Ext USB HDD dying?

My friend bought a 1TB Seagate Freeagent Portable Harddrive over a year ago and uses it to backup his PCs and large MP3 collection. He said he couldn't access some files / folders on it and asked me to take a look. After several unsuccesfull attempts, he confirmed that all of his files on the HDD were backed up elsewhere and we did a Quick Reformat of the entire HDD. I tried to perform an Error Check, but it wouldn't complete successfully. I tried to copy his MP3 collection (about 700gig worth) and at about 250gig it said the drive was full and wouldn't allow me to copy anymore files / folders to it. I did another re-format and got the same results. I then ran the Seagate Seatools, unformatted the drive, repartitioned it, and tried again. Same results.

Anything else I can try before declaring it dead?

Try taking the drive out of the enclosure, and hook it up directly to a PC. Then run Seatools on it again. That should at least determine if the problem is with the drive or the enclosure.

Did you run the SeaTools diagnostics on the drive to check for errors or bad sectors (long version)? If not, try that. You can also remove the drive from the enclosure and connecti it directly to a computer motherboard to see if it works when connected that way (eliminates the USB to SATA conversion electronics).

SS typed faster again.

I looked for a diagnostics on Seatools, but didn't see anything. I'll try the current version (I downloaded my copy quite a while ago.

I'll also try removing it from the enclosure and connecting it directly, to see if that makes a difference.

It probably will....those friggin' enclosures are notorious for failing....mostly from heat build-up.

the Seagate Freeagent enclosure does get darn hot and takes a long, long time to cool down. A couple hours of reading or writing then it time to disconnect and let it cool down and may take overnight to cool down. 220GB took 3 hours and the sucker is still warm 12 hours later.

The 2 TG Maxtor cooled off while the AC was plugged in, the Seagate did not, so the hdd must have been still running. Not good in my book.
Gots to transfer about 700 GB of data too. :(

I took a look at the enclosure last night and couldn't find an exposed screw on it anywhere and didn't want to go prying and possibly breaking something that's not mine.

I think I'm going to return it and tell him to use at his own peril. :eek:

Now, if he trashes it or gives me permission to destroy it, I will break the case open, one way or another. ;)

Seagate and Western Digital drives usually have tabs instead of screws, so they aren't easy to disassemble. I don't think I've ever opened one without cracking a few tabs.

Google " how to open seagate freeagent " and watch a couple videos.