# Seagate External Drive Click of Death



## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I bought the 1T Seagate Expansion drive, powered it through a switch box so it didn't have to run all the time while the computer was on, and after an estimated use of less than 24 hours in a 3 month period, it started to throw IO errors and when touching it, felt it thumping inside.
Other users are hearing loud clicking coming from these units as they fail.
The failure rate of Seagate externals is so great, the moderators at the official Seagate customer site:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Other-External-products/bd-p/PersonalStorage
are ignoring many if not most complaints.

Seagate claims the problem has been fixed .
But customers are reporting the replacement drives are often defective.


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## valis (Sep 24, 2004)

hmmmm........read all the posts there, and quite frankly, I'm surprised. I've got a couple seagate drives, neither of the expansion variety, however, and have had zero issues with them. Both WD and Seagate have been very helpful to me in the past when having to deal with client-side rigs that had had HD's go south, but this seems to be a huge oversight (at first look; obviously there could be more under the surface that we are not aware of) on Seagate's part.

Due to their long-standing history of pretty solid manufacturing and customer support, I'm a bit surprised to say the least......hope you get it worked out, SJ........


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## valis (Sep 24, 2004)

fwiw, this is the external Seagate I have, and again, nada issues with it......


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I've had excellent results in the past with Seagate/Maxtor internal drives.....WD and Hitachi also.
This was a problem out of the blue for me.
I'd been using an external enclosure with an even older 60gb Maxtor internal drive and wanted the security of backups in a new external drive.
The old drive still functions properly and is still quiet and in use for backups.
Pays to have multiple backups in place for important data......in this case family financial records.


Thanks for correcting the typo .....


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## valis (Sep 24, 2004)

de nada.........

yup, I've got two externals and one internal, all mirrored to each other. I just use a simple folder structure away from the docs and settings (right of the root, so it read c:\valis\folder structure) and then just synch the root folder weekly with the two externals........as I do a lot of work mobile, I find it's easier (and more redundant) to have one external at work, one portable, and the internal obviously with the mothership.

I'll keep an eye out to see if I hear anything else on this; again, it's strikes me as odd that something like this would occur to Seagate, given their rather lengthy and strong rep in the data storage industry.......


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

From reading that Seagate link I posted earlier, it looks like consumers are having issues with some models of Seagate external drives not being recognized in Windows.


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Doesn't look like Newegg's reviews are very good either.


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Stoner said:


> I bought the 1T Seagate Expansion drive, powered it through a switch box so it didn't have to run all the time while the computer was on ...


I've always wondered .. How do the externals without power Switches operate ???
Do they run all the time .. Or just when the computer is running ??

And why do they hide the power switch on the back panel of all the enclosures .. If they have one ??


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## calvin-c (May 17, 2006)

I recently threw out a WD 250GB external-it kept disconnecting mid-way thru a backup. I couldn't tell if it was the drive or enclosure but either way it wasn't worth trying to figure out so I just tossed it. But it had 3 push buttons on the front of the case, one of which was the 'power button' except it only worked right when turning the drive on. (The other two were for 'one-touch backup' and they invoked different types of backups. I don't remember what they were because I never used them.)

Anyway, it was a good idea but they failed to make it a 'hard' switch. Probably for safety, i.e. when you turned the drive off it was probably supposed to wait until everything had been written to the disk but instead it waited until the computer was shut down-or until I pulled the plug. Good ideas poorly implemented are, IMO, worse than poor ideas implemented correctly.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Noyb said:


> I've always wondered .. How do the externals without power Switches operate ???
> Do they run all the time .. Or just when the computer is running ??
> 
> And why do they hide the power switch on the back panel of all the enclosures .. If they have one ??


Apparently my Seagate had the ability to sense a powered USB port and would turn off if I used the Windows 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon....or the computer was turned off.......but I've heard complaints that this didn't work properly on various brand name drives and caused overheating in some cases.

I connected mine up to a switch box because it had no power switch of it's own.


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## dj-jamster (Dec 11, 2010)

Seems odd.. Seagate are normally good.. I've had my Verbatim for a year now and its choca-block of stuff (about 200GB!) and been dropped and the case fell of but no errors as of yet


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

I used to think Seagate's were the best .. But then Seagate bought out the worst manufacturer. 
Then, I wasn't sure what I was getting .. So I moved to Western Digital HDDs.

