I was and I still am a happy customer of a Seagate Free Agent Desktop 250GB 9NK2AE-500, but I made a bad decision (hopefully I will explain it once and nobody will lecture me, but I am willing to pay attention if you can help)... Before September 3rd, I was able to detect the hard drive on my Lenovo T61 (on Windows XP Professional SP2 and on my wife's MacBook (on Mac OS X, using Paragon NTFS to share it).
On September 3rd, I decided to use my Ipod as an external hard drive and copied and pasted all my music and media to my Free Agent external hard drive. In the middle of the function, error windows started popping up like $Mft and Delayed Write Failure messages. I think this has to do with a song that was / still is named ???? on the Ipod (I should have named it Unknown or something!!!).
It is now September 16th and after numerous unsuccessful attempts and good education by reading a number of forum responses, Windows XP is no longer detecting the drive neither on My Computer, Device Manager or Disk Manager. I downloaded the Seagate Tools (SeaTools and Drive Manager) without any success. I have used different USB ports at different Windows and Mac computers.
I also tried the DIY Data Recovery solution from Seagate, but it is not recognizing any data. Can someone point me in the right direction? I would like to recognize the drive again to back up the existing data. I tried the live assistance from Seagate, but the service representative was really courteous, but only provided canned responses.
Nick TS174: Hi, my name is Nick TS174. How may I help you?
Tandero: Hi, my external hard drive is no longer recognized...
Tandero: Not on my computer, not on device manager, not on disk management...
Nick TS174: Have you confirmed this to be the case from multiple PCs?
Tandero: Yes, I have tried that for Windows XP and for Mac (using NTFS).
Tandero: Two computers for each OS.
Nick TS174: Due to the problems that you have incurred, the option to replace the drive (RMA) is being offered provided the drive is under warranty.
To set up an RMA online, please visit our website:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&_returns_assistance
Click on Verify your Warranty and Process a New Return to start the RMA process. If you would like to call us to get an RMA for your drive, please call our warranty services line at 1-800-732-4283 and choose the option for Product Return Authorization.
YOU MUST HAVE AN RMA NUMBER PRIOR TO HAVING THE DRIVE REPLACED.
If you are interested in data recovery, please check out the following article.
http://seagate.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/seagate.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=719
Further information can be obtained by directly contacting the data recovery department in the US at 1-800-475-0143.
Further information can be obtained by directly contacting the data recovery department in the US at 1-800-475-0143
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Tandero: ok, thank you very much.
Nick TS174: Have a good evening
You have disconnected.
