[Tfug] FYI: Segate 500 GB USB hard drive

[earljviolet at deserthowler.com]

On Wed, December 16, 2009 9:40 am, Bexley Hall wrote:
> Hi Earl,
>
>> I recently bought a 500 GB Segate
>> hard drive from Office Max at a fairly
>
> Costco was pushing 1.5T drives for $109 last week...
 Costco is out of Trike range for me.  About 25 miles is my round trip limit.
>
>> good price.  I hooked it up to my Ubuntu 9.10 box and
>> it was immediately
>> recognized.  I copied a few files to it and it
>> unmounted itself.  It was
>> completely gone with no trace ... including lsusb not
>> seeing it.
>
> Did you try unplugging and replugging it (i.e., to see if
> it would be re-recognized)?  Did the drive spin down?
> (I think the seacrates *do* spin down when unmounted)
>
Yes, I even tried knowing working USB ports.
>> I quit 9.10 and booted into Ubuntu 8.04 with the same
>> results.  I then
>> tried the drive on a box with Mandriva 2010 with the same
>> results.  My
>> laptop running 8.04 gave the same results.
>
> *Clearly* "Operator Error"!  ;-)
>
I didn't think I was that astoundingly consistent.  :S
>> I returned the drive and got another one.  I tried the
>> new one with the
>> sme results.  In a moment of desparation I hooked up
>> to my XP box I use
>> for my MagicJack phone.  It worked fine and was up for
>> a day.  I'm not
>> sure but I think XP added a few files.  Anyeay, I
>
> XP pulled files *from* the drive?
> Or, XP added files *to* the drive?
> (I suspect the former)
>
I think XP added something but I'm not real sure.
>> tried it on the linux
>> boxes and everything works great now.  It has been up
>> for 4 days on Ubuntu
>> 9.10.  Strange fix but I thought someone else might
>> run into this situation.
>
> While I could see that something like this is *possible*
> (for a device manufacturer to do), I'm not sure I understand
> why it would be *desirable* (from their point).  Unless the
> drive doesn't look like a "simple" mass storage device...
> (I think they have firmware that tries to make them
> smarter -- spin down automatically after a period, etc.)
>
It now has stayed mounted and accessible for over almost 5 days.  I moved
a movie to it and played it back and no problems for over 3 hours.


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