Nowadays .. I build my own Externals by getting a good enclosure with a power switch and a large fan ..
And install the best WD Black series HDD with a 5 year warranty.

Any data you don't care about is data you only have one copy of .. So, I usually get two of each.
This also gives me a backup Enclosure .. (Since I can Swap the HDDs in the enclosures) ...
Which I've found to be less reliable than the HDDs I put in them.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

after reading a ton of info regarding external drives, and my own post, if to keep Iomega 1TB with no on-off switch or not, 
I have decided to keep it, since many new extUsb drives have no on off switch. Price is another point, 50 bucks won't kill me, while if I buy another brand, it would cost me a lot more. Since nearly every brand seems to be a hit and miss decision, let's see how long this Iomega will last, and I will report back here. I just hope it won't be too soon.
Regarding power, I will just pull the power-wire out when not in use.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Just some oddities of my particular drive that seem irregular to the point of there being a possible fault in more than the physical drive.

I decided to experiment with my external drive by splitting the drive into two partitions....a small one at the beginning of the drive, about 100 MB, and the remainder in the existing space.
I did this using Disk Management in a win7 64 bit version of Home premium.
I accomplished the repartition, but Windows now saw 2 small partitions on the drive.....plus the big one.
What I pasted into one of the small partitions could be read in the other and vice versa.
But only one small partition could be seen in Disk Management.

Then I deleted the small partition I could see in Disk Management, but only one of the partitions disappeared in Windows.
However, nothing could be saved to the observed 'phantom' small partition.
Upon a reboot, this 'phantom' partition disappeared.

But now the comprehensive check disk won't function on the remaining large partition of this Seagate drive.

Oddly, it doesn't seem to be thumping quite as hard as before, but the thump is still there and occurs randomly whether the drive is idle or being written to/read from.


BTW....I quit using it as a backup.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

Since we are here under "REVIEWS" we might as report anything strange to those external drives.

Does your Seagate have a hidden partition or section like the IOMEGA? What does your Properties say? I have 93 MB taken and the rest is free (right-clicked on the drive and the pie showed the numbers) but nothing is shown inside Explorer.
What is a comprehensive check disk, do you mean chkdsk? I don't have Windows 7 yet.

I wonder if anyone tried to partition with Acronis? I told Acronis to manage my laptop and then found out, it made a small partition on drive C and now I can't delete it or do anything with it, cannot be re-sized, repartitioned or written to it. Maybe this is how Windows 7 handles partitioning?

I think _phantom _is still on your phantom drive _and is upset_ about being partitioned.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bp936 said:


> Since we are here under "REVIEWS" we might as report anything strange to those external drives.
> 
> Does your Seagate have a hidden partition or section like the IOMEGA? What does your Properties say? I have 93 MB taken and the rest is free (right-clicked on the drive and the pie showed the numbers) but nothing is shown inside Explorer.
> What is a comprehensive check disk, do you mean chkdsk? I don't have Windows 7 yet.
> ...


No hidden Partitions with my Seagate.
Partitioning does reduce the usable size of a drive.
The more partitions, the the less room available .
Originally, I remember having about 980 or so GB available.



> What is a comprehensive check disk, do you mean chkdsk?


Yes.....There are two options....one checks and corrects the filing system, the other option, that won't work on my Seagate now, is a physical check of the disk.


> I don't have Windows 7 yet.


It appears to be the same in XP.



> I think _phantom _is still on your phantom drive _and is upset_ about being partitioned


It's gone.
I just double checked with Gparted.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

How do you check a disk physically? You don't take it apart?  Do you mean like with "HD Tune" ? 

sorry Stoner, I meant our resident TSG phantom, who always helps people, sometimes I just can't stay on the subject. 

So Gparted also has a way to undo partitioning? I am afraid to use Acronis since my last experience with it.
I want to backup 3 computers on the 1TB drive, what do you suggest, leave as is since Acronis does give backups names, or partition?
Any other backup software seems to want to have an empty drive and deletes everything else. Why do they do that?

Did you plug the Seagate directly to the computer or through a USB hub? I found some USB things do not like hubs but work when connected direct.


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

bp936 said:


> I am afraid to use Acronis since my last experience with it.
> I want to backup 3 computers on the 1TB drive.


An Acronis Backup "Image" is just a data file with the extension tib.
It will be a data file that is about 60>70% in size of the partition(s) you're backing up .. occupied size(s)
You can put as many Images in an external as you have space for.
Just make sure the external is Formatted NTFS.

