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

[ikkeniet]

I've bought a new external harddrive, the model is FreeAgent GoFlex 1TB, STAA1000605.

It has an annoying issue that it won't be detected when I restart the PC or notebook.

I'm a tech and sometimes I receive a system with a quirky bios so at first I didn't pay much atention.

But the issue is present on all systems I've tried the drive on in the last few days, desktops and notebooks.

The system either just hangs at POST, or the drive is not being detected at all. 

I have to power down the system and turn it on again for the drive to be detected an than the system will boot. 

On HP-Compaq systems with "Inside bios" the drive is often detected with different names:

- Seagate Freeagent GoFlex

or

- Seagate Freeagent GoFlex USB 3.0 cable

or sometimes not detected at all as said before.

I'm pretty sure it's either a firmware or board issue, before I used a Samsung S2 external HD and it never had these kind of glitches.  

It bothers me tho the point that I'm considering sending it back, but since I'm in Colombia it is not going to be easy. 

Sadly, there is no firmware available for my drive. 

I hope Seagate wil make a new firmware available to solve this problem.

Cheers. 

[MapleTree]

Hello,

Did you already try to disable boot from USB devices in your computer BIOS? If you have not, I would try that first. That is usually what the issue is when the computer hangs while booting up with an external drive connected. Try that and let us know what the results are.

If you have any other questions, please let us know.

[ikkeniet]

Hi MappleTree,

I did experiment with all possible bios settings - where possible because not all bioses have those options.

USB legacy support, USB emulation, Enable / disable USB boot, enable disable boot removable etc.

I was a bit surprised to see the recent HP - Compaq notebooks play up with this drive, as those are the ones that always work flawless with any external USB drive.

As said before, I noticed it isn't just on some systems (with quirky bios), the issue is present on every system I've tried so far.

I usually have no need to post on message boards, if a drive is plane bad it just goes back to the supplier and they send me another drive.

But in this case I believe the issue can be resolved by a firmware update, it is actually the very first issue I have with any Seagate harddrive over the past years. I hope somehow Seagate will investigate this (it’s easy, just connect the drive to any system and try to restart – it will either not be detected or just hang the whole system at POST) and make a firmware update available.

If that doesn’t solve it, I may just have a bad drive and it needs to be exchanged. We can now also get Hitachi Touro external drives in my country so perhaps I’ll have more luck with that one.

Cheers.  

[ikkeniet]

Update on this issue:

The drive was sent back to the seller. But they just send me another Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex, and it has the same problems - cannot restart the computer with the drive connected, PC will hang. 

I'll try to sell the drive to get some of my investment back, hopefully I can get another brand. Seagate has let me down on this one.

Cheers.