FreeAgent Products

[PEDLAR]

Hi

Four weeks ago I received a replacement FreeAgent Desk under warranty since the original was in the process of dying. However, in the two weeks I've been using it (I've been on holiday for two weeks since getting it) Seagate Manager has regularly lost the drive and now even Win7 only finds the root directory but try opening the Seagate Sync directory and an empty window opens - and I KNOW its got some 650Gb of data on it.

It's not the only FreeAgent Desk I have since I have two 1Tb units, the first is currently proving to be no problem (although even that was replaced with a few weeks of purchase!). The replacement I received is proving to be a real pain. I've checked everything recommended by Seagate but I keep returning to the point that if anything was wrong in that respect i.e., files missing etc., surely I'd not be able to see EITHER drive. The ONLY thing that seems to get it going again is simply removing power (everything else remains the same) at the socket for a while and then restoring it but this is only good for a while then the drive goes 'walkabout' so that SM cannot see it at all and Win7 can only find the root directory and an empty sub directory! Thinking of this, I suppose this may suggest a faulty unit which considering I only received it from Seagate four weeks ago, is a bit surprising.

I have VERY largely stuck with Seagate products throughout some 22 years of computing and although I HAVE purchased other brands for upgrading PVR boxes, I've always come back to using Seagate even for these. However, my impression is that FreeAgent drives seem to be far more trouble than they are worth. Quite frankly I'd have been better off with an OEM drive and fitting it into a separately purchased caddy, but the FreeAgent drives were a very good price so regretably I went for them. Just perhaps I'll junk whatever is left of the warranty and do that anyway and remove the hard-drive from the FreeAgent.

Thankfully my husband has a 1Tb FreeAgent drive which has not given him any problem so far.

Any comments or help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Tracey

[AlanM]

When it stops being detected, does this help?

Seagate Manager stops detecting FreeAgent drive[213871] 

Also, whenever it stops being detected, please right-click on (My) Computer.  Select Manage.  Select Event Viewer.  Look in the different sections of the Event Viewer and look for any errors or warnings at the time that the drive stopped being detected.  Let us know if there are any and if so, what they are.

Also, please try just dragging and dropping some folders onto the root directory of the FreeAgent drive, and leave them there.  Then check back on them at different times during the day - do they become invisible like the other ones?

Does the same thing happen when you connect the drive to a different computer, whether Windows 7, Vista, or XP?

[PEDLAR]

Alan

Sorry I've not been back to you lately but I've been out of commission for the best part of a week-ten days having gone done with a stinking cold. I've only now started getting back into the swing of things.

Thanks very much for your response but I've yet to check most of the points you raise. However, regarding the Seagate Service, surely if that was not started then neither FreeAgent would be detected. Anyway that is the one check I HAVE made and no problem there. Will try and do the others over the next few days.

Tracey

[PEDLAR]

Alan

I THINK I've now found the warning that appears when my FreeAgent goes 'walkabout' and disappears from Computer. It's Warning 51, a paging error (An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk7\DR7 during a paging operation.). Incidentally, I'm convinced that the time of around midnight has nothing to do with this problem at all as I've lost the drive at all different times of the day in the past.

At present I'm still at the stage where if I double click on the FreeAgent icon in Computer all I get is an empty window so I can't place ANYTHING on the drive at present. Sometimes it appears in this way, other times it allows me to open a window on folder AND Seagate files but as soon as I open a folder on my main files it opens an empty window again. If that were the current scenario I could do as you ask but currently no, I can't, Windows simply comes up and says this item is no longer located in Computer - but it does tell me I've got 227GB free though. Other times it does not even come up with the FreeAgent icon and over the past couple of days it has not even been appearing in Computer at all!!!

So far I've not tried putting the drive on my husband's PC as it is very awkward to get in there and it's a rather major task to do so. Nevertheless, I will try in the next few days.

In the meantime, I've copied the Event Viewer data I found below.

Hope this helps.
Tracey

-------------------------------------------------

+ System
  - Provider
   [ Name]  Disk
  - EventID 51
   [ Qualifiers]  32772
   Level 3
   Task 0
   Keywords 0x80000000000000
  - TimeCreated
   [ SystemTime]  2011-03-17T00:01:17.284066500Z
   EventRecordID 150734
   Channel System
   Computer Tracey
   Security

- EventData
   \Device\Harddisk7\DR7
   030068000100000000000000330004802D0100000E0000C000000000000000000000000000000000244E230000000000FFFFFFFF01000000400000080000000000200A1240032040000000003C0000000000000078D8FD8700000000E0BCD085507CC98567C25D002800005DC26700000800000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 00680003 00000001 00000000 80040033
0008: 0000012D C000000E 00000000 00000000
0010: 00000000 00000000 00234E24 00000000
0018: FFFFFFFF 00000001 08000040 00000000
0020: 120A2000 40200340 00000000 0000003C
0028: 00000000 87FDD878 00000000 85D0BCE0
0030: 85C97C50 005DC267 5D000028 000067C2
0038: 00000008 00000000 00000000 00000000
0040: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000


In Bytes

0000: 03 00 68 00 01 00 00 00   ..h.....
0008: 00 00 00 00 33 00 04 80   ....3..?
0010: 2D 01 00 00 0E 00 00 C0   -......À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0028: 24 4E 23 00 00 00 00 00   $N#.....
0030: FF FF FF FF 01 00 00 00   ÿÿÿÿ....
0038: 40 00 00 08 00 00 00 00   @.......
0040: 00 20 0A 12 40 03 20 40   . ..@. @
0048: 00 00 00 00 3C 00 00 00   ....<...
0050: 00 00 00 00 78 D8 FD 87   ....xØý?
0058: 00 00 00 00 E0 BC D0 85   ....à¼Ð?
0060: 50 7C C9 85 67 C2 5D 00   P|É?gÂ].
0068: 28 00 00 5D C2 67 00 00   (..]Âg..
0070: 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0078: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........


***************************************


- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
  <Provider Name="Disk" />
  <EventID Qualifiers="32772">51</EventID>
  <Level>3</Level>
  <Task>0</Task>
  <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2011-03-17T00:01:17.284066500Z" />
  <EventRecordID>150734</EventRecordID>
  <Channel>System</Channel>
  <Computer>Tracey</Computer>
  <Security />
  </System>
- <EventData>
  <Data>\Device\Harddisk7\DR7</Data>
  <Binary>030068000100000000000000330004802D0100000E0000C000000000000000000000000000000000244E230000000000FFFFFFFF01000000400000080000000000200A1240032040000000003C0000000000000078D8FD8700000000E0BCD085507CC98567C25D002800005DC26700000800000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
  </Event>

[AlanM]

Error ID 51 is also related to "delayed write failure". 

My next advice - http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=205043&NewLang=en