I have a 1TB USB external with many different computers Imaged in it .. into Folders by computer Name.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

thanks, I think I keep away from partitioning.


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## calvin-c (May 17, 2006)

Just my opinion but partitioning a backup drive allocates a fixed amount of space for backing up each PC. On the one hand, that means one PC can't 'hog' the whole drive leaving no room to back up the others. On the other hand, that means you can run out of space in one partition, thus being unable to back up that PC, while still having plenty of space on the drive as a whole. On the third hand your drive is big enough that it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference. (Unless you're backing up a lot of data or keeping quite a few generations, in which case you wouldn't be using a 1TB drive anyway.)


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

decisions - decisions

thanks for any info regarding big drives


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bp936 said:


> How do you check a disk physically? You don't take it apart?  Do you mean like with "HD Tune" ?
> 
> sorry Stoner, I meant our resident TSG phantom, who always helps people, sometimes I just can't stay on the subject.
> 
> ...





> How do you check a disk physically?


In Windows......start at
My Computer> the drive in question> in properties> tools> error checking > and checkmark both options for filing system and disk error checking. The disk check takes a lot longer depending on the size of the drive....you might want to schedule it at a convenient time when you aren't using the computer.



> So Gparted also has a way to undo partitioning?


It can and has options that the Windows Disk Management doesn't offer.
If you aren't familiar with partitioning, you're better off using the MS Disk Management app.....safer for the unfamiliar and probably does all you'll need.



> I want to backup 3 computers on the 1TB drive, what do you suggest, leave as is since Acronis does give backups names, or partition?


I was backing up to folders... named for the computer I was backing up......no need to partition for that purpose 



> Any other backup software seems to want to have an empty drive and deletes everything else. Why do they do that?


I've been using Acronis to create drive images of 3 computers that I kept in separate files on my Seagate external. No issues generating the image files to specific folders on the same partition.

I use SyncBack and Karen's Replicator to back up data sets to specific folders on the same partition with no issues.

And that's from 3 different OS's......win2k, XP and win7.

I like Acronis, but I boot to Acronis from a bootable CD, not Windows.
I even use an older version of Acronis, 10, on a BartPE boot CD for my Win7 64 bit Compaq....to create 2 drive images....one of 'System' and one of 'C:'
Matter of fact, I just had to reimage my Compaq last night because the MS critical updates conflicted with something and when I tried to roll back my system 3 days....it broke more than it fixed 



> Did you plug the Seagate directly to the computer or through a USB hub?


Direct, I don't trust hubs and I have enough USB ports on my computers I don't need one.



> I found some USB things do not like hubs but work when connected direct


Some hubs are powered, some not.
From what I remember, some powered hubs experience minor voltage drops that affect some devices more than others.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

I basically do the same as you do Stoner, 1 or 2 full backup with Acronis 10, files I just copy to an external drive into directories.
I have Karen's Replicator but haven't used it yet. I have from one computer a Bart *.iso but no idea what to do with it yet.

On the other hand, I downloaded *Windrivers backup* from Jermar
http://freewareapp.com/windriversbackup_download/
and made a folder on the external drive to hold hem, in case I ever needed them. I read too often, that drivers are hard to find again for one's computer (so many different brands and versions)

Also making a full registry backup and save it to an external drive.

Have you ever restored from a backup? Did Acronis work? I never yet had to do it.
And I think your Seagate thread is also educational about backing up, there are so many ways and programs and opinions, how to do it. Thanks
:up:


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

bp936 said:


> Have you ever restored from a backup? Did Acronis work? I never yet had to do it.


Yes (an Acronis Image file) .. and Yes ... But a W7 Repair CD may be needed to fix the Recovery.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bp936 said:


> I basically do the same as you do Stoner, 1 or 2 full backup with Acronis 10, files I just copy to an external drive into directories.
> I have Karen's Replicator but haven't used it yet. I have from one computer a Bart *.iso but no idea what to do with it yet.
> 
> On the other hand, I downloaded *Windrivers backup* from Jermar
> ...


I only use Acronis to back up the Windows OS partition.......my data is saved to a different partition and backed up as a replicated filing system rather than an image.

I had to re image my win7 operating system the other day and it worked perfectly. That was the first time for that computer...8 months old.
I seldom reimage XP since I started using Sandboxie.....it appears to be doing it's job well.
Mostly it seems to be issues of updates that have conflicts that cause me to reimage ....and even then that's pretty rare...once or twice a year.

