I just did this. Yes 2023 lol. No need to remove the board/screws. After removing the cage screws, just remove the 2 front screws and pull forward. Concerning the case, I propped the seam where the label is and just ripped the cover off with nothing broken! But thanks for the helpful guide!
Yup, 8 years later your vid helped immensely. Particularly wit confidence. Thank you. ( I havent done it yet lol cause I need to get a sata/ide to retrieve the data.- another vid somewhere I hope...)
You're welcome. A SATA/IDE adapter will come with everything you need and just plugs into the drive. Or you can buy a new hard drive enclosure that will accept a SATA drive and just install it in there. Any one you buy will be child's play to install the drive into as it just has plain old screws. And I do have a video showing that as well, with 2 different enclosures, if I recall.
@@jaykay18 Thats great to know. I had planned on buying a new hd and transfer via my Mac mini. I had been quoted $200 by 2 seperate recovery businesses, that I didnt even trust with my data. So this is so empowering. Ive been without my lifes worth of data, not knowing what to do.
@@DavidG-ym3rb OK well here's another tip: You're doing it wrong. What I mean is, technology has no sympathy. You learned that lesson the hard way already. If all of your data is on that drive, and that drive goes kaput, so does your data. It's possible a data recovery company can retrieve it, but $200 is a bargain. Most low level stuff is going to be into the thousands of dollars, take if from me, someone who's been in the business for almost 35 years. So here's the phrase to live by: Two is one, and one is none. That means, if you have one, and it breaks, you have none. If you have two, and one breaks, you still have one, and the second can be repaired or replaced. So going forward, keep TWO drives and a copy on EACH drive, EACH AND EVERY TIME you save something. I keep THREE working copies of all of my TH-cam videos, plus the master camera files. Better still would be an off-site backup so if the house burns dows, I still have my data.
Thank you for this walkthrough! I have the 500GB version that is suddenly not showing up when I plug it into my computer. If I pull the HDD out of this enclosure and stick it in another, will the power supply still be needed? Trying to rule out the enclosure and really hope it's not my HDD.
@jaykay18 Thank you! I was able to get it out of the Seagate prison cell with no issues and now have it running on a disk utility to see if I can salvage anything... two decades of photos on the line!
@@sbortiz You've learned important lessons. When a hard drive is a few years old, it should be replaced proactively. You've also learned that your backup drive was your only drive and that's a bad thing. You always need a backup. I have FOUR working copies of this video.
Thx for the nice explanation for taking apart the freeAgent! Now I can put the 1.5TB drive in the freeAgent enclosre with a micro USB...ugh, into a dual bay usb 3 docking station :)
Nice! I did the same with my drive, which was similar. It had the black enclosure and was 500GB. Interestingly, mine was put together the same way, only the perforated metal sleeve around the top covered the entire drive. I took the rubber bumpers off and the screws out, and the drive slid out the end of the sleeve, unplugging itself as it went.
+Harley Badger Some enclosures are a lot nicer than others. What's nice about the enclosure I have now is it will spin the drive down when not in use, like right now it's spun down. And the drive I pulled from here, which is hooked to a spare SATA port in the machine, also spins down. Saves tons of power-on hours.
I have this same drive. The connector for lead has broken off the board. I’ve taken it apart and retrieved the tiny connector but it’s damaged. Is there an adapter I can buy which I can use to reconnect the drive to my laptop? Any help would be appreciated
It's a standard USB A to mini-B connector cable. Make sure it's a MINI connector, not micro, they are different. They're getting hard to find at stores since the port is deprecated, but you should be able to order online very easily.
@@RosemaryR If you went into a restaurant, and wanted a hamburger, when the waiter came over, you'd ask for a hamburger. You search for things by what they're called. I have already told you what the cable is called. You search by that. A very simple, quick, easy search, by copying and pasting what I already wrote, yields 2 excellent results: www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-USB-2-0-Cable-Male/dp/B00NH11N5A www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-3-usb-type-a-to-5-pin-mini-b-cable-black/5884142.p?skuId=5884142 Would you like me to pay for it too? Hand deliver it? Plug it in for you? And turn off you damn Caps Lock!
