FreeAgent Products

[placidcasual]

RE SMRT:

"As JanJanssen asked, why wasn't the data originally backed-up? Yes, JanJ, with your hindsight bias we should have backed up our back-ups and back up those back-ups...But this is clearly a moot point for all of us here in this thread who thought they bought a dependable product for the purposes of "backing-up" data and doesn't help our situation now. Although I do have my data backed up, considering it took me a week to get it all on my 23-day-old external hard drive, I would much prefer to have said drive do what it is suppose to do rather than become a glorified paper-weight."

Well said. I bought my external seagate because my c drive is tiny and it seemed like a good storage solution so I simply can't back up all the stuff I hae on there. I made the mistake of expecting it to work reliably

Now all I have is a beeping paperweight with a pretty light and 100s of gigs of lost data 

Not badmouthing JanJanssen or anything but really if you havent got anything non-inflammatory to say then maybe its best not to say anything in some circumstances...

Thanks to all the people who have genuinely tried to help with this issue in this thread

[brahma]

the failure of these drives from being dropped or bumped is total horse hockey.  It says CLEARLY on the drive when you remove them from the housing that they are certified for 350 G's.  That is an INCREDIBLE amount of G forces.  For example, the Challenger crew comaprtment when it hit the ocean hit at 350 G's.  My drive DD NOT go down on the Challenger.

[Edited in compliance of the community rules and regulations.]

Message Edited by BradC on 01-03-2009 12:42 PM

[sumdup]

.

Message Edited by sumdup on 09-15-2009 08:37 AM

[fazluv]

I agree with brama, I have a Seagate 750 GB Freeagent Desktop and a WD My Book 1TB.  They both were knocked over as I was copying data from one to the other as my back up.  Well in middle of copying the data, it stopped.  My laptop still shows the WD HDD, but the Seagate was missing from Windows Explorer.  Then I heard a beeping.  So I moved both external drives to another laptop and tried to no avail.  Then finally tried them on my tower.  Only the WD was recognized by any machine. 

Explain to me how Seagate claims their HDDs can with stand all those Gforces, yet when it tips over, its useless.  Piece of junk.  Well now its off to the store to get another WD.  I know that can at least with stand a tip over and continue to work.  Jeez, its not like we are dealing with faberge eggs here.

Message Edited by BradC on 01-19-2009 12:06 AM

[airjrdn]

I bought my Seagate FreeAgent Pro in Sept of 08.  I unboxed it about two weeks ago.  Tonight, it stopped working and it making the famous buzzing noise every few seconds.

It's still under warrant, but I'd also like to get my data back as well as clean it off.  Is the buzzing issue truly a heat problem as described here - http://arewold.wordpress.com/2007/08/27/having-problems-with-the-seagate-freeagent-500-gb-external-d...     ?

I really don't want to take the case apart as I figure that'll void the warranty, but that's the only way I'll know if the problem is actually w/the drive, or the enclosure.

Thoughts?

Message Edited by airjrdn on 02-04-2009 07:50 PM

[stefnie_roo]

squeaking freeagent go

I received the freeagent go 500gb as a gift, plugged it in last night for the first time

and within 20 minutes it began to squeak. It was not dropped or tipped over while

in mine or the gift givers posession....not happy, will exchange

[dfaustin]

This is the third Seagate HD that has failed me in a year!   Which is when I started using them.   I bought a returned one at Fry's, since it was the only one left for the Mac.  It died on me after about three weeks.  I returned it to Seagate.  They sent me another HD that died on me within a few weeks.

Last night I was using my Seagate drive that I bought last summer.  It seemed to be the one I could count on.   However, it started making that buzzing sound.  Unfortunately, I don't know if I have this HD completely backed up.  I read online where you put in in the freezer and try it again.  It still doesn't work.  So, I've probably lost several months worth of photography and some video. 

I'm going to go to Fry's to buy WD drives for backing up all my Seagate drives.  I hate to return this thing to get another drive that will fail on me all over again.

I know now to stayed organized and backed up and to also have a WD backup of all my files.  Although, a WD failed me too.  But, only once in the last five years. 

I'm wondering if there's a way to retrieve my data???  Maybe, try another trip to the freezer in the meantime? 

[Pananer]

Were you able to retrieve your data?  There are data recovery specialists that may be able to help you.  I too bought a Seagate Free Agent Pro.  It worked well for a year or so and then failed.  Head and spindle were damaged, plus another problem or two. Like some other people, I was using this external hard drive AS my backup, but some important files of my husband's were on ONLY that drive becuase his external drive on his desktop computer was too close to being full.

I took my Free Agent Pro to ESS Data Recovery, where engineers are now trying to recover my data.  They have a great reputation for near-100% recovery, so I'm hoping for a good outcome; but it's going to cost me big time to get the data recovered.

My Seagate drive was under warranty, and I can get a replacement for it from Seagate, but now that I have read the experiences others have had, I wonder whether the replacement will fail too.

[hintmusicsto]

 Hay every one that hase seagate external drives Ie;free agent. Get your data off of it then find a diffrent company or brand. seagate will replace the driver but u get anouther more then likley it will happen again. I have had the same proublem. Been told by tecks to dump seagate. As they have seen this as a proublem that wont go away with there external hard wear. If you find a fix for this mabie seagate would like to know?????????????.

[dfaustin]

Hi Pananer,

I didn't try to retrieve my data because of the price.  I do my best to back up all of my hard drives, ASAP.  Seagate did replace the drive.  But, I'm afraid to use it.  I've had several Seagate drives die on me.  I also had a replacement drive die me.  I've switched to G-Raid brand drives as my main drives.  And, I'm using the Seagate drives I have as back up drives.  So, at least I always have two drives of the same data.  And, I'm going to keep my Seagate drives in my office where they are touched/moved as little as possible to see if that helps.  Since I film a lot of video and shoot photography, I need a lot of HD space.