FreeAgent Products

[Nielk1]

I am getting Delayed Write Failures and $Mft errors about 5 seconds after attaching a BRAND NEW drive to my PC. I exchanged said drive, brought the new one home, tried it on a PC that already has another smaller Seagate in it and it worked. I attached it to my PC and BOOM! Same issue. The partition is corrupted and useless on ANY PC until the drive is reformatted.

The first occurrence broke down as follows:

1. I attached the drive.
2. The autorun failed to autorun.
3. I ran the EXE in the drive root as the autorun would have.
4. The program was unreadable and would not open. Half the files that came on the drive were this way.
5. I rebooted.
6. Now all the files on the disk were this way, and the EXE had lost its icon.
7. I returned the Drive, assuming it was a hardware issue.

Now, the second drive.

1. I tried the replacement drive on a PC that already has a 760GB (about) Seagate FreeAgent attached and it worked fine.
2. I attached the drive to my computer and installed the software, no issue.
3. I copied some files onto the drive, the fourth file had a Delayed Write Failure and something with a $ flashed by (I now know this was $Mf).
4. The drive info on the computer it had previously worked on showed up as being 1.4TB out of 1.4TB used with a partition and manufacturer of [][][] (it was characters not in my PC, I have learned from other similar issues that these are Arabic characters) and then trying to get more info, it said 0 bytes free out of 0 bytes capacity.
5. In desperation, the drive was reformatted and the original files replaced (I backed these up before I put stuff on it) and it preceded to work in every PC in my home including one identical to the PC in question.
6. I then plugged it into the PC in question.
7. I was able to browse it and tested adding some files to it.
8. The skinning engine for XP stopped working on the browsing explorer window (the thing began to look like a 16 bit application, the X button and others were no longer even square let alone themed) and the entire explorer shell froze off and on.
9. The drive was corrupted... Again...

What is wrong with my computer that makes it incapable of having an external attached? Is there a solution? I will have to return this drive as well and seek a drive from another company if this cannot be fixed.

I would give you the model number, but the page on this site that tells me how to find said number is ACCESS DENIED for me.

EDIT: Additional info: This is the drive AFTER it is on my PC, on my laptop.

EDIT2: Image scaled down a bit, full size: http://www.bzcomplex.com/myfiles/driveissue.jpg

Message Edited by Nielk1 on 01-05-2009 06:34 PM

Message Edited by Nielk1 on 01-05-2009 06:35 PM

[Simon66]

Hmm. Looks like it could be a driver issue. When you get that message if the drive shuts off it could be a power issue with the strip you have it plugged into or outlet. The last thing would be a usb controller problem. This would be easily fixed with a new usb controller. Look here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815166002

its a 11 dollar fix if it is the controller.

[Nielk1]

I tried reinstalling the USB drivers but no luck. All other USB devices from printers to thumbdrives work perfectly fine, so I doubt that the USB is broken. I already had my onboard sound selectively malfunction (rear speakers sounded like drowning cats) so it could conceivably be a selective failure of my USB.

[darkseed33]

I wish I could help you on this one, but I just wanted to chime in that I'm here looking for the exact same fix.

I tried the drive on 3 different computers; all come up with a drive with no space (0 bytes).

SeaTools errored out horribly when I tried to run tests on it.  And where yours gave a drive name of garbage characters; mine flat out says nothing.

I just moved my 300gb iTunes library on it.. and I really don't want to lose it all!!!

-Stephen 

[gerf]

I have the same problem with an external 1.5TB drive I purchased earlier this week.  I did not have the error at first, but then I had a network transfer died out, and it had the problem ever since, even after restarts.  I tried different power strips, different USB ports, and a powered USB hub.

Windows does not see the drive in Disk Management either, and none of the Seagate test work either.

Is there possibly a firmware update, ala the 1.5TB drive issue that I'd read about a few months back

Update: Connected to my newer laptop (both USB 2.0), and it scans just fine.  Will leave it connected overnight to see if it's a heat problem.  Also, first computer with the issues has had many external hard drives connected to it with no problems other than this one.  Perhaps this could be an issue with the USB-SATA enclosure?

Message Edited by gerf on 01-11-2009 08:16 PM

[Nielk1]

I gave up and returned it while I still had time to. Might have been an issue with the size of the partition, but then why did it work on a nearly identical PC without ANY issue?

Oh well, no longer my issue. I decided from all I was finding on it that even if I got it working it was not worth it. Acording to much of what I read, if one little thing goes wrong, it all gets wiped.

[gerf]

Did you return it for a refund, or for another drive?  I'd still like to have some sort of answer, as I'd like to run this drive mainly from the computer that has so far had issues.

[Nielk1]

I returned it for a refund. After the first exchange failed I was a bit mift with the prospect of it working.

Have you tried making some smaller partitions on the drive? I think that might work, but I was not in the mood to try anything again.

[gerf]

Well, I did an overnight scan for disk errors on my computer that works, and now have reconnected to the computer that had issues with the drive before.  It doesn't have the error message popping up.  I set the sleep timer to 3 minutes, as while the drive is shared via the network and files are referenced by multiple programs, I do not actually access it all that often.

So I'll see if errors reoccur after switching back to the old computer.