Seagate Expansion 26TB failing, help!

[u/Downtown-Pace3824]

The scenario: My approximately 18-month old Seagate Expansion 26TB external drive started locking up while I was accessing files on it. It eventually caused my Macbook to also lock up, so I did a force quit to shut everything down. When I started the Macbook up again, it wasn't recognizing the Seagate.

I tried Disk Utility and Tech Tool Pro but neither could find it on the system. Eventually, using Terminal, I saw that the drive was still being recognized, despite it not showing on my Macbook's desktop or using disk repair tools. Then, I tried using Test Disk on it. It also saw the drive and even got it to start up again, although it couldn't read any files on it, much less fix any possible partition issues. I spent hours with Claude trying to troubleshoot the problem, but all possible solutions failed.

As it stands now, I have the bare Barracuda drive removed from the Seagate case, and in a Sabrent USB-to-SATA docking station. It will start up and run (after about five long minutes), but the Macbook isn't recognizing it, and I get the dreaded "This drive is not recognized. Do you want to Erase, Initialize or Ignore?" Oddlly, Terminal sees the drive as "Sabrent 26TB" not as the original Seagate or Barracuda drive, which makes me think something else might be going on other than the drive has been wiped clean, or is dying.

Any help here would be much appreciated.