Mine looks the same but is a 1500 GB. If I follow your method, how do I wire it up to my computer? Does it still need it's own power source? OR....do I just USB wire/connect it to my computer? I do have the power plug, but one of the two prongs to my power source connect is broken off.
If the power plug is broken, you can extract the drive like I did. You'll need to plug a SATA power plug into the drive along with a SATA data cable if you don't have one.
An excellent video! I don't know if this is the proper forum for this question. If not please forgive me. I have 2 of the same FreeAgent drives that I bought new several years ago. I have been cloning them as backups to the system hard drive. Three days ago when I started having troubles with the system hard drive and I discovered that my Dell Dimension E521 does not recognize them even though Windows does. Your video has shown me how to install one of these drives as an internal drive however, even though this drive is a clone it still isn't recognized in the BIOS. The system goes through post then the display shows a cursor with the letter j and blinks continuously. Do you know if there is another step needed to get the FreeAgent drive to boot? Do you perhaps have another video that might help? Thanks for any advice.
Cloning is tricky. You have no way of knowing if it works until you need it. The best thing to do is NOT clone. Instead, you'd back up all of your data files safely onto a drive, then reinstall Windows from scratch. On my servers I take an image of the operating system, since there's a lot of setup involved to make it all work again. After I take the image, I disconnect the original hard drive and put in a spare, and reimage the new drive and try booting. If successful, I leave the image. I've had certain systems that image properly and tell me the image was created properly, but when it's time to reimage, the machine won't boot. Again, cloning isn't the greatest option for backup, because while it will back up your data, programs, and operating system, it also backs up any problems it's having. It's also an all-or-nothing thing. If that clone/image doesn't work, you have nothing.
Thanks! Either get a USB to SATA adapter and plug it in USB, or if you have a desktop computer, and available SATA port, and a spare SATA cable, you can plug it in there. That of course assumes the drive itself is fine and your problem was just the enclosure.
I got it apart. The drive does not turn, however I'm thinking it could be the power supply. How often do these go out? I tested it with a known good drive and nothing. The supply was cool to the touch when I unplugged it. Burned out? how do they stop working?
How? Made In China. That's how. You haven't fully proven the supply is bad, it could be the circuit board inside the case there. Next step is to hook the drive itself up to the inside of a computer and see if it'spins up and is recognized. If it is, you've confirmed it's the power supply or the circuit board. The step after would be to measure the output of the supply with a voltmeter. If indeed there is no power, you can either search for a replacement, or raid your "junk drawer". You might have a power supply with similar output characteristics, and can splice the plug onto it. Barring that, you can purchase a hard drive enclosure that will accept your bare drive, and include a new power supply, circuit board, and cables.
I have lots of old power supplies in my junk drawer. Tried a few. Nothing. One thing I've discovered is it requires 12V HOWEVER, I have several power supplies that even though they are 12V, the size of the hole on the tips are different. the ratings on the plug show many different amperages for outputs. I'm assuming this is to prevent misuse with devices that requires larger or smaller loads. Hey, we're having fun, killing a hot day and an excuse to stay inside. Thank you sir.
Ha ha, yeah, that was EXACTLY the reason I pulled the 1TB drive out of this enclosure, I had no plugs to fit it. The drive is living in a separate enclosure now quite happily. You're not going to get around the "plug not fitting" issue, but for future reference about the amperages: You can ALWAYS use an adapter that has the same or HIGHER amperage rating, you can NEVER use an adapter that has a LOWER amperage rating. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but that's the general rule of thumb. That only holds true for the amperage; voltage in most cases must match.
