Momentus XT, Momentus, Momentus Thin, MobileMax, and other notebook drives

[KevinSmithq]

I've continued my search online and seen two promising approaches:

1. Downgrade EFI firmware to 1.6 (yes downgrade!)

2. Place a jumper on the drive which will slow down transfer rate to half. This claims to overcome problem when certain models of MacBook fail to communicate at the higher speed.

It's a murky undertaking with some people claiming success where others have tried same remedies and failed.

[WiseDrive]

Thanks for sharing with us.

You are on your own... I don't have older MBs lying around to experiment with.

Need a good MBP hardware and software guy on the team chatting with Seagate engineers....

Best

[KevinSmithq]

I tried emailing Seagate with a summary of the problem and just got standard replies that indicated the recipient had not read emails:-(. Today I called European support line and spoke to Hans. There was no need to have issue escalated or explain to 5 other people before getting things sorted out. Hans explained to me that my Mid 2009 MacBook  is incompatible with my version of the drive. I'm shipping back my drive which is still under warranty. He's arranging for a replacement to be sent out.

Thanks very much Hans for superior support. Very pleased with Seagate.

[KevinSmithq · Accepted solution]

It took a month, but the problem is solved. The solution is to place a jumper on the drive which instructs it to talk more slowly to the computer. No more freezing when copying data, no more spinning beachballs on my Mac when in general use. Phew!

My Mac is Mid-2009, so I presume anything older than that's also going to struggle to talk to the Momentus 7200 drives. I bought a pack of 10 2mm jumpers on Ebay for £1.80. Problem solved. Go here: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/967/1/ for a fuller explanation of what to do and why it works. 

I called Seagate customer support three times this past month and AppleCare twice to describe the problem. No one knew about a solution. This disappoints me. These drives have been on sale for over 3 years and this problem is not mentioned on Seagate's internal troubleshooting reference info. 

Seagate ST9500420AS, 500GB Mobile SATA Momentus, 7200RPM 16MB Cache