Is Seagate FreeAgent Go compatible with Windows 7

[Parvati]

I have been using Dell since ages but now I want to switch to HP to run Windows 7 on it. So I though of to buy Seagate FreeAgent Go portable hard drive to backup my data. I want to ask you is whether this drive will be compatible with Windows 7? I have seen a website which says it is compatible with Windows XP and Vista.

[deoWo]

You can use your portable hard drive on Windows 7 computer. There shouldn't be any compatibility issue with it. But I doubt if you will be able to use the software that you will take backup of on that computer. You can use data backup on a new computer but not the software backups, you need to reinstall the software once again to use them.

[Rawko]

Even I was having the similar issue once with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit computer. The same drive was working on my another Windows 7 64 laptop. I noticed that the problem was with the extension USB cable which was not used by my laptop. Because of that, the drive gets mount and unmount several times in each second but if you connect the drive directly to the USB port with the Seagate cable then that was working as normal. Perhaps that extra cable wasn't providing enough power to the Seagate drive. And thus the issue.

[Killen]

It is simple, go to disk management and create a new partition. This will allow you to test the drive and will assign a drive letter to it. This is specifically problem of computers that lacks drivers, or having USB port problems or something similar to that.

[samar69]

Even I am having Freeagent Go from a long time and I never faced such a problem until now. I have Windows 7 32 bit installed on my computer. One of my friend is running Windows 7 64 bit and I have tried my drive on that computer too but never noticed such problems. Are you using Seagate FreeAgent Go as your boot drive? If so then don't do that. It is not generally recommended.

[SoUtah]

OK, I found THE solution! At least the one for me. First the problem. My Seagate Freeagent Go 500 GB hard drive not showing in Windows 7 in such a way that- you cannot open or get into it. I have a 64 bit Windows 7 installation. I tried all and everything. The drive DOES work in all other computers, on XP and Vista. So, it is exclusive to Windows 7. Many posts say to go to Computer and right click, an option called Manage, select that. Then among the choices, click on Disk Management. Once here, the hard drive does show, but no option to open exists with most people. Many solutions that worked for other people did not work for me. I do believe however, that when it shows generic and no name for a volume that we are onto something. But first what I tried that did not work. For instance, right clicking on the drive and making it Mark Partion as Active did not work. The classic fix of Change the Drive Letter and Paths did now work for me. Every solution to update the driver was focused on including downloading a Driver package diagnostic tool off Seagates website that says it branches over Winows 7 32 bit and 64 bit applications did not help me, but it did let me test the drive as being OK working order. Basically, when I tried those other solutions of changing drive letter path or of tyring to format etc., this message pops up saying something about the Device Manager being out of date, basic errors of not being able to perform that function. I even tried to reformat the drive, but on my XP computer. Restarting Device Manager, computer etc. Updating other drivers on the computer, rest at ease, it is Windows 7 folks. One thing worked finally and it pertains to the clue of when it does show in the Device Manager, it shows as a volume that is no named. You have to get it a name. Now, yes, I know, it has a name on all the other computers. OK, right click on the "no name" volume in the Device Manger. One other option showed that I finally tried and this works it out. Perhaps you will need to transfer all your data, a full copy to another hard drive. Don't worry, you can transfer it back. I had the advantage of it being basically empty. But in the Windows 7 Device Manager, there are these wonderful handy ways to organize hard drives, partitions, formatting, extending etc. But the one option we have to click on available, the magic pill- Delete Volume. Once deleted, now it will let you format it. Once you do that and IN THERE -assign it your new letter drive- and finish up and SOLUTION time. That did it for me! Hope this helps one and all who are many that are having this problem and NOWHERE could I find this answer- I came up with it with my own experimentation.
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