Don't Buy Seagate Freee Agent External Hard Drives!!!!!!

[gecko]

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]

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

All right - I'll bite.

Who or what is Garry Glitter?

-GECKO

 

[Joel]

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>

 

[gecko]

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.

 

[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.

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

 

[Grinder]

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

 

[gecko]

Wipe it with dd.

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

Dumbly, I ask - What is dd?

 

[Grinder]

Dumbly, I ask - What is dd?

It's a command utility to byte-fill a hard drive. It's tangentially
described in the link provided, and more explicitly here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)

dd is in many, maybe all, linux installs, so you should be able to use a
live cd to boot up and wipe a drive. Just be careful that you get the
right one.

Do read the first link, though, as it works to dispel the myth that it's
next to impossible to completely obliterate your pr0n^H^H^H^H sensitive
data from a hard drive.

 

[CBFalconer]

Dumbly, I ask - What is dd?

A standard *IX utility, also available on Winders via DJGPP:

$ dd --help
Usage: dd [OPTION]...
Copy a file, converting and formatting according to the options.

bs=BYTES force ibs=BYTES and obs=BYTES
cbs=BYTES convert BYTES bytes at a time
conv=KEYWORDS convert the file as per the comma separated
keyword list
count=BLOCKS copy only BLOCKS input blocks
ibs=BYTES read BYTES bytes at a time
if=FILE read from FILE instead of stdin
obs=BYTES write BYTES bytes at a time
of=FILE write to FILE instead of stdout
seek=BLOCKS skip BLOCKS obs-sized blocks at start of output
skip=BLOCKS skip BLOCKS ibs-sized blocks at start of input
--help display this help and exit
--version output version information and exit

BLOCKS and BYTES may be followed by the following multiplicative
suffixes:
xM M, c 1, w 2, b 512, kD 1000, k 1024, MD 1,000,000, M 1,048,576,
GD 1,000,000,000, G 1,073,741,824, and so on for T, P, E, Z, Y.
Each KEYWORD may be:

ascii from EBCDIC to ASCII
ebcdic from ASCII to EBCDIC
ibm from ASCII to alternated EBCDIC
block pad newline-terminated records with spaces to cbs-size
unblock replace trailing spaces in cbs-size records with
newline
lcase change upper case to lower case
notrunc do not truncate the output file
ucase change lower case to upper case
swab swap every pair of input bytes
noerror continue after read errors
sync pad every input block with NULs to ibs-size; when used
with block or unblock, pad with spaces rather than
NULs

Report bugs to <[email protected]>.

 

[Paul]

It's a command utility to byte-fill a hard drive. It's tangentially
described in the link provided, and more explicitly here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)

dd is in many, maybe all, linux installs, so you should be able to use a
live cd to boot up and wipe a drive. Just be careful that you get the
right one.

Do read the first link, though, as it works to dispel the myth that it's
next to impossible to completely obliterate your pr0n^H^H^H^H sensitive
data from a hard drive.

It's been ported to Windows, here. A very dangerous utility, if
you don't know what you're doing.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

Paul

 

[Miles Bader]

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.

Heh, I think a big ol' fan bolted to the _outside_ of the case would
look pretty cool, in a Brazil sort of way ....

-Miles