.

Support Group

Posted by claytron at Sep 15, 2009 10:53 PM
This post seems to have become the LaCie power supply support group :)

Glad the post has helped all of you get back up and running as well!

Support Group

Posted by Steve L at Oct 15, 2009 12:56 AM
Never buy a Lacie peripheral with a power brick, or any drive with a power brick or wall wart for that matter. A proper drive has it's own supply built in with a removable 3 prong IEC power cord. I've had 4 LaCie devices and all the bricks burned out in under 3 years. At work we have a backup server with 6 Lacie 1TB drives. We have gone through a dozen or two of those damned bricks in the past 2 years. Each time one failed it froze the backup server. I'm sticking with Glyph external drives for critical uses. They cost a fair amount more but I have never had one fail and I've been using them for over a decade.

Support Group

Posted by Neilpryde at Oct 23, 2009 09:59 AM
My power supply died as well. It started 2 weeks ago. My Lacie Big Disk Extreme+ 1 TB had some problems to speed up the drive. It took 4-5 resets before the drive came on operational speed. Today I didn't manage to get the drive working.

Send an email to Lacie without answer so far.

Looked at the website mentioned above, but found 2 power supplies (57W) with should work both with my HD. Somebody knows the difference between the P/N 710200 and the P/N 80040? The latter costs 2 USD more (is that maybe a newer version which is more 'fail-proof'?


No need to buy the supply with power cord included, you can buy the the supply unit without on that website.

Successfull "free" recovery

Posted by Burner at Oct 24, 2009 10:06 AM
I had the same problem with my LaCie drive, The drives make noises when they dont get enough power. I took the cover off and tried powering the drives from my PC, this didnt work out, i guess the powersupply were more damaged than i thought.
Ok, i'm a cheapscate, i didnt want to order a new PSU for an old drive ...
I took the two drives out and placed them in my PC.
I fired up Ubuntu Linux, this can be done from a live CD, not requiring installation.
Here is a small guide, i wrote this from memory but i dont think i missed out anything.
1. Download Ubuntu linux live CD and burn to a CD
2. Shut down the system and place both drives in your computer and connect them.
3. Boot the computer from the Ubuntu CD, you dont have to install anything, all "installations" will be done in memory only and lost after reboot.
4. Open a Terminal "Applications->Accessories->Terminal" and install a few tools:

Ubuntu:$> sudo aptitude update
Ubuntu:$> sudo aptitude install hfsplus hfsprogs hfsutils mdadm

5. You will need to find the right device files for the two drives.
This will output all known drives and partitions on the computer, two drives we are looking for have Unknown Partition.
Ubuntu:$> sudo sfdisk -d
# partition table of /dev/sdathe out
unit: sectors

/dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size=122880000, Id= 7, bootable
/dev/sda2 : start=122882048, size= 3906056, Id=82
...
...
# partition table of /dev/sdc
Unknown partition
....
...
# partition table of /dev/sdd
Unknown partition
...
...

Ok, our drives is in this case /dev/sdc and /dev/sdd, this will be different on your system.

6. Build the raid md0 from the two drives (none of this write anything to the drives, its perfectly safe)

Ubuntu:$> sudo mdadm -B -l=0 -n 2 --chunk=256 /dev/md0 /dev/sdc /dev/sdd
This output nothing if nothing goes wrong, now check of the kernnel found partitions.
Ubuntu:$> ls /dev/md0*
/dev/md0 /dev/md0p1 /dev/md0p2 /dev/md0p3 /dev/md0p4 /dev/md0p5 /dev/md0p6

If the output show 6 partitions like this, then everything is ok, if only /dev/md0 and /dev/md0p1 is shown, then the drive order is wrong and you will need to switch them around in the raid, to do this, stop md0 "sudo -S /dev/md0" and build the array again with the two drives swiched around like this ... "/dev/md0 /dev/sdd /dev/sdc"

If you dont see all 6 partitions now, you should stop and get professional recovery help ;)

7. Mount the drive.

Ubuntu:$> sudo mkdir -p /media/bigdisk
Ubuntu:$> sudo mount -t hfs /dev/md0p6 /media/bigdisk

Congratulations, you should now be able to access all your data in /media/bigdisk.

