Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk frustration

Healthy_One's solution worked for me when everything else failed to get my 2009 MacBook Pro to recognize the formerly recognizable Seagate Free Agent GoFlex. As suggested, I put the base of the drive in the freezer for five minutes, zapped the pram three times, and then plugged in the power adapter and the data cable, and Voila! there was the drive on my desktop. I can't begin to tell you how happy this makes me. I've got 1.2 terrabytes of music on there, laborously ripped from my CD collection, and the prospect of spending another few months re-ripping was not appealing. I have no idea why this should work, but I'm really glad it does!

If that fixed your problem and the timing wasn't just a fluke, then either there's a bad solder joint somewhere or the fluid bearings in the drive leaked and the heads got stuck to the platter. Either way, copy the data to a new drive quickly.

I have 3 different Seagate drives, and all are working perfectly fine for me.

With my previous desktop Mac (that I bought in 2001) I was using a 1TB FreeAgent drive and a 1.5TB FreeAgent drive. A year ago I finally upgraded to an Intel Mac (iMac) and am still using those drives, plus a 3TB GoFlex drive that I recently bought.

I'm no computer genius or anything, but I really think the problem might be caused by installing the software that comes with these drives. I never have. I just take the drives out of the box, plug them in, open up Apple's "Disk Utility" and reformat them as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)." No third party software/drivers needed.

Who needs Seagate's backup software (or whatever it is) when we have Time Machine?

Resurrecting an old thread, but I had the same Seagate disconnect errors reported by others here. On a Mac Mini (2010) upgraded to Mavericks OS X 10.9, I kept getting disconnects of my 2TB USB Seagate GoFlex Desk external hard drive. This was aggravating as I could even mount the drive for a minute or two before it'd blank out. I tried this on other macs as well, even one that hadn't been upgraded, and for some reason it was still on the fritz.

The only solution I have found that gives me enough time to pull data off the drive, so far, is to use a different type of USB-to-miniUSB adapter to connect to the USB 2.0 GoFlex base adapter. Instead of using either the original USB cord or else another one (just to test if the original one was messed up), I found a USB-to-miniUSB cord that actually has two USB plugs that go into my Mac (or in this case, a USB hub). I had this for an unrelated external DVD-R drive, and also a similar cord for a portable external hard drive that was powered from the USB only. For some reason, with *two* USB plugs attached to my mac, for either power reasons or other stability reasons, I've been able to hold the Seagate drive mounted long enough to pull my data off.

My buggy Seagate drive is HFS+ formatted. I actually have a second identical drive that I'm keeping a careful eye on as well... so far, so good.

So bottom line: one additional maneuver to try, if you're still struggling: get one of the two-headed USB cords that usually goes with portable hard drives or external DVD-R drives, and give that a try.

If anyone is still having trouble with these drives, I have recently found a different solution. My old Freeagent Mac 500GB Firewire 800 disk failed after 4 years of constant use and was replaced with a Firewire 3TB GoFlex Desk. Great, I thought, until it wouldn't copy past about 280GB.

Long story short, I returned a total of 4 of these drives to Seagate over a period of about 6 months. All of which I noted were Seagate repair drives, not new as I'd expected. I tried to make them work both on my late 2011 iMac, running Mavericks and my late 2012 MBP running Mountain Lion. But they either failed completely or would stop copying and hang my sytem up till I had to hold the power button down to switch off. Not good.

Eventually they offered me a newbuild 4TB Backup Plus. Great, I thought. When a 3TB GoFle Desk USB3 arrived I wasn't best pleased. They said the returned drive had been healthy even though I'd sent a screenshot of the drive stats after it failed the Seagate disk test on my system. So, they told me to keep the 3TB and they would send the Backup Plus also. Great, I thought. Backup Plus gave the same faults. I tried most of the different methods from on here to no avail but I didn't try sticking it in the freezer as I thought that was a bridge too far.