The computer I'm posting from uses XP. The current fresh install was 2 1/2 years ago and I only remember reimaging it once in the last year..
A conflict with an update with Asquared which I since uninstalled.



> I have from one computer a Bart *.iso but no idea what to do with it yet.


Consider it boot media that works in it's own Windows environment. You can run repairs from it, do simple tasks, run apps like Acronis where plugins are provided .......even run antivirus and antimalware from it.
It's derived from Win XP.....and supposed to only be used on a XP computer....I say 'supposed' 



> Also making a full registry backup and save it to an external drive.


I do to.....Erunt is what I use. 
BTW....In XP at least......BartPE will run Erunt if the computer won't boot to Windows.



> Have you ever restored from a backup? Did Acronis work? I never yet had to do it.


Yes.
I used Drive Image IV back in the 98se days quite often 
Norton bought out Drive Image, ruined it and DI 7 worked poorly with my first XP computer.
Acronis was recommended, I found free versions and haven't had any problems.

I have tried Macrium Reflect and DriveImage XML and they seemed to work OK, too.



> Thanks


You're welcome


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

I got Erunt also, I also got my original install disk for 2 computers but not for the Dell, came without.
I will refer to this thread, if I ever need to restore-re-install.

I have nothing but rescue, safety, security stuff on the computers, Norton always messed up my computers, I had the original Norton on Win98 and that was still ok. I refuse to update because every time I had to roll back, I believe, why fix if it aint broken.
I have used Sandboxie for a while but now Kaspersky has a sandbox option and a virtual Keyboard. 

Question, if I burn the Bart iso, would it start so I would load the Acronis backup or do I need Ubuntu, like some suggests ?
I heard a million times about having a repair CD as Nyob says, but the few times I had to fix computer, I just re-installed originals. Now it is getting more necessary to have a Restore or Repair CD when one does not get a Windows CD with the new computers.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bp936 said:


> ...........................
> 
> Question, if I burn the Bart iso, would it start so I would load the Acronis backup or do I need Ubuntu, like some suggests ?
> I heard a million times about having a repair CD as Nyob says, but the few times I had to fix computer, I just re-installed originals. Now it is getting more necessary to have a Restore or Repair CD when one does not get a Windows CD with the new computers.





> Question, if I burn the Bart iso, would it start so I would load the Acronis backup or do I need Ubuntu, like some suggests ?


I'm not aware of any need for Ubuntu.



> I heard a million times about having a repair CD as Nyob says,


In Win 7 , the System Repair Disk can used to boot into a recovery option to install a backup you've made of your system.....the MS way.
It's a good option to consider. 
I have made the CD and burned some recovery discs.....but I am of course more comfortable with what I've been using ....Acronis, because I've been using it longer for drive imaging..

Good to have options in case one fails


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## aka Brett (Nov 25, 2008)

I wouldnt try this unless I was 100 percent sure this is what is going on...but there may be something to it..I ran into another video as well where the drive worked fine once removed from the case

http://www.youtube.com/user/n9jcv#p/a/u/1/OK1pEVjReNA


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## osarius (Jul 24, 2010)

I bought a SeaGate Expansion Drive (250GB) a few months ago. It failed on Thursday. I tried repartitioning, reformatting: nothing worked. 

I had to splash out on a new hard drive (Hitachi) as I needed the hard drive. Good thing I didn't lose any important data.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

scary, scary, with those new big drives.
I have not heard that many problems on smaller capacity drives in such a short time. 1TB's aren't out that long yet.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

aka Brett said:


> I wouldnt try this unless I was 100 percent sure this is what is going on...but there may be something to it..I ran into another video as well where the drive worked fine once removed from the case
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/user/n9jcv#p/a/u/1/OK1pEVjReNA


I've seen this video discussed.
All that was done was a piece of paper inserted to act as a sound damper.
I suspect opening the case ( the tabs are broken opening the enclosure) would violate the warranty.


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## aka Brett (Nov 25, 2008)

bp936 said:


> scary, scary, with those new big drives.
> I have not heard that many problems on smaller capacity drives in such a short time. 1TB's aren't out that long yet.


I have noticed that as well it appears to be these huge drives that are having the problems...and just not seagate...I am not saying thought that other mfgs have has as much problem with larger drives..but they do seem to have more occurrences when comparing smaller drives.
Multiple platters and heads equates for a higher possibility of something malfunctioning IMO


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## aka Brett (Nov 25, 2008)

Stoner said:


> I've seen this video discussed.
> All that was done was a piece of paper inserted to act as a sound damper.
> I suspect opening the case ( the tabs are broken opening the enclosure) would violate the warranty.


