FreeAgent Products

[Eaters]

Just check that, on the Dell, you are changing the bios settings in two places.

[Oregonian]

I experienced the same problem as Eaters on a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. Turning off the two USB boot items as described elsewhere in this thread seems to have solved the problem. Perhaps this issue should be added to the sticky FAQ at the top of this forum?

[zadarum]

Like Chaa006, I also have an Intel motherboard (EV91510A.15A) from a Gateway PC that was hanging on reboot with the FreeAgent drive connected via USB.  Unfortunately, although the bios has an option to disable booting from USB, the choice would not 'stick' and kept resetting to enabled.  Disabling USB legacy support in the BIOS settings has solved the reboot problem, with the negative side effect of disabling the cursor keys (but not the function keys) on my USB keyboard during the boot-up phase (so I can press F8 to get to the Windows boot menu, but I can't scroll through the options to select Safe Mode, e.g.--presumably that's what 'legacy support' means).  Oddly, the cursor keys work fine in the BIOS setup itself, even with legacy support disabled.  Also, once the OS loads, everything works as normal.  Since I can still get to the BIOS during the boot-up, I can always turn the USB legacy support back on if I need to use the Windows F8 menu.  It's not ideal, but it will do for now.  Hope this is helpful . . .

[guest2night]

This from DELL on this issue.... so bloody frustrating.. I have a 8400 also...

the hard drive on this system is set to ACHI mode, which can be used to fetch the information from the internal hard drive. However, if the external hard drive is connected, the ACHI mode cannot find the right path to boot, whether from the external or the internal, that is why it gives a blinking cursor, or just doesn't boot.

They recommend disconnect at startup and reconnect after... This is terrible

[AshG]

What actually is USB legacy support? I do not want to disable something that I may need for something else.

[MrButkus]

From an Intel website

http://www.intel.com/support/peripherals/sb/cs-011939.htm

Not sure if that means if you have a problem, you'll need a PS2 keyboard or you can go into the BIOS and just turn USB Legacy back on and fix any problem.

[AshG]

Looks like I will have to keep legacy support enabled and keep my drive unplugged while not in use. Seagate need to resolve this issue quickly as they will start loosing business.


Message Edited by AshG on 09-15-2008 11:16 AM

[Melonade]

you must not have been reading the other posts in this thread.

the problem is with the computer and its usb support, not with the hard drive. 

some things are the hard drive's fault.  this is not one of those things

[ChrisW]

Thanks to Eaters on this one. Just got my new 500 Gig USB drive and it installed fine until I rebooted and then the trouble began. Same as most (using Dell system) here with locking up on restart, if it did restart took 3 times longer than normal and then the new drive was not seen unless I powered it down and back up.  Did the BIOS thing that Eaters suggested and so far things are back to normal. I did post a tech request to Seagate just before I found this board note so it will be interesting to see what they come back with in a day or so. I'll try and repost when I get that one. Hope this continues to work as I was just about ready to return the drive.

[socref]

Hello everyone. My second attempt to post this. The first disappeared after less than a day.

Same problem here, but I'm running Ubuntu Linix 8.0.4.1. The drive reformatted just fine (from NTFS to ext3), and I can drag-and-drop to and from the FreeAgent Go. But I cannot restart the pooter or cold start it with the drive connected to the USB ports. If I try the computer never completes the boot-up and I get a screen that says "Starting up," a flashing cursor, and nothing more. It says on that screen forever.

I have reviewed every suggestion in this thread and, unfortunately, none of the BIOS setting changes suggested show up in the BIOS on this Dell Inspiron 530 (desktop). I have tried changing the Boot Device Configuration settings by changing the third device from "removable" to "disabled," and the fourth device  -- labelled "boot other" -- from "enabled" to "disabled. But those changes made no difference.

This is incredibly inconvenient to have to unplug and replug the USB connectors. 

I have tried to get help from both Seagate and Dell tech support. But Seagate provides no assistance for Linux, and Dell Linux support is essentially nothing, even for those who bought the computer with Linux installed (no Windows on this pooter).

Does anyone have any other ideas? Would welcome help.

Thanks!

socref

Message Edited by socref on 12-15-2008 08:57 AM

Message Edited by socref on 12-15-2008 08:59 AM