Comments on: Seagate’s New Drive Line: Free Agent, with John van Bronkhorst

By: ozzoid

ozzoid — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:29:23 +0000

FreeAgent 750 Pro: USB fine, eSata not working, drive switching on and off /computer freezzes despite fully updated drivers/firmware… gets very hot and when I touch it (eSata only) I can feel a current going into my finger from the metal case= short circuit/not grounded. This drive can cost you your life - avoid at all cost. I’ll try to get my money back.

By: models and art

models and art — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:09:26 +0000

Free Agents rock with Time Machine! Backing up was an easy habit to get into, but archiving was a difficult concept for most. Now for the price of an inexpensive drive, I don\’t have to worry so much about losing versions.

Why can\’t other make stylish products?

By: Best Hair Salon in San Francisco

Best Hair Salon in San Francisco — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:58:54 +0000

I have a couple of Free Agent drives that both look and work great. I\’m really hoping for some larger capacity portables that are USB powered for my MacBook.

Any chance of seeing these at CES 2008?

It just boggles the mind how the drives keep getting bigger and bigger (and faster)!

By: Anne

Anne — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:17:38 +0000

I believe you can download the discwizard software from the Seagate website under Free Agent products. This is a back-up program so that you can back-up your hard drive.

By: John

John — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:16:09 +0000

I have a Seagate Free Agent 250 gig external HD. Bought it to store my multimedia files and had no problems with the initial transfer of data. However when I attempt to read and play those files from the Seagate drive they skip, stall and eventually fail. Now I am having a hard time transferring data either to or from my PC. I have an HP dv6449us with WM 10, and the latest VLC players, problems occur with both programs. Any ideas?

By: John C,

John C, — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:12:28 +0000

I use my Free agent 250 for the storage of music and movies, however when I attmetp to play back any files they skip sputter and eventually freeze up. This works regardless of teh program I use to open the file (WM 10, Winamp, or VLC). My System is an HP dv6449us and is

By: Peter Ross

Peter Ross — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 01:08:59 +0000

To John Van Bronkhorst c/o Michael Johnson:

Dear John Van Bronkhorst: GREETINGS. My name is Peter Ross and
I’ve been trying to reach you since late September. I want you to
know I think Free Agent is a great concept and represents a text
book opportunity for a product marketing solution, and I’d love to
work on making it a success. I’d consider it an honor and a great
oppportunity. Please consider me a candidate. I too observed the
introduction of the product at Frys Electronics and I too was
fascinated at the number of issues plaguing its positioning.
I’d like to share my observations with you. Please respond.
Sincerely yours, Peter Ross, San Jose, CA.
(408) 295-6687, RossPeter@msn.com THANK YOU.

(Sorry for the redundant submissions)

By: judith eglington

judith eglington — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 16:27:20 +0000

please could you give me contact details as I my freeagent desktop is doing nothing!!

By: K

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:50:57 +0000

You can recover you files by using a
program by ontrack. You can actually just reformat the drive and then thier software will read all of the info and transfer it to another drive…

By: Haas

Haas — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 06:41:47 +0000

I have Free Agent 500GB that stopped working. I have tons of data on it. I have two questions please for anyone who can answer. Will Seagate fix it? can I get my data back?

Thanks.
Haas-

By: Joanne

Joanne — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:12:43 +0000

This is a question. Can this backup drive be used with a mac?

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:03:40 +0000

My question is th same as Claire’s: I exchanged this from another brand that only had 150GB. THAT brand automatically walked you through the backup process when you connected it to laptop via USB. This seagate leaves me entirely on my own…what do I do to backup my HD??? Halp!??!

By: jimquan

jimquan — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 23:53:38 +0000

Thanks for the quick reply. I believe the power outpt is 0.5 amps. Best Buy has the 320 gig free agent for $100 and I had a $15 gift cert so QED. I’m sure I can put the extra gigs to use. Hey, I just bought 0.82 terabytes of storages (0.32+0.5) in two weeks!

I just realized something during the purchase: there are two versions of Freeagent, one is the Pro version which presumably comes with the backup software. The 320 gig Pro and ‘plain’ versions are the same price. I also noticed a Pro version of the 500 gig model. I bought the plain version and the only file in the drive was the user manual.. The Pro version has an extra logo on the casing which may be the on/off switch. As someone mentioned, the plain version has no switch.

One reason I bought was the five year warranty. I’ve heard external drives are susceptible to heat. They must take a beating in checked luggage too!

Jim

By: MJ

MJ — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:21:05 +0000

The part number you’re looking for is:

WA-24C12U

specs:

100-240V
50-60hz
0.05A
50Va-80Va
12V DC 2A

good luck

By: Jim Quan

Jim Quan — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:01:25 +0000

Hi, I’m on the road and I think I left the powersource at home!

Can anyone read off the part # and power output and tip dimensions and post them here?

Even better, does anyone have a powersource for the 500 gig Freeagent external they went to sell?

