I have two Seagate Free Agent External Hard Drives (USB) - both 500GB.
They are about two months old. One is the PRO model.

About two weeks ago, the PRO model started acting weird. It would
lose ability to access (read or otherwise) folders and files after
being on a while. Since I detected that it was a little warm, I tried
a test by blowing a small fan I have onto it. Once it cooled down, it
accessed folders and files fine. As another test, I tried draping a
damp (cold water) wash cloth over it, It has never failed since I
have been doing that.

Now suddenly, the second model has quit completely. It will not fire
up at all. I exchanged the power supplies to see if that is the
problem, but it is not.

They likely are under warranty, and Seagate might replace them I
suppose, but here's the thing - I have confidential data on both
drives, and so am reluctant to release them.

I guess I am out $270! My advice right now is = don't buy one.

-GECKO

"gecko" <alpha@olympus.net> wrote in message
news:5o68c4988jbkjmqjo25ejr0unee8seg372@4ax.com...
>I have two Seagate Free Agent External Hard Drives (USB) - both 500GB.
> They are about two months old. One is the PRO model.
>
> About two weeks ago, the PRO model started acting weird. It would
> lose ability to access (read or otherwise) folders and files after
> being on a while. Since I detected that it was a little warm, I tried
> a test by blowing a small fan I have onto it. Once it cooled down, it
> accessed folders and files fine. As another test, I tried draping a
> damp (cold water) wash cloth over it, It has never failed since I
> have been doing that.
>
> Now suddenly, the second model has quit completely. It will not fire
> up at all. I exchanged the power supplies to see if that is the
> problem, but it is not.
>
> They likely are under warranty, and Seagate might replace them I
> suppose, but here's the thing - I have confidential data on both
> drives, and so am reluctant to release them.
>
> I guess I am out $270! My advice right now is = don't buy one.
>
> -GECKO
>

yes, look what happened to Garry Glitter............

On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 20:11:33 +0100, "\(!\)" <Hypoid90@btinternet.com>
wrote:

>
>yes, look what happened to Garry Glitter............
>


All right - I'll bite.

Who or what is Garry Glitter?

-GECKO

On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:28:18 GMT, gecko <alpha@olympus.net>
wrote:

>I have two Seagate Free Agent External Hard Drives (USB) - both 500GB.
>They are about two months old. One is the PRO model.
>
>About two weeks ago, the PRO model started acting weird. It would
>lose ability to access (read or otherwise) folders and files after
>being on a while. Since I detected that it was a little warm, I tried
>a test by blowing a small fan I have onto it. Once it cooled down, it
>accessed folders and files fine. As another test, I tried draping a
>damp (cold water) wash cloth over it, It has never failed since I
>have been doing that.
>
>Now suddenly, the second model has quit completely. It will not fire
>up at all. I exchanged the power supplies to see if that is the
>problem, but it is not.
>
>They likely are under warranty, and Seagate might replace them I
>suppose, but here's the thing - I have confidential data on both
>drives, and so am reluctant to release them.
>
>I guess I am out $270! My advice right now is = don't buy one.
>
>-GECKO

Did you wait long enough for them to completely cool off
then plug them in and try to access again?

Try placing the drive from the failed one in the other one
or better still, skip doing that and put the drive in a
desktop system temporarily to get the data off and/or wipe
the drive with a multipass overwrite IF it's really
important enough to bother with and the drive works still.
That is, if you can do so without damaging the case while
opening it, which might also void the warranty but the other
alternative is not sending it to them which makes the
warranty useless either way.


I always drill extra vent holes and/or add fan(s) in any
enclosure, and in most other small gadgets like that
including routers, switches, modems occasionally. Sometimes
it ends up looking a little ghetto but really not too bad if
the hole for a fan is cut with a holesaw. Sometimes the fan
fits on the inside and sometimes outside. I tend to put a
roughly 68-100 Ohm 2W power resistor in series with the 12V
fan to reduce it's RPM quite a bit, and it's power draw off
the enclosure PSU. Even a tiny 40mm fan running at 1000 RPM
is a lot better than only passive cooling.

