Other External products

[TT4001]

I'm having a problem with my OneTouch 4 external USB drive.  Sometimes windows will recognize it and sometime it will not recognize it.  Mostly it will not recognize it.  Sometimes Windows will act like the drive was just attached to the computer and ask if I want to view the files.  This sometimes happens several times an hour while I am logged onto the computer doing other things.  When it recognizes it, I cam able to get into the drive and grab some files from it, but eventually windows will quit recognizing it.  I have changed the USB cable twice, connected it to different power sources, connected it to different USB ports, connected it to different computers.  It has been running under windows 7 for about six months and before that for a longer period of time under Windows XP.  The drive has been reliable until now.  Any help greatly appretiacted!

[AlanM]

Can you run SeaTools for Windows on the drive?

Is there a possibility of trying a different USB cable?

[TT4001]

Hi Alan,

     Thank you for your reply!

     Seatools doesn't usually recognize the drive.  However, I was able to get it to run againt the drive for one time.  SeaTools gave a test code of 93D4C3C7.  The screen capture of all three tabs from the SeaTools in in a MS word document in the attached zip file.

     I have tried a couple of different cables.

     I have also tried the drive on a Windows 7 box, a Windows XP box.  I also have a Linux box I could try it on, but have not yet done that.

     The odd thing is that Windows 7 will recognize the drive for short periods of time and I can get in there a grab a few files, then it can no longer be accessed.  Once in a while Windows will say that the drive needs to be formatted before it can be used; I do not format the drive and simply hit the cancel button.

     It is almost as if the drive controller in the external case has an intermittent flaw.  Or maybe some heating issue since it will run for a short period of time; but the drive does not feel hot from the outside of the case.

Thanks!

[silence711]

If the drive is failing Seatools, then it will ultimately need to be replaced. 

Is the data on the drive your only copy or do you have it backed up somewhere else?

[txguy]

As of 4 days ago I have encountered the same problem, except the occassional loss of recognition by my Vista V6 SP2 32bit 4GBRAM computer. occured if something or someone caused a disturbance to drive, cable, or computer, such as cleaning person dusting a little bit too hard, the Windows would not recognize the drive, but just pushing on the cable connections and viola it was recognized.  Other than that the drive has performed flawlessly for 5 years.

I have noticed that since this issue started to occur that the drive feels very hot to the touch.  Also if the drive is attached computer will not shutdown or restart requiring a depowering.  If drive is connected computer may show drive, but drive will indicate all files are there but file is empty or may not show any files.  Using Drive Manager by right clicking under Start show drive and is correctly configured and working.  This occurance requires the disconnect/reconnect of drive.  I have used Sea Tools receiving the message after 3rd attempt, with Sea Tools finally recognizing drive that Tests Unavailable.  Allso tried to use Seagate Disk Wizard but could not recognize drive.  Installed new Seagate Backup Plus with Seagate Dashboard, and had Maxtor attached and recognized, attempted to create a new Backup Plan and computer froze.   

I have been using this drive for a file sharing program, but only the one program.  Is this something that Maxtor and also Go Flex drives are not designed to do?

Do not have a true backup as you describe it, did until about 2 weeks ago when 2TB Free Agent Go Flex Desk was abruptly knocked onto the floor, yanking it out of USB connection and power supply, knocking off base.  Sea Tools shows has 248 bad sectors, starting with sector 0 and drive size is only 3.82GB, so no backup now.  All Maxtor drive files are showing on drive, but when try to access error that Windows cannot access file, to recheck typing and path.  The software is on the C drive under Program Files as per instructions at installation.  Because of the Go Flex disaster, I have several data recovery software packages including Seagate Data Recovery and in trying them on Maxtor the packages cannot find the drive, including one that found it and scanned the drive for lost data files reported that drive did not have any FAT or NTFS files.  With this long winded story what do you suggest for backing up the data on the Maxtor are 2 files but 460GB.  How can I backup the data or recover it as I am sure that drive is failing or at the very least needs reformat and reinstallation.  Thanks