The audio is terrible on the video..I had watched one similar as well{other day}..I believe the little circuit board{allegedly} touches the case and causes problems as well.
I wouldnt open it unless it was out of warranty and was 100 percent sure it would fix it...but when people take them from the case and then install them in a pc they seem to work ok...so if grounding isnt a problem it could be the usb adaptor itself


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

aka Brett said:


> The audio is terrible on the video..I had watched one similar as well{other day}..I believe the little circuit board touches the case and causes problems as well.
> I wouldnt open it unless it was out of warranty and was 100 percent sure it would fix it...but when people take them from the case and then install them in a pc they seem to work ok...so if grounding isnt a problem it could be the usb adaptor itself


There have been several types of mods people claim are fixes.
I've heard of successes and of failures doing the same repairs, some even claim removal to an internal location works..
I was using this drive for important financial backups.....I'm not confident those repairs would be long lasting enough, if they initially worked, to create reliable backups in the future.

From what I hear, it's about $19 postage to return the drive to the manufacturer......Seagate won't cover postage.......and there are responses at this time that replacements are also failing from IO errors and clicking.

I have several backup plans in place, so I'm covered OK right now.
I'm going to wait and see how well the replacements are shortly before my warranty runs out.
If replacements get better reviews, I'll spend the additional $19 on postage....otherwise I'll write off the drive and Seagate in the future.


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## aka Brett (Nov 25, 2008)

One having to pay the 19 bucks is terrible service on seagates part.
IMO they are problems drives as the complaints seem to be fairly uniform...and replacements doing the same thing.
They had some bad drives hit the market in the past...they made good on them...but now this..It may cause me to shy away from them as well..my next purchase was going to be a seagate,but now I am not so sure.
The last WD I bought makes an occasional loud click...the loud one where it bangs the stop..I bought it as an external then took it out of the case to use as an internal for the laptop...the reason being I could drive a few miles to pick up the external at walmart..or drive a couple hours to go buy an internal.
So my warranty was void when I opened it...I have been using it along time,but am not crazy about the very loud clicks it does on occasion...also when forced to do a forced shutdown by holding the power button{there was a few months that was the only way I could get vista shut down while I was using it}..I could hear the head scraping while it coasted down...this made seagate become a higher prospect for the future...I have 2 seagates I have not had a problems with....I think I just had a little bad luck on the last WD...The saga continues..what to buy next WD or Seagate..It was going to be seagate but now its a toss up again


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

aka Brett said:


> One having to pay the 19 bucks is terrible service on seagates part.
> IMO they are problems drives as the complaints seem to be fairly uniform...and replacements doing the same thing.
> They had some bad drives hit the market in the past...they made good on them...but now this..It may cause me to shy away from them as well..my next purchase was going to be a seagate,but now I am not so sure.
> The last WD I bought makes an occasional loud click...the loud one where it bangs the stop..I bought it as an external then took it out of the case to use as an internal for the laptop...the reason being I could drive a few miles to pick up the external at walmart..or drive a couple hours to go buy an internal.
> So my warranty was void when I opened it...I have been using it along time,but am not crazy about the very loud clicks it does on occasion...also when forced to do a forced shutdown by holding the power button{there was a few months that was the only way I could get vista shut down while I was using it}..I could hear the head scraping while it coasted down...this made seagate become a higher prospect for the future...I have 2 seagates I have not had a problems with....I think I just had a little bad luck on the last WD...The saga continues..what to buy next WD or Seagate..It was going to be seagate but now its a toss up again


If you remember, IBM had an incredibly bad run of hard drives ( DeckStar----->Deathstar ) and wound up selling off their HD division to Hitachi.
Bad product reviews, consumer complaints and continuing failing drives are likely to do the same to Seagate if they don't improve.

I found some interest in a class action suit by angry Seagate owners here:
http://storagesecrets.org/2009/01/seagate-boot-death-class-action-lawsuit/
It appears Seagate has consumer problems accumulating other than just the click of death.


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## aka Brett (Nov 25, 2008)

More problems with the sea gate drives...not good..eventually the right source will come around and the news will spread...Firestone tires is an example.