It's working, thanks!!

Posted by Cyril at Nov 02, 2009 09:10 AM
Wow... My 700G began to have some problems to start up (as if the disk couldn't start spinning, same symptoms you describe). I changed to another power adapter from a 2nd LacieDisk, and voila!!!

You saved my disk :)

Thanks!!

Posted by Dan at Nov 29, 2009 11:35 AM
I was having a similar problem with my LaCie 1tb drive. It would try to spin up but not quite get there. I swapped the power supply and voila! it works.

Thanks for the interweb.

Power Adapter

Posted by JonD at Dec 05, 2009 12:51 PM
Yep, I'm on my 3rd power adapter now for the Lacie Big Disc Extreme 2tb. Be prepared to buy a new adapter about once a year.

Lifesaver

Posted by Tom at Dec 16, 2009 10:56 AM
Thank God for this article. Saved me a lot of hassle and data loss.

Lacie are obviously aware of this issue, and instantly agreed to send me a replacement power block. BUT, only after I returned the faulty one, leaving me a drive short for an unknown amount of time, forcing me to buy a new one at £35.

Lifesaver

Posted by pzosa at Dec 22, 2009 08:54 AM
let's hope this is the same for me...same symptoms with my Lacie 1TB....about to put a new supply on order

Lifesaver

Posted by pzosa at Dec 29, 2009 09:37 PM
that was it! thanks for this thread :-)

Re: ... still wondering.

Posted by Xtian at Dec 29, 2009 09:37 PM
So, my power supply isn't hissing, but my drive keeps clicking trying to mount(or find itself), then once it does appear(as I open up my disk utility), it takes forever to see the folders and files within. Does this constitute a "power supply" problem?

Thanks.

It WAS the Power Supply!

Posted by Jmat at Feb 02, 2010 10:33 AM
After my 1TB Lacie Big Disk no longer booted giving me only a flashing blue light and hissing sound coming from the PSU, I did a bit of web research and came across this site. After reading other comments I decided to contact Lacie as my drive was still under warranty. Long story short, they sent me a new PSU. It arrived today. After installing it.... My drive works flawlessly with no loss of data! BTW Lacie customer support was great. Had the replacement PSU at my doorstep within 3 business days. They would do well by addressing the life span of their PSU's.

It WAS the Power Supply!

Posted by Trev mills at Feb 18, 2010 02:29 PM
Thanks for the tip my lacie big disk over 2 years old and I leave powered on all the time. When the psu blew I read this forum and raise a ticket with lacie and next day got a psu free if charge with no quibbles now it's time to buy new naa and ditch the lacie since I don't trust them at all I ha e also a maplin mas enclose costing 40 with a bug drive in it it's only 10/100 speed but has a nice WOL feature which most nas don't have it's been going over 3 years and I will are if I can get another one in replacent of the lacie

It WAS the Power Supply!

Posted by Matt at Mar 03, 2010 08:39 AM
I agree that it has to be the power supply.

But instead of dropping $30.00 on a new power supply I dropped $30.00 on 2 new Sata Drive enclosures, ripped the drives out of the Lacie brick and dropped them into the enclosures.

Drives work great!

$300.00 Lacie drive enclosure = FAIL!
$30.00 Sata drive enclosures = Priceless.

It WAS the Power Supply!

Posted by W. James Meagher at Mar 10, 2010 02:34 PM
I'm dealing with a 2 year old LaCie 320Gb Quadra (which has a Seagate 320Gb, 3.5, 7200.10, SATA drive in it).

All worked well until the other day - won't power up at all . . . nothing!

Tried powering it with a different power adapter from my other identical drive - still nothing.

Noticed that the power adapter light is solid green like normal until I plug the apapter into the drive, then the green light blinks slowly. Unplug the adapter from the drive and it goes back to solid green.

There were never any noise issues from either the drive or the adapter.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
James
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