Mac OSX Tip - Lost Directory on Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex External Drive

Question

I have a Mac user (OSX Snow Leopard) who does a lot of video processing so 3 months ago, to speed video processing, I purchased a Seagate FreeAgent Goflex 1TB external drive with the optional Firewire adaptor (so I could run USB2 or Firewire). A few days ago, the drive became corrupt when it didn’t eject correctly and Seagate’s own software, that appears to run to mount the drive, would not terminate once the drive was mounted.
The symptoms are:
1. The disc appears on the Mac desktop after being plugged in.
2. Most or all of the files and directories are missing.
3. The free space on the drive reflects the fact that there are files still on the drive.
4. Trying to eject the drive in the normal fashion results in a warning that the drive could not be ejected because an application is using files on the drive, so you must choose “force eject” to remove the drive from the desktop. Even if you freshly reboot the computer and just plug in the drive, it cannot be ejected normally.
I contacted Seagate and, after going through their support section, ended up sending an e-mail and also figured out how to put a ticket in to support. The suggestions: a Seagate Do-it-yourself data recovery program (that scans the drive at 1GB per HOUR) or send the drive to them for their data recovery service at a cost anywhere from $700 to $2500+ to recover the data. Before you buy a Seagate drive, I would highly recommend that you visit the Seagate website because Data Recovery must be a BIG BUSINESS of theirs!
In an effort to solve the problem, I purchased Disk Warrior (this was the suggestion of the Apple Store Genius folks but they were honest about it may/may not work). Trying to “Graph” or “Restore” the directory gave the following error in a few seconds.
+The directory of the disk "1TB Firewire Portable" cannot be rebuilt.+
+This disk is still in use. Quit all other applications, or restart from the DiskWarrior disc, and then try rebuilding again. If you report this error, please mention the error code (2153, 4903).+
Without luck using Disk Warrior, I set off to find the application that was running that kept the drive from ejecting. Using “Activity Monitor”, I was able to find that the “Seagate Storage Gauge” application, even after being manually terminated as a job, would recreate itself in a second or two. There was no way to get rid of this application. I found the culprit - or at least I thought so.
Here is how I managed to recover the data (I did NOT fix the drive).
1. I removed the Seagate folder from the HD/Library/Applications Support folder (put it on my desktop). This directory contains the file “Seagate Storage Gauge”
2. I “force eject”ed the Seagate Drive
3. I unplugged the drive (by now, I’d done this a lot)
4. I rebooted the computer (logging out/in does not fix this as Seagate used Root as the user for the application)
5. After the computer rebooted, I plugged in the drive and was able to see the files and folders.
At this point, it’s time to plug in another hard drive and copy everything except the Seagate programs that come on the Seagate drive.
After recovering all my files, I still had to “force eject” the drive but at this point, it’s nothing but a paperweight to me. I do not trust this drive and will not buy another Seagate product.
I’m hoping that this information will help others recover their own data from their Seagate drives, without purchasing the Data Recovery Service from Seagate.

Answer 1

Although this may not be of help to you, perhaps it will help someone. I read a review of the Seagate STAM2000100 2TB GoFlex Home Network Storage System. It sounds like just what I needed, and after some brief research, I ordered it. When it arrived, I spent hours and hours trying to understand the installation instructions and researched the blogs on Apple, Seagate and other sites. Then I spent most of a day trying to make it play nice with my Mac. In the end I returned the product because of the effect it had on my iMac 5.1 running Snow Leopard. I did my best to undo the installation of Seagate software, but my hard drive was still having trouble starting.
After much fiddling and research, I found a hint: try looking at the settings on the HD. Using the Disk Utility on the Mac, I had it Verify Permissions. It found lots of wrong settings, so I had it Repair Permissions. Now my Mac is back to its old self. ;<)