Seagate GoFlex Home Drive Not Working

[speil51]

I have a goflex network drive that was intermittently losing connection (files disappearing and reappearing). Now, the goflex home appears on my mac finder and my name still shows with the same main folders, but nothing is in them. Changed cables, checked different ports on router, nothing. The drive capacity is incorrect (only shows 221MB and its a 3 tb drive). The dates on the folders that come up all over the place (1970, 2023, etc.) The light on the base keeps blinking green, doesnt do anything else. I thought maybe it was the base the drive plugs into so i got another seagate drive and plugged the drive into that base and it still would not work. I then removed the drive from the plastic holding case, and plugged it into a anker enclosure. But when i connect that to a PC or MAC, I am prompted to format the drive to be able to use it. So obviously something is wrong with the drive. I read that this particular hdd had firmware issues and i tried to update it but it didnt work. I dont think anything is physically wrong with the hdd. When i power on the drive, it does start spinning and making the very low sound any drive does when its being used. I do NOT hear the death click at any time when the drive is spinning. Essentialy, I power the drive on, it makes the noises like its booting up, then quiet. No other noises and the green light on base just constantly blinks. I am really hoping someone can help me save my data or I will have to pay a pretty penny to get it done by pros.

Thanks in advance

model: ST3000DM001
Name: Barracuda
NAS Base: Go Flex Home

 

[E-50]

you are not seeing your contents on PC or Mac because most of the NAS drives have EXT3/EXT4 file system type. Thats Linux, if you have ubuntu you should be able to mount it with there. You can also recover your data with data recovery software. R-studio and UFS explorer is as good as they get, not free, but very affordable and they both support EXT3/4 formats so you will see the structure no problem. Both tools offer demo version for free, so I would download that first before buying licence and make sure you see your data. Good luck

 

[sirstinky]

Windows and Mac drives are formatted differently for storage and read/writes. Most Windows formats are either FAT32 or NTFS. You should be able to view files on both operating systems though so I don't think that's your issue. Connection issues can be bad because if a drive unmounts itself or is having connection issues it can cause files to become corrupted. You could try a utility called Seatools. It's unique to Seagate products that helps recover and fix corrupted files.

 

[ai8ut]

Speil51,
Was looking for a drive replacement thread when I came across your question.
I have the same problem and I am accessing the 3TB Barracuda storage from an iMac .
Files displayed, directories showing zero files present, files displayed again, and then nothing. iMac Disk utilities were of no help because the drive is basically DOA.
First, if you can get your files to display and access them, back up those files immediately. I did not do that and now I can not access any data on the drive even though the directories are still present (but 0 files returned). I fired up a 6 year old microsoft box running XP I had in a closet with a data recovery tool box and it could not see the drive either.
I took the GoFlex Home drive out of the casing and connected it via USB with hardware I had on hand to see if I could extract the data... Completely unsuccessful... it is toast. The drive spins but can not access data on it at all. I went through the Seagate diagnostics they provide and that was a complete waste of my time. I would have sent the drive back for a replacement but, as with my past history (and luck) with Seagate, the product lasted for the warranty period +2 months as usual. That in a nutshell is my life history with Seagate products. Why did I spend the money on Seagate again? Unfortunately I give vendors I have had bad experiences with a second chance. I think that falls into the category of a "sucker" and I should have a huge "L" tattooed on my forehead.

 

[sirstinky]

Speil51,
Was looking for a drive replacement thread when I came across your question.
I have the same problem and I am accessing the 3TB Barracuda storage from an iMac .
Files displayed, directories showing zero files present, files displayed again, and then nothing. iMac Disk utilities were of no help because the drive is basically DOA.
First, if you can get your files to display and access them, back up those files immediately. I did not do that and now I can not access any data on the drive even though the directories are still present (but 0 files returned). I fired up a 6 year old microsoft box running XP I had in a closet with a data recovery tool box and it could not see the drive either.
I took the GoFlex Home drive out of the casing and connected it via USB with hardware I had on hand to see if I could extract the data... Completely unsuccessful... it is toast. The drive spins but can not access data on it at all. I went through the Seagate diagnostics they provide and that was a complete waste of my time. I would have sent the drive back for a replacement but, as with my past history (and luck) with Seagate, the product lasted for the warranty period +2 months as usual. That in a nutshell is my life history with Seagate products. Why did I spend the money on Seagate again? Unfortunately I give vendors I have had bad experiences with a second chance. I think that falls into the category of a "sucker" and I should have a huge "L" tattooed on my forehead.