Sadly such measures void the warranty... but I consider the
time and data worth more than the cost of the drive or
enclosure (whichever failed).

We had an argument in this newsgroup a while back about
whether it was reasonable/safe to send a drive back to the
manufacturer under warranty if it held sensitive data. My
position was that nobody in the discussion had ever heard of
a drive being sent direct to the manufacturer and later had
any evidence the manufacturer had retrieved, let alone done
anything with the data. In other words, I don't think it's
very reasonable to be concerned about that until there is at
least one person anywhere that has it happen. There's bound
to still be people who disagree with that but what "could"
happen in theory and what does happen aren't necessarily
reasonable risks.

On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:44:56 GMT, gecko <alpha@olympus.net>
wrote:

>On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 20:11:33 +0100, "\(!\)" <Hypoid90@btinternet.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>yes, look what happened to Garry Glitter............
>>
>
>
>All right - I'll bite.
>
>Who or what is Garry Glitter?
>
>-GECKO

He's a paedophile who had child porn found on his hard drive
after taking a system to PC World - NOT a hard drive
manufacturer. There is a world of difference in that having
some geeky youngster working on a system with an intact hard
drive will need to be looking at what's on it while a HDD
manufacturer not only doesn't, wouldn't want to risk their
reputation by not having a legitimate reason to look at
users' drive contents at all.

gecko <alpha@olympus.net> wrote:

> I have two Seagate Free Agent External Hard Drives (USB) - both 500GB.
> They are about two months old. One is the PRO model.
>
> About two weeks ago, the PRO model started acting weird. It would
> lose ability to access (read or otherwise) folders and files after
> being on a while. Since I detected that it was a little warm, I tried
> a test by blowing a small fan I have onto it. Once it cooled down, it
> accessed folders and files fine. As another test, I tried draping a
> damp (cold water) wash cloth over it, It has never failed since I
> have been doing that.
>
> Now suddenly, the second model has quit completely. It will not fire
> up at all. I exchanged the power supplies to see if that is the
> problem, but it is not.
>
> They likely are under warranty, and Seagate might replace them I
> suppose, but here's the thing - I have confidential data on both
> drives, and so am reluctant to release them.
>
> I guess I am out $270! My advice right now is = don't buy one.
>
> -GECKO

Heheheh why you didn't listen to us when we suggested not to, and now you
warn other not to? <bg>

On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:21:50 -0400, kony <spam@spam.com> wrote:


>
>Did you wait long enough for them to completely cool off
>then plug them in and try to access again?

Yes - and they do.

>
>Try placing the drive from the failed one in the other one
>or better still, skip doing that and put the drive in a
>desktop system temporarily to get the data off and/or wipe
>the drive with a multipass overwrite IF it's really
>important enough to bother with and the drive works still.
>That is, if you can do so without damaging the case while
>opening it, which might also void the warranty but the other
>alternative is not sending it to them which makes the
>warranty useless either way.

Interestingly, the regular drive (not the PRO) seemingly has no screws
nor anything else that I can fine holding the case together.
Therefore, I am unable to get it apart.
>
>
>I always drill extra vent holes and/or add fan(s) in any
>enclosure, and in most other small gadgets like that
>including routers, switches, modems occasionally.

Yes - my computer-smart daughter has already told me that these
external drives are deficient in ventilation.

