Far from happy with 750GB Seagate FreeAgent drive bought from SCAN

[Bob Crabtree]

I bought a 750GB Seagate FreeAgent drive from SCAN a few weeks back and failed repeatedly to get it working via its eSATA port.

Then, at the turn of the month, I made some time to look into the problem and, having Googled, found this thread, which held the answer.

Bottom line is that I was not pushing the cable into the drive's socket hard enough.

However, to get it to mate required a massive amount of force (quite a frightening amount, actually).

I'm far from happy with this situation - and I now know that this is not a problem with the cable but the socket - simply because I don't have this problem with another eSATA device, into which any of my cables goes easily and stays firmly in place after being pushed in gently.

I used Seagate's web contact form to report this problem (and discovery) on August 31 but have not even received an acknowledgement.

On the same day, I used SCAN's web contact form to report this problem (and discovery) and did receive back an auto response but, since then, nothing.

The allocated query number at SCAN is OLQ*****.

So, on September 11, I PM'd SCAN's ChrisP and got no response.

Any chance someone at SCAN could look into this and, ideally, escalate it so that Seagate itself responds.

What I'm hoping for - and I really don't think it's unreasonable - is for Seagate to supply a replacement eSATA connector module that is accurately engineered. And, hopefully, it will do that for anyone who complains about this problem.

TIA

Cheers

Bob

[Mossy]

Hi Bob

you did not receive an automated reply as it was done by Michael in our Sales team, I wil re-open the query and forward it to the returns department but in the meantime I would suggest you keep trying with Seagate. Issues such as this can not be helped on new products like this and sometimes it takes a while for the manufacturers to recognise the problem. Chris would of replied but I think at the time he was on holiday, is it possible to replace the cable or is it fixed?

Regards

[DavidM]

Chris has been out of office - since this time.

(edited - as Paul covered the other part)

[Bob Crabtree]

Guys,

Thanks for the speedy responses!!

:-)

Key thing to know is that this is, I'm pretty sure, an issue with the eSATA interface on the drive, not the cables I've been using.

The good thing is that this interface is on a removable modular connector that also has a USB socket (a second module is supplied and offers six-pin FireWire connectivity), so it's not as though Seagate will have to replace entire drives, just interface modules.

But, I would ask SCAN to try to escalate this problem to make it visible to Seagate and, if possible, let me know what else I can do with Seagate to make the company take notice.

Cheers

Bob

[Mossy]

I have spoken to returns they are looking into this issue but thank you for pointing this out Bob

Regards