Thank you Levi! I always try to respond to my comments as soon as possible, I happened to be at the machine at this time, editing more content for the channel so the response speed was real quick, otherwise I usually respond in less than an hour. I do that because I was tired of commenting on other people's videos and never receiving a response, especially if I had a valid question. So I make sure that DOESN'T happen on my channel!
If you ever come across a "bad" one, it's actually not bad. The problem is the heads didn't park themselves so the platter won't spin up due to the heads sticking on the platter. It's and easy as long as you know what an open hard drive likes and doesn't like.
kd9bwi You're the third person to offer. I'm unfortunately forced to pick and choose, but I'm sure you'll agree the people with the most experience, Spats Bear and Harley Badger, would be the ones.
+jaykay18 I've only fixed one or 2 non-quartz clocks like you have, the other 2 people will have more experience than me. Infant, the last one I fixed was about a year ago, and all that one needed was the motor cleaned which was very simple. It would sound to me like you would need to take whole thing apart it is completely jammed. I will be awaiting you decision, but I believe I would be better off being the last person person of the other 2 you would pick.
Nice job. I made this video 5 years ago, and within the coming months, I will be taking the drive I extracted from this enclosure out of service. It still works fine, just out of space, so it will get to live on in a different machine for a different purpose.
I also had my Seagate Momentus 500 GB External HDD, when I decided to open the case and see what are inside and you know what do I find the hard drive instead of Seagate name? They're using Samsung 500 GB HDD for Seagate which tells me a story. I also got the external HDD is WD 1 TB Hard Drive, opened the case and also instead that is made in Thailand, they're made in Malaysia.
Yeah, that's called a circuit board, specifically one that converts USB to SATA. It's proprietary to this case. Buy yourself a new hard drive enclosure and if your drive is still good (unlikely) you'll be able to retrieve your data. It's very rare the circuit board goes bad, it's almost always the drive.
@@jaykay18 Thanks for your reply - The 12v power supply failed recently and i was stupid enough to connect the hard drive to a 12v (8ah) ATV Battery :( Something burned out instantly and when I opened the case there was few black spots on circuit board - so hopefully the HD didn't get that current :) . I bought a Sata-USB adaptor and will check whether I can read the DATA
12 volts is 12 volts. You can't "over-amp" something, it uses a specific amount of power and that's all it will take. A standard US house outlet is 120V and the circuit can carry 15 amps. That means when you plug a lamp in, all 15 amps are available to it, but it only uses as much amperage as it needs for the particular bulb.
I just did this. Yes 2023 lol. No need to remove the board/screws. After removing the cage screws, just remove the 2 front screws and pull forward. Concerning the case, I propped the seam where the label is and just ripped the cover off with nothing broken! But thanks for the helpful guide!
You're welcome. This was a "takeapart" video, so everything was taken apart.
Yup, 8 years later your vid helped immensely. Particularly wit confidence. Thank you. ( I havent done it yet lol cause I need to get a sata/ide to retrieve the data.- another vid somewhere I hope...)
You're welcome. A SATA/IDE adapter will come with everything you need and just plugs into the drive. Or you can buy a new hard drive enclosure that will accept a SATA drive and just install it in there. Any one you buy will be child's play to install the drive into as it just has plain old screws. And I do have a video showing that as well, with 2 different enclosures, if I recall.
@@jaykay18 Thats great to know. I had planned on buying a new hd and transfer via my Mac mini. I had been quoted $200 by 2 seperate recovery businesses, that I didnt even trust with my data. So this is so empowering. Ive been without my lifes worth of data, not knowing what to do.
@@DavidG-ym3rb OK well here's another tip: You're doing it wrong. What I mean is, technology has no sympathy. You learned that lesson the hard way already. If all of your data is on that drive, and that drive goes kaput, so does your data. It's possible a data recovery company can retrieve it, but $200 is a bargain. Most low level stuff is going to be into the thousands of dollars, take if from me, someone who's been in the business for almost 35 years.
