I've owned the FreeAgent Desktop - USB 2.0 - 1.5TB, (Model: ST315005FDA2E1-RK; P/N: 9ZB2AA-572), for about seven months. I've saved tons of data on this drive as it is my main storage.
A couple of weeks ago, I have experienced the exact same symptom: "Initio Default controller"! When I plugged the drive into the same USB port (Windows XP Pro SP3) as usual, suddenly, the drive was detected as an "Initio Default controller". Logically, if the USB drive was recognized as an "Initio Default controller" (in this case the interface board between the HDD and the USB/Power port), one would assume that everything is OK to the very point prior to the HDD. Unfortunately, my assumption was correct: my hard drive was dead!
As I've gone through the Seagate Community Forums, there are a lots of problems that appear to be very common to the FreeAgent Desktop family and no resolutions from Seagate. Although there are many similar issues, my problem was different. It's a disaster!
I hope that my findings would be helpful to many folks who are desperately frustrated and worry about losing your valuable data.
Having been frustrated facing with this problem, I had no choices other than "troubleshooting" the USB drive myself in hoping that I would be able to recover my data.
Here are what happened to my drive:
1) After plugged in for a few seconds, the LED on the USB drive was constantly flashing, then
2) A "Found New Hardware" popped up, prompting for software driver installation
3) If I chose to continue, the "Initio Combo Device Class" --> "Initio USB Default Controller Driver" was installed and showed up in "Device Manager"
4) The USB drive still disappeared in "My Computer" and "Disk Management"
5) Checked power adapter (OK), swapped with known good cables, switched to different USB ports (PCs and laptops), the drive still disappeared
6) Switched the USB drive to different OSes (Windows 7, Vista), the drive was still nowhere to be found
7) SeaTools did not detect the USB drive either
Desperately, I decided to crack open the enclosure (see "How to") to find out whether it is the bridge board (the interface board between the hard drive and USB/Power ports) or the hard drive itself.
Please be advised that, in doing this, your warranty will be no longer honored by Seagate. Additionally, there are going be to some unavoidable broken plastic pieces from the latches during this disassembly. So, take your time with extreme care so that you would be able to reuse the enclosure without any problem. After all of this was done, my USB drive looks like nothing ever happened to it!
Furthermore, please read the rest of my comments below before you decide whether you really want to proceed with the "troubleshooting" or you should RMA for a replacement.
How to crack open the enclosure:
First of all, don't waste your time to look for screws as there are no hidden screws under the four rubber feet or label! The two halves of the enclosure (top: silver piece has some kind of a hole pattern for the LED; bottom: silver and white plastic together) are held tightly and seamlessly together by 15 internal latches (front: 4; left side: 4; right side: 4; rear: 3). All 15 male clips are on the bottom half.
Now, this is the fun part. You would need one small flat head screwdriver and one large flat head screwdriver.
1) Start from one of front top corners where the top silver piece meets the plastic piece
2) Carefully insert the small flat head screwdriver then slowly lift the screwdriver upward then inward to release one the male clips until a small opening is exposed
3) Insert the large flat head screwdriver into this exposed opening tightly to keep it open then remove the small flat head screwdriver
4) Slowly repeat steps 2 and 3 for the next one inch or so sections along the edge until the top silver piece pops out
5) Now you can see a metal cage that encloses the hard drive and the bridge board. Just lift the whole thing upward and set it aside
6) From here, just remove the metal cage, then carefully detach the bridge board from the hard drive
Important: All electronic components are very sensitive to static! Always handle the bridge board by the edges only. Protect the board with an anti-static bag if possible!
Then followed by my testing to isolate the problem:
1) The bridge board worked fine when connected it to a known good SATA hard drive
2) Connected the hard drive in question directly to a known working SATA port in computer. Unfortunately, the hard drive did not work. BIOS (set to auto detect), "My Computer", and "Disk Management" did not detect/show this hard drive. I'd noticed that the hard drive did not spin (no buzzing noises) and the control board on the hard drive was getting hot!
3) Hard drive info. as shown on the label: Model: ST31500541AS; P/N: 9TN15R-510. No sign of physical damage.
At this point, I'm very sure that my hard drive is dead. Since I can't afford thousands of dollars for data recovery, I decided to give my hard drive a last chance.
Important: Do not try to disassemble the hard drive itself as it is a very delicate and precise assembly. Doing this might create more problems.
And my last attempt:
1) carefully placed the hard drive in an air-tight ziploc bag making sure that no air left in the bag to prevent condensation/moisture from building up inside the bag
2) placed the bagged hard drive in the freezer (PCB facing up and making sure nothing on top) for 12 - 48 hours
3) removed the bagged hard drive from the freezer then the hard drive from the ziploc bag. Thoroughly remove any moisture around, especially on the PCB as well as on the two connectors (data and power) on the hard drive
4) while the hard drive was still "frozen", re-attached the bridge board to the hard drive then to computer and powered it up.
5) Closely listen to the hard drive for any kind of buzzing noises indicating that the spindle motor is spinning
Voila!, my hard drive started spinning and was detected right away! At this point, I believed all possible stuck mechanical/electronic components have been freed up! I was so excited and started recovering my data right away before it too late!
It's worth to give your hard drive another chance by repeating the above steps if the motor is not yet spinning.
Important: Now, If you decide to start the data recovery while your hard drive is outside of the enclosure, I would highly recommend that you should place a small fan nearby to keep the hard drive cool as this process will take many, many hours!
After all, all my data have been successfully recovered. It took me about three days to transfer all of my data to new safe and sound locations. What a relief!
Some of my thoughts as I'd gone through the process:
1) The default power setting (?) by SeaTools might possibly have caused the hard drive to lock up when it was powered down
2) The hard drive locked up itself while it was running hot or right after the supplied power was turned off
3) Some weak electronic component on the control board might have been breaking down because of no internal cooling while the hard drive was running hot.
As you may not be aware of, heat is the number one enemy of all electronic/mechanical components. Because of its compact design, none of USB drives as I've ever known, has any sort of sufficient internal cooling other than the metal cage! Regardless of how well designed it is, the heat absorbed in the cage as well as circulated inside the enclosure could possibly be more than enough to cause damages to the control board and/or the hard drive. Most of the time, we don't feel hot when touching the plastic enclosure. This is because there are air gaps surrounding the metal cage.
In any event, something has caused the internal mechanism (heads stuck, platters got jammed or spindle motor stuck ...) of the hard drive got jammed, preventing the motor from spinning and causing the control board to become hot resulting in the dead hard drive and therefore unrecognized.
I've owned several Seagate internal PATA/SATA hard drives (80GB - 500GB) for years and have not experienced any problems. Unlike USB drives, I think internal drives have more than sufficient cooling inside the PC cases. Therefore, Seagate internal drives have always been my first choice for all my data storage needs. However, I was very disappointed with this USB drive as it has only been occasionally used for about
seven months!
As we all know, Seagate offers three year warranty for this USB drive. However, as posted throughout the Seagate Community Forums and other forums, thousands of them did not last for even one year for a variety of issues, specifically the FreeAgent Desktop family! This disaster is not as simple as an one-on-one replacement should the hard drive go south, but most importantly, the valuable data could be potentially lost
because of a unreliable storage device!!!
Throughout this Seagate Community Forums, it's very obvious that thousands of folks in this community have spent their valuable time and effort to help others fix Seagate's problems, not theirs! Is this time that Seagate, as a company, should step up and take corrective actions to improve their products and most importantly, to regain consumer's confidence?
