# Seagate Free Agent External Drive



## longtime user

Free Agent external drive does not show in computer with other drives.
Go to Control Panel. Click on Device Manager.
Check to see if FreeAgent is shown as a disk drive.
If notcheck the device list.for any Free Agent devicedouble clickand check driver. No driver installed? Update does not work? On the driver tab.click uninstall device. 
Shut down computer. Unplug Free agent USB and power at the drive.
Reboot computer. As it is rebooting..plug in the power cord. Wait a minute or two.then plug in USB cord.

Windows will found new device .. Just let the computer complete the reboot.
Then go to the device manager. Chances are..you will find Free Agent in the drives.and in the USB list of devices. Open windows explorer.and you should see you Free Agent as a drive.
Windows will ask you to install manufacturer disk. You have no disknon needed. Windows has installed the device. Just click on close. I you keep getting windows wants to install device..ignore it. You can click on dont ask again. (That is if your Free Agent drive is showing in the device manager as a diskand in windows explorer.along with your other drive or drives.)
If at some later time.your Free Agent drive does not appear.repeat the steps as listed above.
(You may think it is not working.or that it has gone bad. Try this before you try to return.)
Seagate Toolsthe new version.does not recognize to diagnose the Free Agent.
I have not tried Seagate Tools after getting the computer to recognize the drive.
I am surprised Seagate does not provide a Tool to recognize their own drivesand install and/or test Free Agent.
This does work for me with Vista. Thought I had lost the drive. Seagate should provide a patch or a drive that Windows will recognize when you get the found new hardware and Windows asks you to insert manufacturers installation disk. I do not understand why that is not already there.a driver file for Free Agent...that Windows would install. 
I did not buy Pro.because I did not need the backup software. I wonder if those who bought Pro are having these problems.


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## Suntower

Hi,

I tried this and when I re-attached the Free Agent, Windows recognizes it as an 'Unknown USB Device'. Any ideas on what to do about -that-?

Thanks,

===JC


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## longtime user

Don't attach Free Agent until you have re-booted... power cable first...and then the USB cable. In device manager disk drives....It should be there...even though windows can't install it.
This is the what finally showed up in Disk Drives Device Manager. 
Free Agent properties...
Driver Microsoft
Date: 6/21/2006 
Version: 6.0.6000.16386
You might want to download this driver from Microsoft Support. Save it to a file...and then manually install it finding the file...when it asks for a disk. Or add it to your drivers in Windows 32...drivers.... and then let Windows search for that driver....or find it manually...and install...

In USB serial device controllers...it should show as FreeAgentUSB 
Try all of it again. But first....check the device manager...for disk drives...usb ports...devices...storage devices...volume storage devices. 

If it shows in any of those device manager items....check the properties...and try to update driver...or uninstall.

Is your drive showing in Windows Explorer? and Can you save a file...see files...etc.

If it is working there.....forget the unsupported device message.

Don't give up. I hope if it worked for any other user...they will reply to let us know if it did work...or did not work. (I was ready to send it back to Seagate...glad I kept trying. Windows sometimes works in strange ways. A favorite saying of mine is.

"Microsoft Works".....if it only did.


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## Suntower

I think I figured it out. The one computer it did -not- work on has a Syncrosoft copy protection 'dongle'. When I disconnected the dongle, then rebooted, the FreeAgent was recognized. I was then able to plug the dongle back in and both seem to co-exist happily.

At least for now.  

Thanks. To -me- Windows is a lot like certain politicians. You exist in such a climate of constant uncertainty that when things actually -work- you feel like a million bucks. I'm so thrilled to get this thing working, I've almost forgotten how much of the day I spent dicking with it.

Thanks for the help. :up: 

---JC


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## Suntower

OK, now another problem.

Now, the Free Agent Pro works, but whenever I use it, my other external device (a Sony External DVD-RW drive) stops working. If I unplug the Free Agent Pro and reboot, the DVD-RW drive returns.

Now what?

---JC


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## mrss

I just bought the 320GB version. It's snazzier looking than a Maxtor USB drive/enclosure I have.

The Seagate files/utilities come on the drive, along with an auto-run file that asks to load them the first time the drive is used. I think that if you do the install, the auto-run is rewritten so it won't ask again if you put the drive on another PC.

I did install the FreeAgent software, but decided I didn't want its backup routine (which only works with the Seagate unit) nor did I want the M/S .NET framework required to run it So I took them off. I do miss the the FreeAgent utility to turn the orange bar light on the drive case on/off. I also took the FreeAgent file/folders off the drive.

No problems with it being recognized on two XP PC's and a Vista laptop as a USB drive. No problems used with other USB hard drives either.


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## iamthepip

ok so i just tore open my 320 gig seagate free agent because i wanted to start using the drive as an internal one.

so now i have installed it inside the belly of the beast (inside the desktop) 

but it wont show up on my computer.

yet if i go to manage and all that jazz, the comp knows its there its just "unallocated" 

see i formated a part of it only 5 gigs to see if it would work and it did, only catch is i have some family and pics and home made videos i wanna get from the part i cant yet access.

so what can i do?

thanks 
-Pip


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## voldemarz

Till yesterday everything was ok. Sometimes power button seemed to not work properly, but somehow I always managed to turn hdd off. But yesterday I couldn`t power it off by holding, pressing button in all possible ways. Then I got pissed and just disconnected ir from electricity.

Today hdd powers on fine, but don`t shows in drive list in "my computer". Then I looked for any Freeagent device in Device manager as you advised. There weren`t any. 




So I don`t know which of device drivers should in uninstall and reinstall.

I tried to connect drive via firewire and ir works just fine. I know it`s better than usb, I just previoulsy didn`t had firewire driver installed for Vista, but I still want to solve this usb problem.

edit1:
damm...
It started to work via usb .. strange..
What could be reasons for this moment of not working?

edit1:
Well it is becoming really annoying.. It doesn`t work via firewire no more...
I`ll try to reboot.


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## crocker99

Hey man im in a real bind here i have a seagate free agent 500 gig hard drive and now when i plug it into my laptop it will not load the software up....it then slows my pc down and everything is unresponsive when i then unplug it the pc works fine..i disable the device and the drives for it but no difference...tried it on a friends pc with the same result..please hit me back with some info im in med school and have alot of important info on that device...thank you nick


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## ianboag

Plug in drive. Wait for "device driver loaded" stuff.

Right-click on Computer. Select Manage then Disk Management. Select the USB drive (it may show as a RAW partition). Right-click and assign it a drive letter. 

Bingo


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