So here's the phrase to live by: Two is one, and one is none. That means, if you have one, and it breaks, you have none. If you have two, and one breaks, you still have one, and the second can be repaired or replaced. So going forward, keep TWO drives and a copy on EACH drive, EACH AND EVERY TIME you save something. I keep THREE working copies of all of my TH-cam videos, plus the master camera files.
Better still would be an off-site backup so if the house burns dows, I still have my data.
@@jaykay18 I retrieved it all for $35 so have a nice day. And go away.
Thanks for a clear explanation. Followed it and nothing broke !!
Great to hear Malcolm!
Thank you for this walkthrough! I have the 500GB version that is suddenly not showing up when I plug it into my computer. If I pull the HDD out of this enclosure and stick it in another, will the power supply still be needed? Trying to rule out the enclosure and really hope it's not my HDD.
All hard drives require 2 cables, one for data and one for power. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
@jaykay18 Thank you! I was able to get it out of the Seagate prison cell with no issues and now have it running on a disk utility to see if I can salvage anything... two decades of photos on the line!
@@sbortiz You've learned important lessons. When a hard drive is a few years old, it should be replaced proactively. You've also learned that your backup drive was your only drive and that's a bad thing. You always need a backup. I have FOUR working copies of this video.
Thanks to your tutorial. I was able to use the drive again (faulty electrical adopter).
Great to hear.
Thx for the nice explanation for taking apart the freeAgent! Now I can put the 1.5TB drive in the freeAgent enclosre with a micro USB...ugh, into a dual bay usb 3 docking station :)
No problem at all!
Nice! I did the same with my drive, which was similar. It had the black enclosure and was 500GB. Interestingly, mine was put together the same way, only the perforated metal sleeve around the top covered the entire drive. I took the rubber bumpers off and the screws out, and the drive slid out the end of the sleeve, unplugging itself as it went.
+Harley Badger Some enclosures are a lot nicer than others. What's nice about the enclosure I have now is it will spin the drive down when not in use, like right now it's spun down. And the drive I pulled from here, which is hooked to a spare SATA port in the machine, also spins down. Saves tons of power-on hours.
I have this same drive. The connector for lead has broken off the board. I’ve taken it apart and retrieved the tiny connector but it’s damaged. Is there an adapter I can buy which I can use to reconnect the drive to my laptop? Any help would be appreciated
Yes, you just buy a new hard drive enclosure that allows you to connect a 3.5" drive. They are cheap and plentiful.
@@jaykay18 Cheers mate.
LOOKING FOR THE UBS CABLE FOR THE SAME EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE! WOULD YOU KNOW HOW I CAN GET ONE?
It's a standard USB A to mini-B connector cable. Make sure it's a MINI connector, not micro, they are different. They're getting hard to find at stores since the port is deprecated, but you should be able to order online very easily.
@@jaykay18 HOW WOULD I SEARCH FOR IT ONLINE
CAN YOU RECOMMEND WHAT ONLINE STORE TO LOOK FOR THE CABLE
@@RosemaryR If you went into a restaurant, and wanted a hamburger, when the waiter came over, you'd ask for a hamburger. You search for things by what they're called. I have already told you what the cable is called. You search by that.
A very simple, quick, easy search, by copying and pasting what I already wrote, yields 2 excellent results:
www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-USB-2-0-Cable-Male/dp/B00NH11N5A
www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-3-usb-type-a-to-5-pin-mini-b-cable-black/5884142.p?skuId=5884142
Would you like me to pay for it too? Hand deliver it? Plug it in for you?
And turn off you damn Caps Lock!
Thanks for the tutorial in nowadays cloud backup is amazing and i ll use this in my pc as an internal hdd. no need to buy a new one.
You're welcome.
Mine looks the same but is a 1500 GB. If I follow your method, how do I wire it up to my computer? Does it still need it's own power source? OR....do I just USB wire/connect it to my computer? I do have the power plug, but one of the two prongs to my power source connect is broken off.
