Other External products

[garyboozy]

i think you were pretty lucky, patrick. i bought mine from ebuyer and the clicks were there straight away. assuming it was normal, i tried to ignore it, but the clicks got gradually worse until it was sounding near death's door. did a search, found this thread, realised this drive is a lemon, and as i'd had it a few months, sent it straight to seagate. the replacement does exactly the same. ebuyer won't accept it for an exchange as it's not the original they sold me, and there's no way i'm coughing up another £9 to send it to seagate just to get yet another faulty drive. so now i'm stuck with a £60 paper weight.

been said by others in this thread already, but i'll never buy seagate again. 

right, i'm off to look up on some consumer rights...

[tigger5]

Got my freeagent desk 1.5tb...for those in canada...costco has it on sale today..less than what the expansion costed......here's hoping it is as solid as the 500 gig versions....

[Muppet]

Hello all.

I have bought  a Seagate External Desktop Drive 1.5 TB on 01/07/2010 at a local online store (I live in Brazil). On the first use it already presented the clicking sounds, but I thought the drive was just noisy. I have transferred a lot of data to it, and while the drive seemed very slow at times I didn't pay much attention. I got very upset when I tried to play my mp3 files stored in it. I can't hear a whole song without the drive clicking and cutting the data transfer, sometimes for 20 long seconds, before resuming to play the rest of the song. The same thing happens for video files and even for simple actions such as copying, moving or even just renaming files stored in it. I have looked for solutions on Seagate's website and found this forum.

I am grateful to this community and to the people who posted their solutions. I didn't try to change the cables and I don't want to open the case because of the warranty. I'm getting in contact with Brazilian support to see if they can shed any light on this matter. I will report back to this forum should I be able to find a solution. 

[p a t r i c k]

Hi Muppet

I recommend you return the drive to the retailer and get a refund.

My experience is that replacing the drive with Seagate is no good as for me the replacement had exactly the same problem.

[Tamadite]

I bought a Mac this weekend. The click problem started again when the Mac woke up from standby/hibernate. In other words, there are no problems if I plug the HD when the Mac is already on or if I power the Mac with the HD already plugged. I get problems when the Mac wakes up from standby/hibernate. The clicking start right away and in a very loud and scary manner.  The only way of stopping it is by unplugging the HD.

[tigger5]

---

Tamadite wrote:

In other words, there are no problems if I plug the HD when the Mac is already on or if I power the Mac with the HD already plugged.

---

 

Well, not to burst your bubble, but the clicking WILL get worste and consistant...wether waking from sleep or plugging it on after starting up.....

 

If you transfer a large file onto the external drive, then try copying it back,  I think you may have a surprise (not a good one).... 

As a suggestion, if it clicks, bring it back BEFORE you get burnt...not fun recouping terabytes worth of info....

either way, good luck 

 

As I mentioned before, the FreeAgent Desk (Silver) drives seam VERY solid compared to the expansion drives... 

[tokyo eye]

just thought i'd share my experience. i got a 1.5tb external seagate a few months ago, worked fine for a bit, then the clicking started. researched online, realised it was a known problem (should have checked before buying...), couldn't find receipt to take back. decided i'd stick with it and see how it went. of course, the clicking continued. was clicking almost constantly, upon startup, would click incessantly before even being mounted, tranfers would take forever as they were constantly interrupted, etc...

i am not sure what drove me to try this, but i placed a cd carry-case full of cds (holding roughly 20 cds) on top of the drive... and magically the clicking stopped. it's been working fine for about 2 weeks now. i just transfered 15GB to it without a single click. it must be said, there are times when it clicks (for example when it starts up or when it goes into standby), but these are single clicks only.

before, i would often hear the drive spinning, a kind of scraping sound inside, then the clicking would start. this no longer happens. the only explanation i guess is that the clicking is caused by some internal parts touching, which placing something on top of the drive prevents. given this, it makes sense that people have found the clicking goes away when putting the drive in another case.

anyway i hope this sorts the problem for some of you. admittedly, it's a bit inconvenient to have something resting on the drive the whole time, but if it fixes the problem...

i will post again if the situation changes...

[BarryS]

I just bought a ST320005EXD101-RK and straight away it's clicking. It seems to be doing the transfer that I'm attempting, but often has these little clicking fits. I don't trust this thing at all to not fail on me.

[Bergueeburp]

Just buy expansion ST310005EXA101-RK.  

My vista 64 see it right away.  Seem to work.

I beguin to backup my stuff then BIGBIGBIG FREEZE.

NOW i`m stuck whit this ...p that make me reset my system 50 times on a week.

Before this first and last and long and unsatisfaying experience, my computer was working good and stable.

Even format vista and my first hd.

THIS IS THE END MY ONLY FRIEND THE END.

[b66]

Add another one to the "CLICKER" list! Bought a new Seagate BlackArmor WS 110 2TB. I am using the eSATA cable from Seagate. Within a few hours I heard the clicking sound. I didn't think much about it at first but after a few days of it started checking into it and that brought me here. I intend to use this drive soley for backup of data. I only turn it on when I am going to backup data to it. Its not on all the time my system is on. When its on, and not even accessing it it will make the clicking sound sporatically. When transferring files to it, it makes the clicking sound very often. If I send it back for replacement whats the use if the replacement will have the same inherent problems(as mentioned in many posts here as well as other places). All I can say is I am very disappointed with these problems. Some of the very first harddrives I used, many years ago, were Seagates. I had faith and trust in them BUT THAT was Before...Now, I would never ever purchase another seagate, maxtor or whatever else and I would certainly not recommend them to anyone(unless they need an expensive doorstop). Its sad that something hasn't been done about these well known problems with the clicking a long time ago instead of doing a sorry song and dance about the problem. Good luck to all......Remember the clicks next time you or anyone you know is looking to purchase a new harddrive.