Seagate Technology External Drives FreeAgent and Maxtor Don't Work Scotts Valley California

I have purchased two different types of Seagate External USB Connectable Drives and each has the same problem - namely, XP cannot recognize them.

This problem occurres after you have saved your data on the drives and have put your trust in them. On one I backed up my entire set of user files that I had on my computer system. I then tested it to make certain that I could access the backups. Everything appeared to work fine.

I reformed my hard drives and upgraded from NT to XP professional. When I connected the USB drive it wasn't recognized. I then physically connected it to another computer and it too failed to recognize it.

Seagate support was of no help. Making only the suggestion that I pay for them or someone associated with them to recover the data.

Okay maybe it was just a fluke. But when I checked with the user community I found this as a known problem with no solution.

At that point I should have learned my lesson and never bought another Seagate drive. One later, this past month, I did but another one on the recommendation of the Circuit City "force" guy or maybe it was the "geek" guy or what ever they are know there by.

Actually the young women who first waited on me recommended the drives that came in the yellow/orange boxes. When I ask why they were better, she said she didn't know if they were but those were her favorite colors and lots of people her age were buying those boxes. The "force/geek" came along and said the "force" recommends the seagate because of its spinning capabilities.

In retroscpect I should have accepted the idea that the "colorful box" notion could very well out perform the product known only by the "force" to be better.

I put my trust in the "force" and as my confidence built up in the drives performance over the first five weeks I put more and more vital data on it. Final with full trust in the force, I put my codes to unlock my financial services and other backup files on the Seagate drive.

Everything was doing fine, until that one fatal moment when my computer could not find any external drive connected through USB.

After going through all the shutdown, disconnect, reconnect etc. I got on the phone to Seagate support. Incidentaly, I gues Seagate support means, talking across the sea to someone in a far off land that gets a call connected to them in the middle of their night.

On hour later, I am told to go buy "new USB cable to fix problem." I knew it was BS, but I was certain the sun was rising over there and the guy wanted to go to bed. So I bid him fairwell and actually tired the actual message he had read from the Seagate support manual. That did not work.

Recovery cost has gone up to $1,000 and that may take a week.

My suggestion to everyone who is thinking about buying a Seagate external drive. Do a search on seagate drive problems and rather than listening to the "geek-force" go with the box color you like best.

Leon
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
U.S.A.