Thanks, Jim

By: Shawn Connelly

Shawn Connelly — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:19:13 +0000

My Seagate FreeAgent 500 GB failed after two weeks of use!

At first I was seeing “write delay messages” but eventually the unit simply stopped responding.
The reason why this drive fails is that it has a 7200 RPM drive inside a plastic case, trapped in a metal cage, without adequate ventilation. After a few tens of Gigabytes of continuous data transfer, the hard drive inside the Freeagent will likely exceed the manufacturers maximum recommended temperature.

It is a poorly designed chassis. I don’t know what Seagate was thinking!

A better alternative is to purchase a Seagate 500GB SATA drive (because despite this flub, Seagate still makes the best hard drives and offers the best warrantees) and an external USB chassis with good ventilation (such as the Antec MX-1).

By: Claire

Claire — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:23:19 +0000

I’ve had this Seagate Free Agent 500 GB exterman hard drive for a week now. It is recognized by Windows XP but I have no idea how to back up files. The salesman at Office Max said ‘just plug it in’. I need more reassurance that my files are actually backed up but I think I’ve been sold added memory and nothing else.
Customer Support at Seagate disconnects each time I ask the question. Am I being scammed?

By: Himanshu

Himanshu — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:36:41 +0000

I purchased aseagate Freeagent USB2.0 500GB
The salesman told that I can store every thing into the freeagent and even I can experience the same desktop anywhere. But when I plugged in as per the instructions nothing happened, there is no cd , mannual which can guide me to do that.
My idea of buying freeagent was so that i can use this anywhere.

By: mike

mike — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:55:08 +0000

I bought a free agent hard drive to have it fail after three days. Seagate won’t even pay for the shipping to replace it.

By: Bob S.

Bob S. — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 05:11:57 +0000

The Free Agent 500 GB is a total guess! The research consists of stumbling upon this site only to discover since its purchase at Fry’s Electronics that no one, including the comments left at WD website, that there is no support for this product. I’ve wasted hours and days trying to figure out the answers to the writers 1-4 and will check out the site that David recommended. Oh, one other item, my new Dell laptop (cost over $2000) doesn’t use floppy discs so an ASR Recovery Disc cannot be made; hence, this is the second effort to back-up data with negative results. The “online support line” responds automatically but only to acknowledge the inquiry without any follow-up answers to the above questions.

By: David

David — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 01:59:37 +0000

The 320GB drive is the Desktop version of the drive that does not come with any software. You can do backups with the the Windows XP backup utility or with the MaxBlast 5 software that does image backups of the computer to the external drive.

The drive does not have an on/off switch, it senses the USB port port to turn on and off also it has a sleep mode that is activated after and hour of non usage.

Windows Backup How to:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

MaxBlast 5
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=MaxBlast_5&vgnextoid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

By: Robert Jenkins

Robert Jenkins — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:42:06 +0000

I often have content that I need to make available to customers. I already have the ability to upload it to my web server and pay as I would with you for the space reqired to transmit the extra band width.

I was hoping that your product would allow me to give my client access to a network drive that they could access for free just the way Log Me on” software works.

Looks like your just selling Megabites.

Please let me know if I wrong , I’d really like to buy your product.

By: JudyM

JudyM — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:51:54 +0000

I just bought the Seagate 320 Free Agent also. Had to upgrade my USB ports to 2.0. Everything hooked up fine.

I was wondering why no instructions on how to use the product? Just the cutesy PLUG IT IN mini brochure.

I did find that if I went into windows explorer and right clicked on a file, I now have the option to send it to drive H.
I never noticed the option “install all ” before, so I am assuming it is new to my right click menu because of the new external hard drive?

I called Staples and talked to a tech, but he didn’t seem to know. Said I probably shouldn’t click on it til I found out.

When I purchased the drive, I was told to just right click on whatever files I want and send them to the new drive.
But, I read on the net, that there are some files you shouldn’t send.
I am tired of searching the net to find out how to use this and getting 2 different answers.
Also, how do you turn it on and off?
I see the icon for removing, but I don’t’ want to remove it do I?
do I keep it plugged in all the time?

It comes on when I start my computer and shuts down when I shut down the computer. Is this the way it is supposed to work?
I read someone said they could overheat if left on when you aren’t using it. Please help…….

By: Jack Sharp

Jack Sharp — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:48:46 +0000

ETBaker is right on with his query. How about letting me in on the secret.

By: ETBaker

ETBaker — Wed, 16 May 2007 20:41:39 +0000

I purchased aseagate Freeagent USB2.0 320GB ST303204FDA1E1-RK. The literature says plug it in, nothing else. Is it working. Is it backing up. I have nothing that tells me its working or backing up. What are the steps, procedures for checking the drive and selected files. Can I manually backup? Come-on, you have to have somekind of instructions with this box. Is there a “wizzard” located somewhere that I can access. thanks
etbaker0@sbcglobal.net