Tag Archives: failure

external Seagate hard drives failing (or not showing up)

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve had this happen a few times, so I thought I’d mention it to everyone.

Some external Seagate branded USB hard drives (usually 1TB, and usually the larger 3.5″ size), that seem to be failing at random.

The first one: a customer said its acting strange (windows 7 would detect the drive, and its capacity, and how much space was still available, but couldn’t view any files and folders.

I ripped open the enclosure to get to the raw drive inside (its a 3.5″ sata drive), and plugged it into my xp diagnostic PC… and I could read the data without any problem.

I concluded that the enclosure electronics had “died”, so I got another enclosure, put the HDD into it, and could easily read the drive from my XP PC.

But when it was plugged into a Win7 PC, I got the same problem: cannot access any files or folders…

So, there is something wrong with the drive itself… but what could it be?

I decided that a firmware update was worth a try, as I’ve had other firmware problems with seagate recently.

So, after backing up all the data, I updated the firmware, and that was all I needed to do… The drive now worked perfectly.

Since then, I’ve had a few similar problems (only with seagate).

It seems that seagate need to check their firmware more carefully, as I’ve been seeing Seagate firmware issues on drive that have been manufactured 2 or 3 years ago, up to some very recent ones.

Pity, as Seagate was/is my drive of choice, given that I had poor lifespan out of the main rival: WD.

d-link failure season

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’m starting to notice that D-Link network equipment seems to have a limited lifespan.

I only started noticing this recently, when I was called upon to fix a few failed internet connections (Its starting to feel like its d-link failure season).

In every case, the internet dropout was caused by a D-Link modem (or wireless router, or wireless modem router) which had “lost” its settings.

In each case, I could re-enter the appropriate settings (usually email address and password… and sometimes some wireless settings).

Once the new settings were entered, the D-link device would keep the settings for a few days/weeks, and then fail again.

Installing something more robust (like a new netgear) was the best solution in all these cases.

I must say I rarely find a netgear device that has failed from “old age”.

failed speadstream 4200

Computer Aid Posted on by

Customer calls, saying she thinks her adsl modem has failed.

She said it made a loud pop, and the optus tech said it probably needs to be replaced.

When I get there, the modem lights seem ok (power, adsl link, usb).

Its a windows 98 system, so I take a short while to re-orient myself… I’ve gotten very familiar with xp now…

I can connect to the modem via a browser, and the settings look fine… I disconnect the adsl connection, then hit the connect button, and I’m told “the current connection is still busy”.

It looks like it should work, it detects an adsl line, so nothing is obviously fried.

After spending 10 minutes trying to convince it to connect, I eventually try a new adsl modem… and it works perfectly.

I also spend some time updating her outdated antivirus.