Troubleshooting Seagate FreeAgent G0 500 GB

[gk82]

Hi!
I know this forum abounds with topics related to Seagate FreeAgent drives but somehow I was not able to locate any discussion which discussed my woes. Forgive my trespass if I am repeating and please be kind enough to point me in the right direction.

The trouble with my FreeAgent is that it spins up upon connecting, the light flashes once and turns off, the disk then spins down, and then the lights begin to blink on and off continuously. In XP, the "found New Hardware" wizard pops up but fails to locate a driver and so the drive is not detected (even in Disk Management). Other OS viz W7, Ubuntu, SLAX fail to even detect the drive. There are no beeping sounds at any point and even during the nearly 15 seconds of spinning faint clicking sounds are heard.

I opened up the casing and found a Seagate Momentus 5400.6 HDD within. With the hope of getting it detected directly, I connected it directly to the SATA port on the Motherboard of my system. At boot time, the drive is listed with 0 MB capacity, but does not show up as a drive (I tried with W7 as well as SLAX) once the OS loads.

Is there any hope of getting the data back on my own? I don't think I will be able to seek professional help. But if there are software that can be of help, I shall be eager to try them out.

Thanks in advance,
Gaurav

[TaskManager]

hello
You will have to hook this disk to a terminal ( easily find reference in 7200.11 recovery posts). It will make accurate diagnostics

[loki]

Dont these drives have 192-bit Triple DES encryption
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/produc ... freeagent/

[einstein9]

u will need a pro. help on this case my friend

[fzabkar]

Dont these drives have 192-bit Triple DES encryption
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/produc ... freeagent/

I could be wrong, but ISTM that encryption is done via software, not hardware:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/produc ... ard-drive/

"Secures your backed up files and protects your privacy with powerful encryption software "

"Includes the Seagate® Dashboard management tool for easy management of backup schedules and file encryption, and viewing drive statistics"

What's in the box:
"Pre–loaded backup software with encryption"

[BlackST]

The trouble with my FreeAgent is that it spins up upon connecting, the light flashes once and turns off, the disk then spins down, and then the lights begin to blink on and off continuously. In XP, the "found New Hardware" wizard pops up but fails to locate a driver and so the drive is not detected (even in Disk Management). Other OS viz W7, Ubuntu, SLAX fail to even detect the drive. There are no beeping sounds at any point and even during the nearly 15 seconds of spinning faint clicking sounds are heard.

Encryption is the latest problem, sorry.

[fzabkar]

Encryption is the latest problem, sorry.

Only in FDE (Full Disk Encryption) models. These incorporate 128-bit AES hardware based encryption. At least that's what Seagate's documentation says.

[jono-ats]

BlackST: I think you mean to say it is a "lesser problem."

Your English is quite good, especially compared to my "mastery" of other languages.