If the power plug is broken, you can extract the drive like I did. You'll need to plug a SATA power plug into the drive along with a SATA data cable if you don't have one.
An excellent video! I don't know if this is the proper forum for this question. If not please forgive me.
I have 2 of the same FreeAgent drives that I bought new several years ago. I have been cloning them as backups to the system hard drive. Three days ago when I started having troubles with the system hard drive and I discovered that my Dell Dimension E521 does not recognize them even though Windows does. Your video has shown me how to install one of these drives as an internal drive however, even though this drive is a clone it still isn't recognized in the BIOS. The system goes through post then the display shows a cursor with the letter j and blinks continuously. Do you know if there is another step needed to get the FreeAgent drive to boot? Do you perhaps have another video that might help? Thanks for any advice.
Cloning is tricky. You have no way of knowing if it works until you need it. The best thing to do is NOT clone. Instead, you'd back up all of your data files safely onto a drive, then reinstall Windows from scratch.
On my servers I take an image of the operating system, since there's a lot of setup involved to make it all work again. After I take the image, I disconnect the original hard drive and put in a spare, and reimage the new drive and try booting. If successful, I leave the image. I've had certain systems that image properly and tell me the image was created properly, but when it's time to reimage, the machine won't boot. Again, cloning isn't the greatest option for backup, because while it will back up your data, programs, and operating system, it also backs up any problems it's having. It's also an all-or-nothing thing. If that clone/image doesn't work, you have nothing.
I open one right now with your video thanks
You're welcome.
Great video! How would I go about getting the data from the drive?
Thanks! Either get a USB to SATA adapter and plug it in USB, or if you have a desktop computer, and available SATA port, and a spare SATA cable, you can plug it in there. That of course assumes the drive itself is fine and your problem was just the enclosure.
Mine has a base as it sits up vertically. How do you get the base off?
Does it look exactly like this one? It may be the same capacity but not the same model.
I got it apart. The drive does not turn, however I'm thinking it could be the power supply. How often do these go out? I tested it with a known good drive and nothing. The supply was cool to the touch when I unplugged it. Burned out? how do they stop working?
How? Made In China. That's how. You haven't fully proven the supply is bad, it could be the circuit board inside the case there. Next step is to hook the drive itself up to the inside of a computer and see if it'spins up and is recognized. If it is, you've confirmed it's the power supply or the circuit board. The step after would be to measure the output of the supply with a voltmeter. If indeed there is no power, you can either search for a replacement, or raid your "junk drawer". You might have a power supply with similar output characteristics, and can splice the plug onto it.
Barring that, you can purchase a hard drive enclosure that will accept your bare drive, and include a new power supply, circuit board, and cables.
I have lots of old power supplies in my junk drawer. Tried a few. Nothing. One thing I've discovered is it requires 12V HOWEVER, I have several power supplies that even though they are 12V, the size of the hole on the tips are different. the ratings on the plug show many different amperages for outputs. I'm assuming this is to prevent misuse with devices that requires larger or smaller loads. Hey, we're having fun, killing a hot day and an excuse to stay inside. Thank you sir.
Ha ha, yeah, that was EXACTLY the reason I pulled the 1TB drive out of this enclosure, I had no plugs to fit it. The drive is living in a separate enclosure now quite happily.
You're not going to get around the "plug not fitting" issue, but for future reference about the amperages: You can ALWAYS use an adapter that has the same or HIGHER amperage rating, you can NEVER use an adapter that has a LOWER amperage rating. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but that's the general rule of thumb. That only holds true for the amperage; voltage in most cases must match.
Does anybody know if you can drop this into a USB 3.0 enclosure?
The actual drive itself? Sure can.
@@jaykay18 That response speed though :)
Thanks a ton. To anybody who reads this... this guy is a legend.
