Ive had my external hard drive for my laptop for about 3 months now and recently when I went to access the drive... my computer would not recognize it. I checked on the seagate forum pages and this seems to be a common issue with this product... one day it will work the next day it wont... Ive been running it through the USB 2.0 connection and Im going to try to get a firewire cord to see if I can get it to work that way but if that fails... does anyone know if I would run into any problems if I were to rip apart the external hard drive and hook the drive up to my computer through the regular SETA connection? I ask because the drive is under warrenty and this would surely void the warrenty but I have a lot of personal information on the external hard drive (credit card info... personal documents) and I cannot access the drive to clear the drive and I dont want to just send it out to be replaced with this information accessable to anyone who manages to get the info off the drive. So does anyone know if I would run into any problems with ripping the drive apart and hooking up the drive inside the casing to my computer through the regular SETA connections... thnx in advance.
There shouldn't be any issues at all - that's my first recommendation when people have problems with external HDDs, it's almost always the enclosures that fail, not the drives themselves.
If I end up doing that should I wrap the drive in anti-static wrap or anything... im assuming the drive may run a little warm at times so im not sure it would be a great idea but i dont want to get the static shock when i touch the drive and short it out.
It shouldn't be a problem, just hold the drive by the sides, the only part sensitive to static is the relatively small circuit board underneath. It is likely to run cooler in a PC than in an external enclosure, assuming it is properly installed.
Well installing it in my computer may be a lil bit of a problem because I have a notebook computer not a desktop computer. Thats why I was asking about the static wrap cause it would be constantly exposed unless I enclose it into something to protect it. Any thoughts? lol
well I was planning on hooking it up through the SATA connection through the SATA connection in the back of myh laptop... if that would even work.. thats what I was asking about was if it was even possible to hook it up to my laptop if i took it out of its casing through a SATA connection or anything else... Im just hoping that the firewire connection will work.. I just have to go out and get a four prong to four prong firewire cable to find out first.
Don't worry about shorting out your hard drive with static electricity unless your on a shag carpet. The usual recommendation is for you to touch a metal item (to remove the static from you) before touching the hard drive. I usually put the hard drive on top (not inside) of a silver antistatic bag. I remove hard drives and run them outside of the computer all the time, never had one shortout. The main thing to worry about is not to drop it or move it while the hard drive is running, that will cause permanent damage. It would be a good idea to get yourself a usb ide/sata bridge adapter, that's what I use when I run my hard drive outside of the computer. Below is a picture of the one I have, but there are different models some cheaper. You can also buy an external sata enclosure (less than 30.00) and use that instead. There are many options. If the hard drive reads as "raw" when connected to your computer, you need to do a scandisk (with boxes to fix errors checked) that will fix corruption problems on the drive. But more than likely your problem will be the enclosure, most hard drives are very reliable. http://www.vantecusa.com/front/product/view_detail/266
Awesome... thnx jony218... Ill definately have 2 look into getting that cable if the firewire doesnt work. what was the casing that you were talking about.. do you happen to know where i might be able 2 find something like that. thnx again.
I've never seen a laptop with an e-SATA port, and even then you'd need to buy a S-ATA to e-SATA adapter cable to connect the hard drive to it. Your best option is as jony says, to buy another adapter for the drive.
I had a similar problem with my WD external. I was in the process of ripping a dvd when the drive fell from the top of my CPU to the ground. My computer froze and I had to restart. When I did my drive was not recognized. Should I follow the suggestions about taking it out of the casing and hooking it up through SETA?
yea Id say it would be worth a shot... If your drive is under warranty and you dont mind sending it in to get replaced I would probably go that route.. however if you are in the same position as me and you have info on your external HD that you dont want others to be able to access than it might not be a bad idea to give it a shot. I found a casing for the disk drive on Newegg.com and Im probably going to order it up and put the disk drive from my seagate into that and hook it up through the USB on the new casing. However if your running a desktop and have an available slot for a hard drive disk than you may even be able to just put your disk drive in your computer and access it that way... not 100% sure on that one though.