One would think seagate would be all over this.as they can actually turn a bad thing into a good thing,
Prompt service with bending to the customer goes along ways..A no hassle exchange leaves a good feeling with the customer..who then praises the company,just consider eating bad drives the cost of advertising..Some big wigs are not using basic business laws here...the ability to turn a bad thing into a good thing.

IMO they should increase the price considerably,this will slow sales...but the profit margin will be huge..use the profits to replace failing drives everyone is happy...Sales from internals such as hp dell etc should coast them through a crises if they lose a little money along the way.

This thread here is enough for me to seriously rethink Seagate as they are not correcting a problem...having to shell out 20 bucks takes away the possibility of a warm and fuzzy feeling...and I would be furious to receive a defective product in its place...If they are also willing to have these same bad customer habits with major corps they will soon be out of bussiness


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Scumlabs said:


> I hate Seagate. Their new drives are absolute crap. Never buy from them...
> 
> Western Digital all the way.


Agree on Seagates.......having had this recent failure, I've noticed in searches that many of their internal drives are getting complaints about the same issue....click of death.


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

> I used to think Seagate's were the best .. But then Seagate bought out the worst manufacturer.
> Then, I wasn't sure what I was getting .. So I moved to Western Digital HDDs.


Noyb hit it dead on. Maxtor bought Quantum who taught them how to make a crappier drive, and then Seagate took them all and went straight into the toilet with quality. This all started with sata drives as Seagate ide drives were certainly equal to Wd. A few years ago I bought 8 Seagate sata drives for a series of systems I was building for a client and none of them worked out of the box. That was my last purchase of a Seagate drive.

As for externals, whether you make your own or buy pre-made, I don't think matters as I do both, but no on/off switch and no fan I will never buy for an external hard drive and the last thing I would do is try to make one of those work my way by adding another switch to turn them on or off.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Just bumping so the thread doesn't time out and get closed.

Has anyone heard any new information on the problem or how well Seagate is addressing it?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bump


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## TheNumber2ue (Apr 13, 2011)

calvin-c said:


> I recently threw out a WD 250GB external-it kept disconnecting mid-way thru a backup. I couldn't tell if it was the drive or enclosure but either way it wasn't worth trying to figure out so I just tossed it. But it had 3 push buttons on the front of the case, one of which was the 'power button' except it only worked right when turning the drive on. (The other two were for 'one-touch backup' and they invoked different types of backups. I don't remember what they were because I never used them.)
> 
> Anyway, it was a good idea but they failed to make it a 'hard' switch. Probably for safety, i.e. when you turned the drive off it was probably supposed to wait until everything had been written to the disk but instead it waited until the computer was shut down-or until I pulled the plug. Good ideas poorly implemented are, IMO, worse than poor ideas implemented correctly.


I declare shenanigans on a My Passport 320GB external drive with micro usb. Iv learned that they changed/played with the traditional SATA interface with something proprietary...something alien...something just flat out incompatibly. My micro usb contacts weren't making contact due to flimsy metal and nothing was working so i panicked and searched for way to use the other connection. 2x12 array of pins...no adapters for this thing and even if there was its not designed sata capable.

So WD is now selling usb hard drives that if the micro usb is broken you better be rich or know how to solder PCB's.

This was the first hard drive i ever bought. Iv learned this...never buy WD ever...never buy a hard drive period...buy solid state from now on... research before buying or end up with something designed to break. Now that i think about it, id rather have 30-40 usb thumb drives than that mess.

I fixed the micro usb contact issue with a piece of scotch tape...and i was thinking of smashing it with a sledge hammer

it does make clicking noises and is brand new, not loud clicking but clicking. I don't know if this is normal, im just starting to learn about hardrives.


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## valis (Sep 24, 2004)

I've had nothing but great experience with WD.....that's pretty much the only HD's I'll buy. I've got a couple 1TB externals that have been nothing short of fantastic.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Up until I bought my external Seagate drive, I'd had good luck with Seagate drives......also WD drives....even the Hitachi drive in my Acer has performed well, it's almost 5 years old and SMART drive info shows it to be in very good condition with ~29K hours on it.

I quit using my Seagate external drive when the clicking and I/O errors began. 
Too many complaints on the exchanges and the shipping charge are not covered ( $20 ) so I'm not bothering with the warranty.