I then thought to sell them as Windows disks and be done with it, so after reformatting them as Apple Partition Map because I found Windows couldn't alter the GUID Partition, I hooked them back up to my old Windows machine and reformatted them MBR NTFS.

Just as an experiment, as I have NTFS for Mac installed, I plugged the GoFlex Desk back into my Mac and set it copying 1TB of data from another drive. No problem!! I have since filled both drives with data as backups of backups and not so much as a hickup! Not ideal but NTFS is working for me so far and I don't need to use them very often so there you go!

I did email Seagate with my findings but they haven't bothered to reply. It seems that both Apple and Seagate must be aware of this problem but are content to just ignore the issue.

Graham.R wrote:

Latest update:

The drive is working normally. Time machine ran flawlessly overnight, I now have a full backup of my startup disk. In addition, I've also copied a 20GB drive to another partition on the Seagate, and that completed without a hitch.

So, the solution appears to be: remove everything Seagate related from the startup disk. Invisible files, kexts, drivers, installers... everything. Spotlight won't show you all of these, so use something like EasyFind.

If you look back in this thread you'll find that solution was first posted in 2012, and still this crap is still being supplied and sadly users still install it.

studleygoodhead wrote:

Great, I thought, until it wouldn't copy past about 280GB.

bad bad idea

Dont even think of doing something like that.

Dan the ****** wrote:

Who needs Seagate's backup software (or whatever it is) when we have Time Machine?

You dont even need Time Machine, most pros DONT USE IT.

Its a newbie method of internal backup.

Use data archives and rotating HD clones.

Mark Cherrington wrote:

I've got 1.2 terrabytes of music on there, laborously ripped from my CD collection, and the prospect of spending another few months re-ripping was not appealing.

Youve violated RULE #1 of data protection.

RULE #1 When (not if) your internal HD / SSD or external HD crashes or fails, and this creates a bad problem, or any problem for yourself regarding worry about your data, ... then you have a problem that must be fixed in your data protection plans.

HD are cheap as dirt, always always always have MINIMUM 3 external copies of ALL important data.

backup

(protected) archive

and redundancy

Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection

Dan the ****** wrote:

I'm no computer genius or anything, but I really think the problem might be caused by installing the software that comes with these drives.

50-70% of the time when an external HD fails UNDER 4 years, and is at least 4 months into use, its a FAILED SATA CARD issue.

a very high failure point

Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD

What exactly is the SATA bridge card in your external HD?

In the middle to late of 2009, most all external hard drives both in 2.5” and 3.5” reached the shelves in SATA III. These small SATA cards or "bridges" are used to translate between the hard drives’ interfaces and the enclosures' external ports (USB, Thunderbolt, Firewire). Additionally these small bridges not only transfer power but also of course the data. Unfortunately these SATA bridge cards have a very high failure rate as they are burdened with moving power (in 2.5" HD) and of course data.

Literally, these little unreliable and fragile cards are the power conduits and of course the nervous system for all external HD data transfer.

SATA card as found inside a typical USB external hard drive

While the shapes and sizes vary somewhat on SATA bridge cards, they all serve the same purpose and have likewise failure rates

What are the realistic odds your HD is perfectly fine?

There are no hard facts whatsoever, especially since so many people discard their assumed “dead/faulty” hard drives, but a good educated conclusion from years of examining and seeing this issue is that for hard drives made since 2010, and not dropped or generally abused, is that a minimum of 50% conservatively are perfectly fine, if 4 years old or less! I personally estimate however that it likely approaches 65%+ .

If your hard drive fails within the first 2 months, highest liklihood is 'infant mortality' (see below), common to new HD where failure runs 'high'.

The assumption that the hard drive is bad when its not!

Countless 1000s of good external hard drives are thrown away each year because the owner thought the HD was bad when it fact it was the SATA bridge card which had failed. This card is removed in a matter of mere second once an external USB HD is cracked open from its plastic casing to reveal the bare HD and the attached SATA card which attaches between the HD and the USB cable.