After doing a diagnostic test on my 6 month old freagent go 500gb drive I discovered that the drive was malfunctioning . Seagate has agreed to replce the drive. The process you recommended did work on my daughter computer and freeagent drive.
You're welcome! Malfunctioning hard drives are such a pain, especially if you have important data on there. Lesson (that's paid off for me): always have a backup!