FreeAgent Products

[Tobias Funke]

I have had nothing but problems with this drive. I like the look and features but it appears Seagate does not like MAC users.

The facts:

FreeAgent Pro 750 GB hooked up via Firewire 400 to iMac (2.8 GHz;  2 GB RAM) running OS 10.5.7

I have had limited to no success playing the unplug/reboot game but for the past month, it will not mount. I can see the drive in the System Profiler which is odd.

I am asking for the "Trick" to make this work. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Is there a software patch or something to make itwork? The auto on/shut down feature is completely annoying since it will often spin down and go to sleep and then I have to unplug and waitand try again.

Thank you in advance and apologies if this has been answered before but a simple Google search gave some ideas that did not work andthe website here is not the best for us lowly MAC users.

[Tobias Funke]

So after seeing the lack of responses and further searching, it appears that the best way to make this hard drive work for a MAC is to remove the hard drive from the case and place it in another case to avoid the power on off mode that exists there. I plan on seeing if it will read and if not, reformat and go from there. FRUSTRATING? You bet. Sadly, I will never buy another Seagate product thanks to this experience and plan to post accordingly on Amazon, EBAY, etc. wherever reviews are available.

I do NOT understand the lack of support for MAC users nor the inability to provide a simple effective external hard drive that works all the time. I never had a problem with other external drives until this one. Thanks Seagate. At least I received a decent deal so I am only out ~$30 for an external SATA case (maybe only $17 if the recent search is still true).

 

[SF Tommy]

If you go to the BestBuy.com site and look at their forums, you'll read that a bunch of folks are having problems with the FreeAgent drives.  I am one of those, and I also have a Seagate drive in a third-party enclosure that I bought new from a vendor on eBay.  It also is acting like an English car.  It may simply turn on (it has has on-and-off switch) but not spin, or it may boot up, or it may stop spinning in the middle of some copying effort -- so many ways to drive you crazy.

I bought a LaCie drive this week to try to get the data off these two drives if and when they choose to give me access.  Sometimes, going into Disk Tools, I can get the drives to appear on the desk top.  Other times, nothing works.

This is NOT a matter of turning off the "put drives to sleep" option in the System Preferences for Energy Saver.  I have never had this box checked on any of my computers.  

I'd like Seagate to make this right.  In the meantime, LaCie is a little pricier, has a somewhat shorter warranty, but they work when you need them to.  I bought two FreeAgent drives for friends overseas, and am hoping that they don't hate me.

Good luck. 

[AlanM]

I am sorry to hear about all this. 

Could you try this?  It might help.

[Tobias Funke]

Tried the reformat option. Did not work. It failed. Plus, all the data on the drive is then lost. Not exactly the way to go. I am sorry to say this but look at the customer comments on Amazon or other sites - Seagate has much work to do to repair its image there. Even those who buy the basic hard drive have a significant number of complaints.

The directions to help MAC users are pathetic and poor and show no thought given other than the first thing I learned about bum computer drives back in the day "looks like you need to reformat..............." Sorry guys. I gave it a good shot for several months with no luck. What is described above is DEAD ON as to how the drive behaves. Sometimes it mounts, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it cuts out, sometimes it doesn't. That is just poor design and a poor product.

I just wish I had read more before jumping on a great sale price and assuming that my MAC would have no issues. My mistake.

 

[AlanM]

Please understand I'm not trying to badger you, just trying to make sure that we don't miss anything.

In that article I cited, let me suggest you try the FreeAgent Desk sleep utility thing that is mentioned.  It won't hurt anything to try it on a model that is not the Desk.

[Tobias Funke]

Tried that too. Sorry...no go. Honestly, the MAC support is pitiful. Good luck. This is my last post here.

[jacobfnl]

I have a very similar case. It is also a FreeAgent Pro 750GB drive. In the system profiler, the device is recognized. However, it will not even show up using the Disk Utility. It isn't just that I can not mount it, but it doesn't even show up as a drive. I have two Macs 1 PowerMac with Tiger 10.4.11, and one MacBook Pro with Leopard 10.5.7.

This is very frustrating because I had dumped a whole system on it so that I could start the system from scratch. Now, I can't access any of my data!