>Sometimes
>it ends up looking a little ghetto but really not too bad if
>the hole for a fan is cut with a holesaw. Sometimes the fan
>fits on the inside and sometimes outside. I tend to put a
>roughly 68-100 Ohm 2W power resistor in series with the 12V
>fan to reduce it's RPM quite a bit, and it's power draw off
>the enclosure PSU. Even a tiny 40mm fan running at 1000 RPM
>is a lot better than only passive cooling.
>
>Sadly such measures void the warranty... but I consider the
>time and data worth more than the cost of the drive or
>enclosure (whichever failed).
>
>We had an argument in this newsgroup a while back about
>whether it was reasonable/safe to send a drive back to the
>manufacturer under warranty if it held sensitive data. My
>position was that nobody in the discussion had ever heard of
>a drive being sent direct to the manufacturer and later had
>any evidence the manufacturer had retrieved, let alone done
>anything with the data. In other words, I don't think it's
>very reasonable to be concerned about that until there is at
>least one person anywhere that has it happen. There's bound
>to still be people who disagree with that but what "could"
>happen in theory and what does happen aren't necessarily
>reasonable risks.

On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:13:34 GMT, gecko <alpha@olympus.net>
wrote:

>On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:21:50 -0400, kony <spam@spam.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Did you wait long enough for them to completely cool off
>>then plug them in and try to access again?
>
>Yes - and they do.
>
>>
>>Try placing the drive from the failed one in the other one
>>or better still, skip doing that and put the drive in a
>>desktop system temporarily to get the data off and/or wipe
>>the drive with a multipass overwrite IF it's really
>>important enough to bother with and the drive works still.
>>That is, if you can do so without damaging the case while
>>opening it, which might also void the warranty but the other
>>alternative is not sending it to them which makes the
>>warranty useless either way.
>
>Interestingly, the regular drive (not the PRO) seemingly has no screws
>nor anything else that I can fine holding the case together.
>Therefore, I am unable to get it apart.

Check under stickers and (if there are any) rubber feet on
the bottom. If there's no hidden screws it's probably a
friction-tab arrangement where you'd need to find an
inconspicuous area (since it may blemish or bend the plastic
a little) to wedge a thin knife blade in and slant it the
direction that the lips of the shell interlock, scooting it
along the seam wiggling till you pop apart the first
friction tab then in that gap stuff a piece of cardboard or
a plastic strip like a cut-up piece of an old credit card.

I vaguely recall someone saying they had an enclosure that
was glued together but I don't remember which brand... don't
think it was Seagate but I could be wrong and that wouldn't
prevent Seagate from doing the same... though I doubt many
glue them together because that would be a
service/refurb/etc problem.

>>
>>I always drill extra vent holes and/or add fan(s) in any
>>enclosure, and in most other small gadgets like that
>>including routers, switches, modems occasionally.
>
>Yes - my computer-smart daughter has already told me that these
>external drives are deficient in ventilation.
>

I just like playing with my drill press. :-)
That the gear ends up lasting longer is a nice side-effect.

On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:40:17 -0400, kony <spam@spam.com> wrote:


>He's a paedophile who had child porn found on his hard drive
>after taking a system to PC World - NOT a hard drive
>manufacturer. There is a world of difference in that having
>some geeky youngster working on a system with an intact hard
>drive will need to be looking at what's on it while a HDD
>manufacturer not only doesn't, wouldn't want to risk their
>reputation by not having a legitimate reason to look at
>users' drive contents at all.


Oh I don't have a porn problem. It is just that I have stored
personal data - bank account info, passwords, etc. I would not want
that data to fall into the wrong hands.

-GECKO

gecko wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:40:17 -0400, kony <spam@spam.com> wrote:
>
>
>> He's a paedophile who had child porn found on his hard drive
>> after taking a system to PC World - NOT a hard drive
>> manufacturer. There is a world of difference in that having
>> some geeky youngster working on a system with an intact hard
>> drive will need to be looking at what's on it while a HDD
>> manufacturer not only doesn't, wouldn't want to risk their
>> reputation by not having a legitimate reason to look at
>> users' drive contents at all.
>
>
> Oh I don't have a porn problem. It is just that I have stored
> personal data - bank account info, passwords, etc. I would not want
> that data to fall into the wrong hands.

Wipe it with dd.

http://16systems.com/zero/index.html