[Mr Withacee]

I have a 500gb Seagate Free Agent External Hard Drive which recently failed. It was working normally as it has done for a couple of years but on the last occasion i tried to access it it failed to be recognized by my laptops BIOS. I could hear the disc spinning up and hear sounds of data access coming from within the drive but as far as the computer was concerned the drive was just not there. I took the drive out of its case and tried to bypass the USB PCB by plugging it directly into a desktop computer via the SATA cable but this was also unsuccessful. I shipped it to a data recovery company who have ascertained its a firmware problem and can be easily fixed. Unfortunately the price they will charge for doing this is quite beyond my means. Apparently the firmware problem with these drives is widespread and, unfortunately for Seagate, very common. Is there anyone who may be able to assist me in updating the firmware myself?

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You might want to contact Seagate to see if they can assist you. Often there are firmware update procedures on the website of manufacturers. I see some instructions for the FreeAgent Theater version on the Seagate website, but I am not sure of the exact model that you have.

You might also want to check to see if the disk is still under warranty. Some are listed as having a 5 year warranty.

[Kemasa]

You might want to contact Seagate to see if they can assist you. Often there are firmware update procedures on the website of manufacturers. I see some instructions for the FreeAgent Theater version on the Seagate website, but I am not sure of the exact model that you have.

You might also want to check to see if the disk is still under warranty. Some are listed as having a 5 year warranty.

[Mr Withacee]

Hi and thanks for replying. The drive does have a 5yr warranty and is covered though i've been told the warranty doesn't cover data. There is some data on the drive I need to recover so i wanted to get it running again for that reason.
Seagate themselves offer the firmware but not instructions on how to flash it to the drive.
In case i did something to corrupt the data i need to recover i've held off doing anything to the drive aside from initial tests that eliminated the USB connection and PCB as the problem.
I'd appreciate more detailed info on the actual practicalities of the process,if you or one of your esteemed colleagues knew what to do and felt like illuminating me i'd be most grateful.

Cheers