FreeAgent Products

[J-Rod]

Again, more of the same issues around the 1.5TB drive....

Hmmmm I've played with the power and the USB connections.  I guess the next test is to cool the drive and see if it has any effect.

AlanM - I've seen the same canned ressponse from you in every thread which says sometimes drives fail.  Now, I do agree with you that drives sometimes do fail.  But, does it not seem more than coincedental that you have so many failures being reported on this forum with the same exact suymptoms.  As well the same symptoms being reported on numerous other sites?

Is there anyone at Seagate you can escalte to to get a more definitive answer?

[J-Rod]

We have another thread going where I've updated my current progress on trying to find a solution.  I still have not seen a response from anyone from Seagate to my questions in either thread.

[AlanM]

Hi:

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.
Thanks.

-AlanM
Moderator

[J-Rod]

Well, I came back to post in the other thread that I had been posting status info in, and AlanM decided to lock the thread. I will be quite honest that I am more than a littel preturbed that the only" support" we get is denial, obfuscation, and blaming the victims.

"Oh, the issue is that you didn't have all your data backed up in multiple locations."  No Alan, the issue is that the drives that all of are paying our hard earned money for to back up our data are failing at an alarming rate.  When we come here, and we all have the same issue all we get is silence, or we get some vauge answer and we're told the issue the fact we have an issue is our fault. 

Honestly I haven't seen ANY effort on your part to assist folks on the most basic issue.  You flitter into a thread, don't answer any direct questions, and the head off.

I challenged you before, and I challenge you again to get your superior, or someone from Seagate who can actually speak to all these failures in here and actually answer some of these questions...

[AStinson]

I bought one of these drives about a week ago as an addition to my storage. I was moving things off my mirrored storage to rearrange data when I started getting the clicking noise, delayed write errors, the drive disappearing, along with a sick feeling in my stomach. The drive casing was hot to the touch, so I powered it down and let it cool. I'm in the process of moving everything off this drive ASAP as it is definitely unstable. Once I get it cleared and wiped, it's going back to the store. I need drives that can withstand the rigors of being online 24/7.

I'm well aware of the adage that it's not if a drive will fail, it is when. However, when "when" is 1 week after purchase, it's a defect. Whether that defect is due to inadequate cooling, I/O issues, or mechanics is immaterial.  

[J-Rod]

I found some interesting results, and I've posted them in a comprehensive post about all the testing I did.

[Kenchan]

I came back just to post I got my replacement from Seagate in.  They upgraded my Desk to an XTreme, that's all I can say has been any plus in this situation.  It should net me more when I junk it on eBay.

Seeing where the threads have gone, I have to agree with J-Rod; I'm pretty ashamed of AlanM's responses.  In concurrence with him, however, I highly recommend that everyone take what he has to say with a grain of salt, because he's not technical support and doesn't know what he's talking about.

Still the most reliable fix I've gotten for the click of death problem was putting my HDD in a computer and copying files off that way.  My HDD was completely hosed until I did this, and it worked perfectly during and after hooking up the HDD via SATA.  Now THAT is support.  J-Rod, I highly recommend you try this, I think you mentioned you haven't opened yours yet.  It worked well enough and long enough that I almost considered keeping it as an internal, but decided against it.  I recovered over 1TB from the drive.  I'm curious to see if it'll work for you, if it does please post it as such on your thread so that maybe we can save more people heartache with losing data that wasn't oh so godly backed up (I "backed up" my data on the 1.5TB so that I could clean the rest of my drives; it died between copying files onto it and me cleaning my other drives to copy the backup back over).

Note the first time I turned on the computer, the drive didn't work and I gave up.  The computer froze loading Windows because it tried to read the contents of the drive and stalled.  I gave up, but a few days later I came downstairs and found the computer on and running.  Someone turned on the computer, was using it, and left it on; so it didn't work at first but later for some reason worked perfectly.  Try it a few times.

I can't hope for a definitive diagnosis from Seagate anymore, but hopefully this will work well for everyone, or another accessible solution for data recovery will come up.  Looking forward to your results, J-Rod :3

[rick james]

I would like to join the masses and throw my FREE AGENT in the mix of broken down drives. Next to the pile i'll queue up with my fellow perturbed owners who have been totally shafted by seagate and their 'support' team.

I think it is disgusting. Product quality has deteriorated. Customer service is non existant. So what do seagate still have to offer? 

I for one have purchased my last every seagate drive. its WD from now on in. Besides by Free Agent, i have 2 internal seagate drives, and BOTH are playing up and causing all sorts of problems. 

On a side note, i would like to hear from people out there who have removed their drives from the casing and connected via esata. how many people have got their drives to work via this route? and how did they remove the drive without damaging the casing? and how does this affect the warrenty?

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

Message Edited by BradC on 03-10-2009 01:56 PM

[rick james]

i see that my original post has been edited by the over-zealous mods. and he didn't even have the curteosy to answer my warranty question.  i was only speaking the truth about the drab responses and lack of genuine support. and the utter incompetance of seagate (in general).  

its not like we live in some communist state, its a democracy for god's sake. 

now how about instead of cencoring us, how about you actually help a guy out?

is that too much to ask?

i daresay it is.

Message Edited by BradC on 03-10-2009 06:17 PM

[BradC]

Hello,

Please remember that moderators are not technical support and cannot answer those types of questions. If you like to get in touch with technical support, Click Here.

Good luck!

Brad