Other External products

[Didrik]

This also was my approach, to use TestDisk.  It probably will not work for most posters here who report that the drive is not visible to the OS, Disk Management, or Device Manager.  Note that the steps described require the drive to be found in the first place.  Hence my previous posting asking if anyone knows of software that can find "missing" drives by their controllers, chipsets, or other means, and can mount (read) those drives at some physical pre-partition level.

[ErlingGP]

Just wanted to chime in that I'm having similar problems with this drive.

Have had it a couple of weeks, and at one point, some days after having made my first backup onto the drive, I came back to my running computer and found an error message pertaining to the drive (can't remember the message)  Found that large parts of my backup data were now missing.  A few attempts at running Chkdisk apparent restored the missing data.

Here tonight, about a week later, I return to my running computer and find an error message again; something about a file with a weird-looking name.  Now my whole partition was gone; Windows couldn't see the drive in Explorer (although it appeared in Device Manager).   Maxtor Manager couldn't see the partition and kept asking if I wanted to format.

Did a variant of the procedure described at the beginning of this thread; stopped the device, unhooked the cable and disconnected the power for 10+ seconds.  Reconnected power and the USB cable, but without rebooting the computer.  This apparently brought back the partition and all data.

Must say I'm quite worried about using this drive and do not trust it at all.  Certainly hope Maxtor will provide a solution to this.

Drive is hooked up directly to the computer.  Motherboard is an Abit IC7-G Max2, with Intel 875P chipset.

Regards,

Erling Groes-Petersen

[Arthur]

Hello, I believe my problem is similar and perhaps related.  Bought the 500GB One Touch 4 to use with my XP service pack 2 computer as an external drive but not to use the included backup utilities.  I did not install them.  The drive worked fine for a couple of days.  During a "drag and drop" copy of several video files to the drive. I got a 'could not copy a file - file corrupted.  Looked on my computer, opened the file from it's original location - worked fine. Looked at the Maxtor - could not access the drive - received error message file or directory corrupted or unreadable.  Called tech support (case 651163) - they had me look at disk manager which saw the drive with no file system.  Tech support solution was drive is good and healthy "just" reformat.  Data recovery software "demo" from Seagate saw the drive and a partial scan indicated data might be recovered but I didn't want to pay $129 for the software key.  I did see on the scan some text saying "a disk read error occurred NTLDR is missing  NTLDR is compressed Press CTL ALT DEL to restart.  I Don't know if there is any significance to that but it was there.Tech support response to how could this happen - included: power surge, power failure, dropped drive, nothing conclusive.  I reformatted the hard drive (losing data of course) and returned it to the store.

Before I did that I noticed the light on the "one touch button".  My experience has been with other devices that the light is solid on when connected, blinks when data is being transferred, and is off when not connected or the computer is inactive.  I noticed that at seemingly random times the light would dim to almost off then it would get brighter, then dim, etc.  At other times it would be the expected bright solid light.  I thought my problem may have been a power suppy or connector issue  in that the drive voltage was "varying or cycling" and it dropped below the necessary level during a disk write causing corrupted data.  I called Tech support and asked what should thelight be doing. The reply was blinking during data transfer and solid otherwise - unfortunately we were disconnected before I could describe my drive.  I called back, got a different specialist who told me exactly the opposite a couple of times before I asked him to check with a supervisor.  He then verified the first person's reply.  When I asked about the diming cycles, he didn't know and said he would give me an RMA to send me a new power cable or I could send the drive back.  I decided to return it to the store and get a new drive rather than return it to Seagate and be sent a refurbished drive as replacement.

Brought my new drive home and decided to let it stay connected for a while before transfering data and this one is doing the same thing.

1) Is this a normal operating characteristic for the light?

2) Why should the dile system disappear during the copying  of a non corrupt file?

3) Is this just a different manifestation of the underlying problem presented in this thread?

Arthur

[Didrik]

.... and another thing -- since these new drives are being returned and replaced by refurbished drives, perhaps the thing that's refurbished and makes them work again, would give us a clue as to the cause.  This is especially true for the drives that are being returned because they're no longer recognized by the computer.

[rseiler]

---

Didrik wrote:

.... and another thing -- since these new drives are being returned and replaced by refurbished drives, perhaps the thing that's refurbished and makes them work again, would give us a clue as to the cause.  This is especially true for the drives that are being returned because they're no longer recognized by the computer.

