GoFlex, GoFlex Desk, GoFlex Pro, GoFlex Slim, & GoFlex Turbo

[John C]

I am getting an error on OSX that says the disk was not ejected properly and the Go Flex desk disappears from available drives, then reappears.  I am currently using two of these drives.

1. GO flex 2TB using the USB dock/connection.  Haven't had problems, reformatted it for OSX, using it for time machines.  This one is ok.

2. GO flex 2TB used the USB dock and now purchased the firewire dock.  Having problems with the drive dropping on both types of connections.  Reformatted for OSX, using as supplemental storage, not Time Machine.

I am using a 2009 Mac Pro with OSX 10.6.5.  Thanks for any help.

[colorwave]

John-

I think that if you peruse this forum and others you will find that many people report the same problems, and I have yet to find a permanent solution.  My drive is about to go back to Seagate if a solution doesn't appear very soon.  There is a Seagate Sleep Override Utility that you can download, as well as an Apple fix called Keep Drive Spinning that pings the drive periodically to keep it awake.  Neither seems to have solved the problem for me.  I have multiple other drives connected to the same computer that do not have the same issue, but the 2Tb Go Flex Desk seems to have unique problems staying connected. 

[MarcDR]

Try using the Dashboard (I'm assuming there's a Mac version) to change the power setting for the drive. I had some issues on Windows (warnings on the event log, reboot problems) that were resolved by changing the power setting to "Never" (for entering power saving mode)

[colorwave]

Marc-

That's the function of the Seagate Sleep Override Utility, and it does not seem to fix the underlying problem.

[MooMan]

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, I went out to buy a new Time Machine back up drive. I settled on the 2TB Seagate Free Agent GoFlex Desk (USB 3.0/2.0 base). When I went to check out, the price was so awesome, I bought two. I came home, plugged them both in, (USB direct into the computer) reformatted them both (Mac OS extended, Journald, with one GUID partition). I set one up as a Time Machine backup drive, and moved my iTunes library to the other drive to free up space on my internal drive.
Since then, the Time Machine drive has been periodically, and seemingly, randomly, ejecting it's self and then plugging it's self back in. I've been getting the "The disk was not ejected properly..." notice on screen but without doing anything, the icon shows back up on the desk top, at first with the orange USB drive icon, then after a few seconds, it switches to to the Time Machine icon. Everything seems to be working fine, Time Machine is reporting no errors, but, this constant and unpredictable in and out is concerning me. I am on OS X 10.6.5. I have downloaded and installed the sleep override utility from Seagate but that doesn't seem to work. At first I thought it was a TimeMachine problem or error, but then I shut TimeMachine off, and I'm still getting the random issue. I'm wondering if perhaps the sleep override utility was only installed on one drive and not the other. I tried unplugging the problem free drive, then installing the utility, but there is no way to verify if the sleep override utility is working on both drives or not. 

Has anyone come up with, or seen a working fix to this problem?

By the way, I ruled out USB issues because I went out and purchased two FireWire 800 bases. Still have the problem. I also think there is a chance that this may be related to indexing, but that makes no sense to me. 

[corrupteddata]

I've joined the GoFlex dropping connection with OSX.

I have a support ticket open on this and support seems to be a little surprised that problem is even occuring. I feel like I'm going in circles with support on this issue.

The sequence of events appears to be:

o Drive goes to sleep (no light in front)
o Drive makes a click noise (drive spin up?)
o Mac Dialog Box error message to properly unmount drive
o Mac tries to access disk. Sometimes this is Time Machine.

I'm guessing the error message is from the drive going to sleep but somehow the message is delayed until the drive starts up again.

Apparently there is a conflict between the Mac and Seagate power management. (Seagate should fix this or else the drive really isn't Mac compatible out of the box.) The Seagate diagnostic utility says it disables the Seagate power management. I'm guessing this is supposed to let the Mac control the HDD power management and resolve the conflict.

When I run the Seagate utility, it can't find the drive and I'm not sure it has done anything. The problem still exists.

One experiment would be to turn-off Time Machine and just try accessing the drive. That would simplify the problem to just waking from sleep.

One suggestion from support is to download a Mac utility to keep the drive spinning and never sleep. I think this would work but could reduce the drive life and does burn more power.

I wonder if anyone doesn't have this issue with the same OS version and drive. I've asked Seagate support if they are able to duplicate this at Seagate. I would prefer they debug it before having me try everything under the sun.

I'm trying to resolve this during the time I can still return the drive to the retailer.

[colorwave]

As I mentioned in my post, I tried running the application from Apple called Keep Drive Spinning and it doesn't solve the problem.  i just can't figure out why this problem affects this particular drive and not others, and why Seagate can't seem to come up with a viable solution, since they make other drives that do not have the same issues.  Must not be much of a priority.

[traksion]

Hello All...

I'm also having the same issue.  I've had my goflex drive since August and never had an issue until I upgraded my mac to 10.6.x (just last week).  Since then this issue happens several times a day.  As far as I can tell I haven't experienced any data loss with Time Machine, but it does concern me.

[corrupteddata]

Here are the results of my research to benefit other poor souls who run into this problem and are only left with Seagate Support to help them.

I was able to resolve the problem via the Seagate Diagnostic software. The link support gave me didn't work. I noticed when drilling down from the support center links that the result was slightly different than the direct link support gave.

I installed this version and I no longer get the warning message every 20 minutes. I had no other problems with the drive.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=goflex-software&vgnextoid=11c1fab114b48210Vg...

This version recognized my drive with USB. (FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 2TB 100626711 from Costco.)

Apparently you don't have to do anything but install and run the app. It then talks to the drive to turn-off its power management and relies on Mac's. I have noticed the drive going on standby so it does appear to perform as advertised by support.

One issue is the number of diagnostic messages in the Console Database. There is a lot of chatter from the Seagate drive. It would appear they are diagnostic messages. I haven't determined how to reduce them.

More details

The bad diagnostic software link is:

BAD: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=seagate-diag-mac&vgnextoid=15d2a66b91c4b110V...

I was also told to install a script from Apple to fix this problem. This apparently writes to the drive periodically to keep it from powering down. No an ideal solution for me. More a brute force method. I would like the drive to go to sleep to save power and maybe drive life (not sure on that point).

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/keepdrivespinning.html

It is interesting that this actually refers to a 3rd party freeware application referenced by Apple. So Seagate recommended a file that was listed by Apple by yet another person. I have no idea of the quality or security of the application. In the end it didn't matter since the link was broken. Seagate appears to have a copy of the file on their downloads area but there is no information on the file:

http://support.seagate.com/downloads/mac/Seagate%20Sleep%20Override%20Utility%20for%20Mac%20OS.dmg

I don't recommend this approach unless others fail. I believe someone else said this didn't work for them.

Summary

After multiple contacts to support and many different "recommended" solutions, my drive problem was resolved, mostly by installing and running the correct version of the Seagate Diagnostic utility. I still have a lot of chatter messages written to my Console Database. I'm guessing this means my Console db could get huge or be pruned earlier. Donno.

I give support a "D" grade for this problem. Albeit, multiple people worked on it, it took too long to resolve the problem for a common problem. Maybe the last link would have worked. I couldn't give a passing grade for this effort and didn't think an "F" was deserved since it is possible one recommended solution would work.

[colorwave]

Gee, not a solution for me.  The software you linked to is the original diagnostic software that came on the disk, which is the first thing I tried.  Not resolved for me at all.