I've heard some users have swapped in other brands of HDs into the Seagate enclosure with success. I might try that in the future.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

I played after all with partitioning my 1TB Iomega as Stoner did a few posts ago. I had the same results, XP only saw a small section, not the large partition. And nothing would be copied to this external partitioned drive. Luckily I could undo the whole thing, now I left it without partitioning.

Did the 3 computer backup with Acronis, all in its own directories with the computers' name.
Presently I use Iomega for file backups in the Files directory. It is always plugged in until my laptop gets too hot, then I just unplug the power and USB connections. 
It is not a long time yet, to know, how Iomega performs in the long run.

My daughter gave me a WD 350 USB drive to fix, it just wouldn't be recognized 50% of the time by her Vista or my XP computers. I formatted WD on 3 computers and at first looked like it will be ok, but after 3 starts, it died again.

Reading again about external drives, we still don't know, what brand is still reliable. My old Maxtor is still running the best for over 5 years, unfortunately it is only 120 GB. 
Comstar is also running well, both have an on-off switch.
LaCie is also running now for over a year, with on-off switch..

I would not be able to recommend a drive, because the new ones seem to have a lot more problems.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bp936 said:


> ............................
> 
> I would not be able to recommend a drive, because the new ones seem to have a lot more problems.


Same here.
I've also noticed that reviews of the same model drives aren't always consistent from one review to another.


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## aka Brett (Nov 25, 2008)

IMO its the large drives that have a higher frequency of problems.
If I had to buy one tomorrow I would aim for 300 to 500 gigs capacity


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Bump to keep the thread open


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

Interim Report

My Iomega 1TB is still working, :up: it is always hooked up to the laptop for backups.

If I want to stop it, I have to pull the USB cable from the laptop, still didn't buy the bar with an on-off switch.


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

aka Brett said:


> IMO its the large drives that have a higher frequency of problems.
> If I had to buy one tomorrow I would aim for 300 to 500 gigs capacity


I've heard that 500s are less reliable than 320s because the data is packed tighter on the platter.
Isn't a 640 or a 1TB just a dual platter 320 or 500 ???.

Then, I've heard that platter wobble due to bearing wear is another problem.
Nowadays, I go for the WD Black series because they have dual patter supports ..
Which is probably why they have a 5 year warranty.

Wouldn't a dual platter require better platter supports because they might be more difficult to balance perfectly ??

Then I make my own external by installing a good HDD in an external enclosure.
Do you really know what you're getting with a pre-assembled external other than a shorter warranty ??

If anyone finds a good external enclosure with a fan and a *front panel power switch* .. Please let me know
I figure the larger the fan, The more air it moves .. quieter


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## aka Brett (Nov 25, 2008)

Noyb said:


> I've heard that 500s are less reliable than 320s because the data is packed tighter on the platter.
> Isn't a 640 or a 1TB just a dual platter 320 or 500 ???.
> 
> Then, I've heard that platter wobble due to bearing wear is another problem.
> ...


Not really sure what the cross over point is to platters and multiple heads..I think 500s can go either way..I would hunt for a single platter just for simplicity.
With multiple platters and heads..IMO there is more to go wrong...and as you say.bearing wear is increased..
I think the manufacturers are all capable of making large drives..Marketing wasnt really geared towards speed or reliability..most people just looked at the size and went for the biggest bang for the buck....IMO the large drives are improving...but had just got popped out to fast....they started popping up everywhere...MFGs had to create one real fast even if it wasnt the best quality.
Also research money may be going towards the solid state drives ...and platter development may be back burner.
Add the 2 situations together and platter drive quality suffers....Just a guess


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

aka Brett said:


> Also research money may be going towards the solid state drives ...and platter development may be back burner.


I'm thinking somethings going to happen ...
The new SATA III (6GB/sec) speeds *I think* are faster than a current HDD can supply.
SSDs are too expensive to get many GBs.


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

The only real risky drives I know of are over 1 Tb is all.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

Stoner, why don\t you ask to change the title
*USB External Drives = Click of Death ?*
as to keep an eye on ALL external brand drives and its Reviews?
Not just Seagate, that would get us more overall opinions/


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bp936 said:


> Stoner, why don\t you ask to change the title
> *USB External Drives = Click of Death ?*
> as to keep an eye on ALL external brand drives and its Reviews?
> Not just Seagate, that would get us more overall opinions/


My post to you seems to have been deleted............

So, here goes again............I'd rather keep it as it is, as it's specific to a product that I own
BTW....I quit using it to backup. It was not reliable as a backup.