---

I don't know, is it possible to see the firmware revision, or is that masked? I think that's the only way to tell.

The easy way would be if Seagate simply steps up and makes a full statement about this. It would be to their benefit to get out ahead of this, lest bad publicity snowball and make its way to the major media. All it takes is the right blogger these days.

[AlanM]

I have seen several references in this thread to "I hope Seagate will answer us soon."

This is just a reminder:  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

[Didrik]

   It's curious how technology companies sometimes appear to be among the last to leverage the technology all around them, whereas their users (customers & prospects) expect them to.

   The Forum participants are simply asking Seagate-Maxtor to leverage the power of the Forum technology to address an issue in a broadcast way.  At the end of the day, Forum participants are here ro find answers, not simply read responses.  Forum participants are looking for outcomes not outputs. When dependable answers are not forthcoming from the Authoritative Source, the participants eventually cease participating.  The Forum degenerates into confirmation that significant numbers of users are having similar problems -- which at the end of the day is not of any real interest to a user who's just (temporarily or permanently) lost data.

    Related case in-point. Look at the firm's technical support:  it's not even called "Technical Support." It's called "Customer Service" perhaps because what it essentially does is hand out RMAs with little thought to technically supporting users. It's a department name conceived by marketing people, not technical-answer people.

   Instead of posting that CS is the place for this, why not post helpful information? -- even if it's simply to say "There appears to be a problem in X% of the drives that shipped and we're working to understand the parameters of the problem.  We'll send you an email when we think we have additional helpful information."

[AlanM]

Didrik,

Part of the misunderstanding here may stem from a lack of perspective.  Hundreds of 1000s of these drives have been shipped; getting 50 hits on a google search and 6 other people on a Seagate forum with the same problem is not exactly a widespread issue worthy of alarm going all the way back to R&D.  
I know that for YOU it's a big deal since it's YOUR drive.  It makes 100% sense, I understand.  I'm just trying offer a different perspective.  Product-wide defects get recalled, and recalls happen when there is a concrete flaw in hardware or firmware.  Such a defect would not manifest itself in 60 units.  More like 60,000.

In a nutshell, the problem here lies either in the individual units you possess and/or in your computer(s) and/or in the interactions each has with one another.  
Please remember that the Seagate Forums are a place for sharing questions and the answers to those questions; they are not for venting or emoting or sharing the scores of the latest sports game.  Any further off-topic post will result in the locking of the thread and a warning to the user who posts it.

Best Regards,
AlanM
Admin

[Didrik]

Understood.

[Rgold]

Same thing happed to me. Event Viewer:

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    Ftdisk
Event Category:    Disk
Event ID:    57
Date:        12/8/2007
Time:        11:02:49 AM
User:        N/A
Computer:    XXX
Description:
The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 be 00   ......¾.
0008: 02 00 00 00 39 00 04 80   ....9..
0010: 00 00 00 00 0e 00 00 c0   .......À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

And also:

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    Disk
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    51
Date:        12/8/2007
Time:        6:39:29 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    XXX
Description:
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk4\D during a paging operation.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 03 00 68 00 01 00 b6 00   ..h...¶.
0008: 00 00 00 00 33 00 04 80   ....3..
0010: 2d 01 00 00 00 00 00 00   -.......
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 0e 01 c0 00 00 00 00   ...À....
0028: 67 3a 09 00 00 00 00 00   g:......
0030: ff ff ff ff 03 00 00 00   ÿÿÿÿ....
0038: 40 00 00 84 02 00 00 00   @.. ....
0040: 00 20 0a 12 40 03 20 40   . ..@. @
0048: 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00   ........
0050: 00 00 00 00 18 9d 0e 89   ..... .
0058: 00 00 00 00 10 a4 f4 88   .....¤ô
0060: 00 00 00 00 87 00 60 00   .... .`.
0068: 28 00 00 60 00 87 00 00   (..`. ..
0070: 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0078: f0 00 02 00 00 00 00 10   ð.......
0080: 00 00 00 00 04 01 00 00   ........
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

Windows said drive is not formatted. Got a replacment but still showing event ID 51 every 3 - 6 hours. Can't trust this drive so it's going back to the store...