FreeAgent Products

[socref]

Just got off the phone with Dell Ubuntu support. Spent a considerable amount of time trying to "tweak" the BIOS on my Inspiron 530 Desktop. But no matter what the tech support folks suggested the problem persists.The computer will not complete the boot process -- restart or cold start -- with the FreeAgent Go attached.

Finally they told me that with the BIOS on my computer there is no way to boot with FreeAgent Go connected. The BIOS keeps looking for an operating system on the FreeAgent, and when it does not find an O/S there the boot process stalls. So I will have to unplug/plug the drive each time.

Dell also suggests NOT changing the BIOS with Ubuntu.

So, a very disappointing outcome. I connected the FreeAgent Go to my wife's SuSE 11.0 system (NOT a Dell computer) and her system boots just fine -- no problems. 

Oh, well.  (

socref

[Clarke00]

I had almost the same boot up problems as the others here. My solution was to disable the usb boot up and then disable the on board RAID controller, then change the boot sequence described in several other solutions so that HD boot priority was set to hdd0 boot and floppy boot came before USB which I disabled since I am going to use the drive for data back up only. This worked on My pc which has an ASUS AV8 mobo and I have WIN XP running. I have the Seagate Freeagent desk 1.5 TB drive.

    I strongly reccomend leaving the software that comes with these dirves Off and use the good old drag and drop backup method. Also keep in mind that these drives are mechanical tools and are subject to failure if not handled very carefully.

   I hope this helps some of you.

[willus]

I have a Dell Latitude D610 running the A06 BIOS and a 1TB FreeAgent Desktop USB drive.  I was experiencing the problems here, but did not have the BIOS options described in this post.  I did however eventually solve the problem by turning off "USB Emulation" in the BIOS. 

[Russlock]

I have a Seagate Freeagent Desk 1TB external hard drive connected via a USB2 connection on my desktop computer and when I switch it on, the computer hangs at the post screen unless I dissconnect the drive and press reset to re-boot. I have tried all the methods on the forum and nothing is working.

I have even submitted a case to technical support on 29th Dec but have yet to get a reply which i think is very poor when they say you will get an answer within 1 working day.

I don't want to keep unplugging this drive before starting my pc up as i didn't when i had a freecom 400gb plugged in a couple of weeks ago.

anyone who has any further ideas, i would be very appreciative.

thanks

russ

[socref]

Well I finally gave up trying to figure out a solution to the boot-hang-up problem with the FreeAgent and Ubuntu. I changed to SuSE Linux 11.0 and the problem went away. Computer now completes the boot process and can be both cold-started and rebooted with the FreeAgent Go connected.

No idea why Ubuntu hangs and SuSE doesn't, but nothing else changed. So maybe SuSE plays nicer with the BIOS than Ubuntu? If yes, then maybe there's a similar lack of civility with the BIOS on the computers of Windows users?

socref

[Russlock]

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I have even submitted a case to technical support on 29th Dec but have yet to get a reply which i think is very poor when they say you will get an answer within 1 working day.

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Well It's now the 16th Jan and still no answer from Technical support. DISGRACEFUL.

I have spent hard earned money for something that does not work correctly as it should.

[waynester]

same probs and concerns here

i have free agent /desk 1tb usb

pc will not boot with free agent connected

i use wireless keyboard and mouse , the reciever being connected via usb port

as are speakers , printer and wd 320 gb usb drive

will these be affected?

and here is the kicker, if i plug in the seagate after windows is up and running , bam, it reboots and stops at blue post screen again

[Shihab]

Hi Has Seagate shown us a working solution yet? My problem is similar, and I have an AsRock P4i45 Motherboard running P-4 1.6. Changed the boot order in Bios and shut down USB Emulation. Still hangs at boot. While booting, I have the option to press F11 to set the boot order, this shows USB Device as first option and I cant find any way to change this? Going Cuckoo what with having to power of the 1TB each time i boot. Any Idea if this will adversely affect the life of the HDisk?

[AlanM]

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Shihab wrote:
Hi Has Seagate shown us a working solution yet?

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Thanks for your participation in the our forums so far. Please remember that this is an online community where many of the responses come from other users, such as yourself. The forum is not a replacement for Customer Service. Seagate representative do from time to time come to lend a hand answering posts but not necessarily on a continual or frequent basis. If you have immediate needs, your best bet is to contact Customer Service directly whether by phone, email, or chat.

In this case, does this solution help?

[DentistDave]

Hi there! Thanks for the fix, i'm about to try it on mine. I'm running a Dell Vostro 1500 with Vista Business SP1 and all the trimmings.

Just bought the new 2nd generation Freeagent Desk 1TB (Model no: ST310005FDM201-RK).

Same boot up problem as the first generation, vista goes to the cursor at the top right of the screen and won't load. reboot, then vista recognises the freeagent desk as an unknown device that has malfunctioned. Then unplugging the freeagent from power supply then turning it back on, it works. The POST problem/boot from USB must be doing it.

I thought that in this 2nd generation of freeagent desk Ext HDDs the problem would be fixed.

My dad bought 3 of the Older generation 500GB Freeagent Desktops (the brown ones)in late 2007 for his office, and he was running Dell Inspiron laptops, with Vista Business and Bios A05, that they wanted to be able to boot with as 2 of the agents didnt take their laptops home with them, so leaving them on to restart and be able to back up was a prime concern. The previous fixes didn't work 100% of the time, i just hope it does on my PC.

I really only want mine for storage as I have a maxtor OneTouch 250GB that backs up my laptop just fine.

One more thing, I removed the maxtor one touch backup utility as the seagate one looked better (although they are just rebranded versions of one another) and the seagate one doesn't back up hidden/system files. What's up with that???!?!??

Will reply if the bios edit at the start of this thread by "H" and "Eaters" works in the next few days. If no reply from me, assume that it works fine and dandy

Thanks for the help!