You might start a thread from your angle, though, so prospective buyers can get an idea of the best to buy versus the worst.
Either in this forum or hardware would be good places, imo.

BTW..........For convenience, I did try to pull old data off it today and found the drive had encrypted some data. 
There seemed to be nothing that would decrypt it.
Good thing I was backing up to more than one drive.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

Didn;t intend to hijack your thread, Stoner, but looks like some of us did.

You're lucky, you backed up to another drive before disaster strikes  looks like all brands can have a problem.
How did you notice you had a problem with Seagate? Did it come with its own software and wouldn't let you control the drive?

What brand are you using now?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bp936 said:


> Didn;t intend to hijack your thread, Stoner, but looks like some of us did.
> 
> You're lucky, you backed up to another drive before disaster strikes  looks like all brands can have a problem.
> How did you notice you had a problem with Seagate? Did it come with its own software and wouldn't let you control the drive?
> ...


It started throwing I/O errors and if I put my hand on it's case....I could feel a strong thump every 3 or 4 seconds.



> Did it come with its own software and wouldn't let you control the drive?


It came with software but I only used the drive manually for backups.
Then the problems started and I first deleted the software on it, then reformatted it, then tried splitting the drive into 2 partitions.
None of that made any difference.
Solution.....don't use it anymore.



> What brand are you using now?


I haven't bought a replacement, yet.

I've been backing up to multiple media.....an old Maxtor in an enclosure, DVDs, old Maxtor as a second internal drive, and a large flash drive.

Not sure which direction I'll go.


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## valis (Sep 24, 2004)

just as an fyi, buddy of mine got into the need for an external 1 tb drive, and I pointed him to this thread........he ended up getting a WD.......

Still doing society good, Stoner.......


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

thanks for the info Stoner.
I like my old Maxtor also, one of them my daughter took and never gave it back, That thing is still running well, is big and heavy but came with nothing on it, but had a CD to install some kind of a program. I'd rather decide myself what to do with those drives.

*WARNING*, my sister just got an HP 1 TB external drive with a program on it, it is impossible to delete, format or partition it. That SimpleSave program says, it backed up files, but they are invisible. We could not find her files or how to Restore anything. no visible files.
By coincidence, I found an extra drive letter in Explorer and guess what, there we could drag and drop files. But neither the salesperson nor the document or the website mentions that this drive is probably partitioned. I can't imagine what else it could be.

Good luck with your search for a drive and I hope we will find out, what you get and if it works.
And naturally it does not have an on-off button. 
Salesperson says, they all come like this, no on-off and all brands now have a stupid (sorry) program of some kind on it to automate the procedure.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I'd read reports that the Seagate drive enclosure worked properly with a WD internal drive....so I gave it a try.
Although the WD was a 250 gb drive, Windows recognized it properly as such.
I did about 40 gb of data transfer with out any problems.

I noticed that the Seagate external hard drive was stickered as if it was originally an internal drive.
It was made in Thailand and carried this identification:
s/n 9VP84TV0
ST31000528AS
p/n 9SL154-578



Since there is data on it of a financial nature.......it's 'hammer time' 

That's the last Seagate product I'll buy at any price.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I know some would like a picture


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

I got a black WD that will need your special treatment, Stoner, love your the picture.
With what did you cut the disk? Isn't a hammer enough?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

bp936 said:


> I got a black WD that will need your special treatment, Stoner, love your the picture.
> With what did you cut the disk? Isn't a hammer enough?


I didn't cut the hard drive......that's what a sledge hammer can accomplish

Ironically....I call that 'closure'


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

Stoner said:


> I didn't cut the hard drive......that's what a sledge hammer can accomplish
> 
> Ironically....I call that 'closure'


Now that's my kind of thinking!


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## valis (Sep 24, 2004)

ah yes.....the Ghetto DBAN...........

well played.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

So a sledge hammer, no need for metal cutter and the little hammer, good idea. 
I am glad you had "closure" with that "incredible" drive.


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

For a laugh, when they were relaying the tarmac on the road outside my house I got chatting to them and we somehow? got to this subject of destroying a disk.
We tried the road roller....
On fresh tarmac, all it did was sink the disk, which, when removed, still worked.
On old tarmac it sank the disk and broke the circuit board. When that was replaced, it still worked.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

just wondering, why a disc is "alive" when we want to destroy it and dies, when we still need it ? 
Maybe we have to scare it with a big roller?


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

Only if you drop the roller from a great height.


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