FreeAgent Products

[Steyrkat]

I recently purchased a FreeAgent, model number ST305004FPA1E3-RK, last week and I've been using USB connection while waiting for the delivery of my eSATA-eSATA cable. Once I received the eSATA cable and plugged in the drive, my computer froze up and the drive constantly turned itself off and on and off (lights dim to off)...until I unplug the drive, then my computer returned to normal. After restarting the computer, my hard drive was okay while not being accessed, but when I try to use autobackup or copy files onto the drive it would start going off and on again, and it would severely lag my desktop as it did so. My motherboard supports eSATA with 2 ports in the rear (Asus P5K Deluxe) and I used a eSATA to eSATA cable, so I'm sure I'm not using the wrong hardware. USB connection works perfectly fine, but I bought this hard drive to utilize its eSATA for fast transfers.

After chatting with Seagate customer support, I was told to test it on another eSATA compatible drive or computer, or buy a replacement since the port on the drive may be bad. I have already transferred nearly 100gb of data onto the drive so I'm not willing to give up this drive yet, and that's why I'm asking for assistance in this forum. What could be the problem? Is the eSATA port on the hard-drive broken? Does anyone know how to remedy this situation? Thanks for any help!

[noegruts]

Unfortunately there are many other people (including me) that have had identical experiences when trying to use the eSATA connections on the FreeAgent Pro line of external hard drives.  There is a firmware update available which helps with *some* of the issues, but didn't solve the turn-on-turn-off problem that you mentioned for me.

It is a shame that Seagate's customer support either don't know that these drives have interoperability issues or perhaps they do know but they are hoping to divert the blame elsewhere.  Did the support agent even mention that they have a firmware update available on the Seagate web site?

[Steyrkat]

No, they didn't. Looks like I'll have to buy another drive.

Also now my computer can't see the drive whether using usb or esata anymore, I think it's dead already.

[paradox]

I have an Asus P5K-E and experience the exact same problem when trying to run it in eSATA.

it seems to happen less when switched to IDE mode, not AHCI mode.

running it USB mode works flawlessly, and thats the way it will stay.

i couldnt get the firmware to update, it wouldnt detect the drive for some reason.

[Steyrkat]

So it could be a hardware compatibility problem between the P5K motherboard and FreeAgent? That's giving me second thoughts on getting a replacement. Maybe I should just return the drive and buy a different one? And how do you switch the drive to IDE mode like you said (does eSATA work at all)? Does your hard drive turn off and on as well?


Message Edited by Steyrkat on 01-18-2008 10:44 PM

[noegruts]

You select ACHI or IDE mode in your computer's BIOS, not in the drive.  In my experience, this makes no difference with this drive - it still turns off and on when using the eSATA connection.

When updating the firmware you need to make sure the drive is connected via the USB interface, it won't detect the drive via eSATA.

[Steyrkat]

I guess I'll just replace my current drive. I'll just use USB...maybe someday I'll have a computer that can use eSATA properly.

[paradox]

yeah, im aware for the firmware update it has to be in USB mode. I click Scan USB, and it sits there for about 5 minutes doing nothing.

end up having to close the update program, then eject USB drive before i can use it again.

and yes it still happens in IDE compared with AHCI, just less. it still freezes the pc every 10 seconds or so, but i dont seem to get the

power up/power down problem as much.

that said im running the latest P5k BIOS and latest JMicron driver also since i last tried eSata, so maybe that also has something to do with it behaving better.

ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/jmb36x/Win2k_xp_Vista/

Message Edited by paradox on 01-20-2008 03:43 PM

[Steyrkat]

Hopefully they'll update the drivers eventually so that FreeAgent works properly?