Well, with any technology it's a toss-up of when (not if) it's going to fail. Sometimes it's a matter of days before a drive decides to leave work early, or 3 trouble-free years of 24/7 uptime like the Enterprise drives (some consumer too!). I've imaged drives 10 years old that were just fine, and the consensus for me is that WD drives are the best, most reliable out there. That's from an IT tech who has worked with imaging, migrations, and backups with servers, workstations, and laptops. Is there one "better" hard drive? That's a matter of taste. They are all made to high standards, it just seems some are more prone to failure. If I were to list the most reliable drives I've known, it would go in this order: WD, Hitatchi, and IBM. Seagate's enterprise drives make that list, but the issue is that they're on order of twice as expensive for the same consumer-grade drive of the same size. That's why all our business grade laptops we ordered had...WD drives in them.

 

[ai8ut]

Thanks for the reply.
My preferred drives are WDs but I also have two Hitatchi and two IBM drives.
I am a retired z/OS Systems Engineer on z9 Enterprise servers. Those that are the size of a refridgerator and we used a mixture of IBM and EMC shoebox disc technology. In that world the IBM disc technology was far more reliable than EMC.
Hooked up the drives this afternoon and started moving data around to free up two of the drives so I can try to stick one in the GoFlex Home housing and I an going to try to USB attach the other to the GoFlex just for kicks and grins to see how it all works out.
With Christmas being tomorrow and the wife and I leaving for Florida on the 26th I do not think I will have any information to feed back until mid (or late) January. But I will feed back what I did and how I did it in case anyone else runs into the same issue or just simply want to know if a disk swap works.
Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and above all stay Safe and Healthy.

 

[sirstinky]

Thanks for the reply.
My preferred drives are WDs but I also have two Hitatchi and two IBM drives.
I am a retired z/OS Systems Engineer on z9 Enterprise servers. Those that are the size of a refridgerator and we used a mixture of IBM and EMC shoebox disc technology. In that world the IBM disc technology was far more reliable than EMC.
Hooked up the drives this afternoon and started moving data around to free up two of the drives so I can try to stick one in the GoFlex Home housing and I an going to try to USB attach the other to the GoFlex just for kicks and grins to see how it all works out.
With Christmas being tomorrow and the wife and I leaving for Florida on the 26th I do not think I will have any information to feed back until mid (or late) January. But I will feed back what I did and how I did it in case anyone else runs into the same issue or just simply want to know if a disk swap works.
Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and above all stay Safe and Healthy.

Thanks! Merry Christmas to you and a blessed safe new year!

 

[ai8ut]

Well, I got back into town and did some drive swap testing with some old 1 & 2 tb drives I had on hand.
I opened the Seagate Goflex and pulled the old drive out and it in fact was null and void. Tried it on several machines and a USB connection. All failed to access the drive.
I plugged in several of my old 1 & 2 tb NTFS drives directly into the Seagate Goflex base (without the case), they started up like a champ, and all data showed up in the Public directory and was accessible. There were a few old Windoze system (*.ini) files I received NOTAUTH errors when I tried to delete them but otherwise I was able to copy, move, delete, modify, add, & remove all other files to the newly added drive from an iMac using the Seagate supplied apps without a problem. Also performed a Time Machine backup without error.
I then reformatted another drive for HFS (Journalled access) and tried to access it. GoFlex hiccuped and went offline.
Worked with it for about 30 minutes and decided life was to short to invest more time in a technology that will be changing before I complete this response.
Another access I tested was a 500gb external drive connected to the Seagate Goflex base via a USB connection and that worked flawlessly. I upped the stakes a bit replaced the 500gb drive with a 1tb external desktop drive and it worked fine.
Bottom line is while my Seagate drive failed a few months out of warranty (which really made me mad) the Seagate GoFlex unit will accept other OEM drives and operate normally. My experience is that if the initial install was NTFS you need to continue using the supplied NTFS driver for an iMac. If you are using windoze you should not have a problem.
Cheers, chin up, and you and your family have an outstanding year!