Seagate FreeAgent Desk External Drive on Mac

PaulJB · #1 April 21st, 2009, 05:02 PM

I have a Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1.5 TB that I got for a really good deal. It says on the box that it is for Windows but I would like to put it on my Mac. Is there anyway to do this? I have a Windows box I can stick it on if I have too but I would prefer the Mac.

Thanks

Paul

ElDiabloConCaca · #2 April 21st, 2009, 06:01 PM

Just plug it into your Mac. Magic -- it works!

If you intend on using the drive solely with Macintosh computers and do not need to access the drive locally (via USB, etc.) with a Windows computer, I would highly recommend reformatting the drive to HFS+ format (a more Mac-friendly disk format). You can do this via "Disk Utility", located in Applications > Utilities.

pius222 · #3 May 25th, 2009, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

Just plug it into your Mac. Magic -- it works!

If you intend on using the drive solely with Macintosh computers and do not need to access the drive locally (via USB, etc.) with a Windows computer, I would highly recommend reformatting the drive to HFS+ format (a more Mac-friendly disk format). You can do this via "Disk Utility", located in Applications > Utilities.

Sorry, it doesn't work since it is for Windows only, Seagate does have a 1.5TB version for Mac but costs $70 more. I bought the Windows version too thinking I can reformat it to use on Mac, but Disk Utility won't recognize it.

Anybody?

ElDiabloConCaca · #4 May 25th, 2009, 07:51 PM

It seems that there are a lot of reports that the FreeAgent drives do not work with Macs... here's just one:

http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/thread/1004420133.aspx

If that is indeed the case, then no amount of finagling is going to make it work with your Mac.

I find it hard to believe that one drive will work on Windows but not Macintosh -- there's nothing "Windows-specific" or "Mac-specific" about a disk drive. In other words, there's nothing about the drive that should make it Mac-incompatible as long as it adheres to the USB 2.0 spec and has an SATA/IDE bridge chip that's compliant.

Not to mention that there are other operating systems out there -- Linux, UNIX, Solaris, etc. It seems strange that a disk is "Windows-only." Blows my little computer science mind, as it seems to be more trouble to make a disk drive incompatible with certain operating systems.

FredP101 · #5 June 2nd, 2009, 12:07 AM

Not sure how i found this, but there is a work around!!! Yay! I dont have to ship it back!!

If you go to Disk utilities on mac
Select the drive heading
then select partition
split the partition into 2 even partitions.
both mac os journaled
tell it to apply.

this may or may not error out, but it erases whatever partition manager they are using to prevent this drive from being used on the mac.

then you can reformat as 1 partition with no error.

lbj · #6 June 2nd, 2009, 03:48 AM

This stunt alone will insure I never buy a Seagate external. For any reason. Ever.
Way to go Seagate...

FredP101 · #7 June 2nd, 2009, 06:49 AM

I Agree! Not cool . Les charge 50-70 dollars more to mac users? Come on....

gd6778 · #8 June 9th, 2009, 10:21 PM

This did not work for me. After successfully creating 2 mac partitions, I received an error when I tried to erase/make it 1 drive again.

What DID work was using a 3rd party app - Drive Genius - no complaints from it.
After this, I was able to use Mac's Disk Utility to slice and dice and then reconstitute it.
The clue as to whether you've removed the hidden voodoo is in Disk utility. Click on the ERASE tab.
If the Volume Format defaults to MS-DOS (FAT), you have a problem.
If you see Mac OS Extended (Journaled), you're good to go.

I like Seagate, but this is BS!!!