Thank you Levi! I always try to respond to my comments as soon as possible, I happened to be at the machine at this time, editing more content for the channel so the response speed was real quick, otherwise I usually respond in less than an hour. I do that because I was tired of commenting on other people's videos and never receiving a response, especially if I had a valid question. So I make sure that DOESN'T happen on my channel!
@@jaykay18 Well it earned you a sub. Sometimes it's the little things. 👍
Thank you very kindly! I post a new video every day.
If you ever come across a "bad" one, it's actually not bad. The problem is the heads didn't park themselves so the platter won't spin up due to the heads sticking on the platter. It's and easy as long as you know what an open hard drive likes and doesn't like.
+kd9bwi Yep, been there, done that! I've had plenty of open hard drives before, and repaired a few of them as well.
+jaykay18 How's the clock going? If it isn't repaired yet, I might be able to try to fix it for you if you can pay to ship it back.
kd9bwi You're the third person to offer. I'm unfortunately forced to pick and choose, but I'm sure you'll agree the people with the most experience, Spats Bear and Harley Badger, would be the ones.
+jaykay18 I've only fixed one or 2 non-quartz clocks like you have, the other 2 people will have more experience than me. Infant, the last one I fixed was about a year ago, and all that one needed was the motor cleaned which was very simple. It would sound to me like you would need to take whole thing apart it is completely jammed. I will be awaiting you decision, but I believe I would be better off being the last person person of the other 2 you would pick.
kd9bwi Yeah that's where it will go. Thanks for the offer though!
just did mine in 2021!!!!!!!! my power cable was ruined as well!~
Nice job. I made this video 5 years ago, and within the coming months, I will be taking the drive I extracted from this enclosure out of service. It still works fine, just out of space, so it will get to live on in a different machine for a different purpose.
Hey, I recognize that shirt! The highway sign hacking. Didn't know one was ever made; where did you get yours?
+foobar Yeah! I believe it was 6dollarshirts.com. Their shirts often change up, so you may not find it.
Muchas gracias por compartir la información
¡Sí, por supuesto!
I also had my Seagate Momentus 500 GB External HDD, when I decided to open the case and see what are inside and you know what do I find the hard drive instead of Seagate name? They're using Samsung 500 GB HDD for Seagate which tells me a story.
I also got the external HDD is WD 1 TB Hard Drive, opened the case and also instead that is made in Thailand, they're made in Malaysia.
+Bluethunderboom It's called "The Lowest Bidder".
And for the HDD that is out from enclosure, where was it made?
***** That's a great question. It's mounted inside a PC now, so I do not know!
HELP
Does anyone know what the tool with which remove the screws that were protected by the rubber square is called?
It's a #2 Phillips, just a regular screwdriver. 5:26 in the video.
Good video. Thanks.
No problem Gregory.
Thank you brooo, you are the best
Sure, no problem!
Thank you!
You're welcome, thanks for watching!
ahh - I need that red plate - burned out on mine :((
Yeah, that's called a circuit board, specifically one that converts USB to SATA. It's proprietary to this case. Buy yourself a new hard drive enclosure and if your drive is still good (unlikely) you'll be able to retrieve your data. It's very rare the circuit board goes bad, it's almost always the drive.
@@jaykay18 Thanks for your reply - The 12v power supply failed recently and i was stupid enough to connect the hard drive to a 12v (8ah) ATV Battery :( Something burned out instantly and when I opened the case there was few black spots on circuit board - so hopefully the HD didn't get that current :) . I bought a Sata-USB adaptor and will check whether I can read the DATA
12 volts is 12 volts. You can't "over-amp" something, it uses a specific amount of power and that's all it will take. A standard US house outlet is 120V and the circuit can carry 15 amps. That means when you plug a lamp in, all 15 amps are available to it, but it only uses as much amperage as it needs for the particular bulb.
box-o-junk, funny!
+IrishTwist Ah, but box-o-cool-junk, that brought videos like this!