I bought two Go Flex Desk 3.0TB USB 3.
I am not using them for backup, but as extra drives (software is not loaded). They installed easily, but after a while the system would not recognize them. It would once again if I rebooted the machine.
I found lots of messages about this issue, and ZERO help from Seagate; their big deal is to turn everything off, unplug, and plug back in - that woks for a little while, but it would be mighty inconvenient to do 8-10 times a day.
THIS IS WHAT I FOUND
(this solution works for me, and might work for you)
My Windows 7 Professional 64bit has a power setting that turns off inactive USB ports.
The setting can be found here:
Control Panel
System and Security
Power Options
(Note, I created my own power plan by modifying the basic and saving under a new name)
Click on "Change Plan Settings"
Click on "Change advanced power settings"
Expand (click the + sign) for "USB Settings".
Expand (click the + sign) for "USB Selective Suspend setting"
Set the setting to "disabled"
I waited two days to make sure it worked before posting this message. My two drives are up and running, no issues with file transfers, writing/reading, or being visible to Explorer.
I can't speak to the quality and longevity of the drives. I just hope the people who built them are more competent than the people who support them (and yes, I read all the staff answers - dozens of then in various posts - and none of them worked or even came close to addressing the issue).
Again, this solved only the following problem: the drives would turn off and be invisible to the system after a set time (probably depends on how long the delay is set before the ports go to sleep).
My theory is that once the ports switched off, the drives switched off. The port would be inactive, and as far as I could tell, there was no mechanism in either the drives or Win 7 to "wake" the ports and drives back up. Rebooting worked because essentially it's a big reset.
I hope it works for others because if they felt like I did while it was happening, they probably cursed Seagate and Windows 7 for being grossly incompetent in not knowing this was the issue with the drives ceasing to be recognized after a set time (or not at all).
