FreeAgent Products

[cit]

We have been purchasing seagate products for some time now. We are a small systems integtegrator and have seen many problems come and go.

Can anyone please advise if they have detection problems with their seagate Freeagent Desktop or Freeagent Pro. We have had quite a significant number of drives fail in the last 2 months. The drives initially detect and then after a short period (sometimes less than 1 week) they will no longer have a working partition. The drive is still detected via USB cable, and appears in disk manager as an unrecognisable disk and an unreadable partition.

There is nothing you can do to recover the drive.

It appears to me to be a chassis problem or controller problem with the drive as I think the disks themselves power up fine. It is also possible the disks need a new firmware, but the only answers I can get as to where to find firmware is to contact seagate themselves. Does anyone have a link for updated firmware on these disks?

I have tried running the seagate diagnostics (seatools) on the drives however this doesn't work, they just fail the relevant tests with no information.

Does seagate have a batch of bad drives? If so shouldn't they issue a recall?

Regards,

Mark.

[TRoss]

Hi,

Define significant?

How are your users "using" the devices?

How are they removing them? Are you certain?

What are they plugged into?

This would appear to be the same issue most external drive manufacturers see with all their products. If you look under Maxtor or WD you will see the same issues.  Most people do not safely remove their products all the time or they have them plugged into something that is not on a battery backup.

The good news is there are no issues with any current product lines and there will be no recalls.

[PaulRushforth]

Hi,

I've had exactly the same problem.  We bought the drive, and used it for a few weeks, we used it on a few computers and had no problems. Then all of a sudden, nothing. It was unknown in manager, the computers that previously read it could no longer see it, and when you plug it in, it sounds like it's about to try and take off. Now Manager can't even see it.

I'd be very keen to hear of any solutions!

Paul

sn;6QG0MEDR

[dstryrbts]

I too am having the exact same problem that you listed with my barely-month-old Freeagent Drive.

Any ideas, Seagate?

[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
Admin

[michaeln]

Hi everyone,

I may have the same problem, as after roughly 10 days, the drive FreeAgent Pro didn't appear anymore on the desktop. It appears though in Disk manager and the System Profiler by the USB port. But Disk manager just cant read the drive, verify it,...
This actually should be a concern for Seagate as it seems the problem is widespread among users...
Any advise apart contacting customer service??
Thanks,

Michael

[LaoziSailor]

---

TRoss on 01-07-2008 05:31 PM  wrote:

[...snip...]

This would appear to be the same issue most external drive manufacturers see with all their products. If you look under Maxtor or WD you will see the same issues.  Most people do not safely remove their products all the time or they have them plugged into something that is not on a battery backup.

The good news is there are no issues with any current product lines and there will be no recalls.

---

Thank you for coming to talk to us.
I have to disagree with your statement about different brands having the same problems unless they are on battery backup. I am on battery backup.
My Freeagent 750GB besides having given me on multiple occasions a "$Mft ...error", it has also failed on "delayed write" and prevents the system from completing the boot process unless I unplug the power while booting -- it doesn't seem to like co-existing with a Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 500GB USB External Hard Drive (this unit has never given me problems at all).
Also your comment about "no issues" may have to be reassesed, there are many of us with "issues".

I should say that  other installations I have performed using 2 x Seagate 750GB internal SATA + a 250GB internal has given me NO problems at all. Maybe the issue is associated with USB?

---

AlanM on 01-15-2008 10:53 AM wrote:
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
Admin

---

Indeed it is great to have Seagate reps come and take a look. I think it is a good source of information for them.
Inasmuch as contacting Support directly may not be as good a return on time investment as the forums are.

Cheers!

[timothyjkolb]

I can confirm this sort of behavior...

I just bought two 500G free Agent USB drives last week and took them on the road to use as shuttle drives...I'm 2500 miles from home and one of the drives just went "unknown" after two uses.

I have copies of the data, but I'd have expected the drive to last through the week at least...

Tim Kolb

[tepage]

My USB drive has done exactly the same. DOA on both computers I use on the same day. Worked on three computers prior to that (including my department computer using Win2000 Pro. Other computers include a Vista Home Premium Desktop and Laptop. I thought that maybe I had mistakenly unplugged it prematurely but I am careful about that kind of think. I am the only user of my drive and it is used in both business and personal. It was and is virus free as I always pre-check files. Sounds like this might be a bigger problem than I thought with these drives. I have the Seagate PN 9NN2A3-500 drive. Does anyone have any ideas or working solutions? I have tried the Seagate troubleshooting guide but with no luck. I would sure like to have my files back. Not the only copy but the most consolidated up to date group I have.

Bill

[timothyjkolb]

UPDATE:

I repeatedly tried several things, but powering the drive up AFTER booting seems to be the only way to get consistent recognition.

Both drives have functioned as I'd expect as long as I don't give them power until the computer being used has completely booted.

It's annoying, but it works.

I've been kind of a hard-core Seagate guy for years.  I just don't expect weird problems with stuff that says "Seagate" on it...it's unnerving.