Seagate Freeagent External HDD running, but not recognized

[brentfindley]

Hello all,

My Seagate Freeagent hard drive has been acting up today. I pushed my computer into the wall too hard today with a few cords in the back (reckless behavior I know), that included my USB cord to the drive.

I discovered it was not showing up in my windows explorer, so I reconnected it to 3 different ports with no fix. I then tried plugging it into another computer, and got the same result.

Here's what's boggling my mind. When connected, the light will come on, and I can physically feel the drive spinning and running. My computer EVEN makes the device detected noise when I connect it, and the same for when I disconnect it.

So I'm fairly certain either the drive or the USB cable may be physically damaged, but I can't figure out which. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for the help.

-Brent

 

[brentfindley]

Update: I just found another USB cable that matches with the drive in my house and it still doesn't work. Is it safe to say RIP Freeagent or no?

 

[pjmelect]

The chances are that the hard drive has failed, at this point I would take the hard drive out of the case and fit it directly into my computer to eliminate a cable or controller fault.

 

[laurah72]

Update: I just found another USB cable that matches with the drive in my house and it still doesn't work. Is it safe to say RIP Freeagent or no?

Hi Brent,
i have the same probllem...were you able to take out the hard drive and was it ok then? I am a complete idiot when it comes to computers ad how they work, so is this something you did on your own or did you haev a technician somewhere help you?

 

[slavenkata]

This weekend I solved the following problem:
My external HDD was not recognized by the computer. I am a Windows user.
The drive was not in My computer section, therefore no AutoPlay option, nothing. I checked it in the Device Manager/ Disk Manager and it was there. But no letter was assigned to it. I tried everything. This was successful:
1. First I assigned it a letter with software, called MiniTool Partition Wizard.
2. After that I run the program TestDisk. Here is How To Use It (http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f16/have-you-lost-a-hard-drive-partition-or-files-in-your-computer-194492.html)
3. Finally I checked the Disk Manager again, uninstalled the External HDD Device Driver, waited around 15 minutes and plugged it again. (I tried this few times before, but with no visible results).

VOALA! My HDD is working again!

 

[ereyes]

Ok!!! That MiniTool Partition Wizard is awesome and easy. I have been trying to reformat my Seagate FreeAgent 500gb external USB HDD to FAT32 for weeks. I read so many blogs, forums, and chats with no resolution.

So now I can use my HDD for my PS3 (requires FAT32). Thank you slavenkata!