My Seagate Free Agent 500Gb is not recognized by my PCs. The systems feel the presence, but I have no list of/ or access to the contents.

Hi,
Have you tried uninstalling your seagate free agent software, restarting your computer and installing it again?

For a MAC to use an external Hard drive, the hard drive has to be formatted FAT32 file system. That is the only file system MAC sees.

First make sure that you have a bootable Windows Vista installation DVD, as you will be unable to use your computer if you don’t. Next, download the GParted Live CD and burn it to cd.
Boot off the GParted cd, and you will see your hard drives in the drop-down list. The first drive is typically your boot drive, but you can check the Flags column to make sure.


Next you’ll need to right-click on the partition and choose Resize/Move from the menu.


Now you can either use the New Size textbox, or just click and drag the partition to make it smaller (or bigger). When you are done, click the Resize/Move button.This doesn’t immediately apply the changes, though. You can make other changes to your partitions and then when you are finished click the Apply button.Depending on the amount of data and the speed of your computer, it can take quite a while to resize the partitions. On my computer it took more than 30 minutes.


Once it’s done, quit, remove the live cd and then reboot your computer. Unless you are very lucky, you’ll be greeted with this horrible error message saying “Windows Failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.”
Hope this helps!

You better check with the Seagate people. This seems to be a problem with the casing. And since you're under warranty, you can get a replacement.

Try changing the data cable. it should work, I had same problem and after changing cable it worked.

you should plug the connection properlly and match the cables properly&then check

I Posted a solution to this prob but i don't see it anymore. Your ext drive is Encrypting your folder. It just knows you're the one using it. If I took it and plugged it in to my computer, it would recognize my user name as t0mthab0mb and prompt me for the password. Try it. Create a different user account on your computer, then try to access the encryption folder from the new account.

DO NOT buy a Seagate freeagent drive under any condition if it comes as a gift return it or re-gift to some one you don't like. Like so many others my 500GB external drive just quit working. Has only been plugged in about 6 times and then back into a cabinet to keep safe. In 10 years between 2 workstations 3 laptops and 4 external drives. The only drives that have ever gone bad are the Seagates and newer Maxators. I still have 4 Western digital drives that still work and get used in an external case for back up. They have never failed. Seagate should be responsible for data time and mental anguish.

hmm, no problem plugging in either side, just be sure to do the power cable first. What's doing the beep, beep?

Found a guy who had similar prob, here was his solution:
Go to Control Panel. Click on Device Manager.
Check to see if FreeAgent is shown as a disk drive.
If not, check the device list for any Free Agent device, double click and check driver. No driver installed? Update does not work? On the driver tab….click uninstall device.
Shut down computer. Unplug Free agent USB and power at the drive.
Reboot computer. As it is rebooting, plug in the power cord. Wait a minute or two….then plug in USB cord.

Windows will “found new device” ….. Just let the computer complete the reboot.
Then go to the device manager. Chances are you will find Free Agent in the drives….and in the USB list of devices. Open windows explorer….and you should see you Free Agent as a drive.
Windows will ask you to install manufacturer disk. You have no disk…non needed. Windows has installed the device. Just click on close. I you keep getting windows wants to install device…..ignore it. You can click on “don’t ask again”. (That is if your Free Agent drive is showing in the device manager as a disk…and in windows explorer….along with your other drive or drives.)
If at some later time….your Free Agent drive does not appear….repeat the steps as listed above.
(You may think it is not working….or that it has gone bad. Try this before you try to return.)
Seagate Tools…the new version….does not recognize to diagnose the Free Agent….
I have not tried Seagate Tools after getting the computer to recognize the drive.
I am surprised Seagate does not provide a Tool to recognize their own drives…and install and/or test Free Agent.

This does work for me with Vista. Thought I had lost the drive…. Seagate should provide a patch or a drive that Windows will recognize when you get the “found new hardware” and Windows asks you to insert manufacturer’s installation disk. I do not understand why that is not already there….a driver file for Free Agent...that Windows would install.

I did not buy Pro….because I did not need the backup software. I wonder if those who bought Pro are having these problems.

465.66 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 499,998,617,764 bytes. The problem is the definition of gigabytes.