Hacking Seagate FreeAgent GO 250 and 320 GB

[paulwesley]

I have the 500 go with never sleep mode turned on I still have to power cycle it when fist starting usb loaders but games work perfectly.

 

[Innovative1]

Damn, I wish I had read up on this a bit before loading it up with games. Now I am going to be waiting forever for 44 games to transfer to my other HD so that I can format it, turn on never sleep, and then transfer them all back again. PITA!

 

[dsfanatic5]

Damn, I wish I had read up on this a bit before loading it up with games. Now I am going to be waiting forever for 44 games to transfer to my other HD so that I can format it, turn on never sleep, and then transfer them all back again. PITA!

Are you using a Freeagent Go, or does your drive have a separate power supply?

I have a 500gb Freeagent Go (silver), and I have no problems whatsoever. The Seagate Manager software should've come loaded on the drive (not a separate disc), and should've been installed before formatting to WBFS. You can download it here for free.

I've read other users who confirmed that you can turn off the power standby, even after you've formatted to WBFS. I really hope you catch this before you waste all that time transfering your data

I highly recommend this drive, as it works perfectly. As for the original post, and can confirm that the information is totally wrong. Whoever posted all that info in the Wiki almost made me choose another drive, but after some research, I realized the Seagate was the way to go. I have tested the drive using multiple partitions, with the WBFS on both the first and second partition, with no problems at all. With the Wii turned off, and the drive already plugged in, I can turn on my Wii, use a forwarder to jump right into a loader, and watch all my games show up immediately without any sort of timer. The drive will stay active, even after you exit a game and reboot to system menu. It's only when I play some emulators/homebrew apps, and then try to hop into a USB loader that I get the 40 second time out. This is when programs that don't support the usb drive cause it to become inactive, but you can just (un)plug it, or power on(off) the Wii to make it active again. Whoever says that you have to leave it unplugged, then plug it in when HBC is loaded, and then start the loader is wrong. That would be lame and inconvenient to have to plug it in every time.

It's also noted that this is the smallest 300-500gb portable hard drive on the market, is aesthetically pleasing, has great software features, and I can easily recommend the Seagate Freeagent Go to everyone.

 

[Innovative1]

I have the larger drive with the separate power supply. Shinigami Kiba said that after formatting to WBFS it would say that it enabled never sleep but it really wouldn't and so I took his word for it. Six hours later and I am almost done putting the games back onto it. I formatted another 250GB external that I used to use for my DVR and moved disc-to-disc, formatted the Free Agent to NTFS, downloaded the software and enabled never sleep, then transferred them back...well almost.

Oh well, it was time well spent doing other stuff with my SD card.

 

[tagteam3283]

@dsfanatic5

smart reply my man

looks like i will be going or the 320G versio of this as they are pricey in the UK.

the 320G is the same price as other 500G brands

 

[Bladexdsl]

just saw a freeagent go 320gb on ebay for $120. even though my wd passport isn't giving me trouble right now (except on ssbb freezes in 1 minute) if it does in the future this is the drive I'll be getting.

 

[576ZR673tf]

Bought the 320 and it works perfectly, and I mean, simply perfectly.

 

[erolz]

just bought the Seagate FreeAgent GO 320 GB and it works flawless! :-)
disabled the powersettings and played Mario Galaxy for about 1hr, Wiift (30min) and Mario Kart (30min) without any problems!

 

[Innovative1]

So mine is actually not the GO but rather just the regular FreeAgent. However, now that I disabled the sleep setting it is working perfectly. The swirly lights on the front are pretty cool too. I got this 500GB last week at BestBuy for $84.

 

[squablo]

This drive is so good, you can still use the seagate manager software to disable spindown even after you format to wbfs. Buy this drive now!!!!!

not from my experience you can't, you can access the options and it will save the settings but the drive will still go to sleep mode, it HAS to be done while the HDD is formatted in NTFS, I had to reformat from WBFS back to NTFS because of this that's how i know.

Really? hmmmm well this would be hard to explain then. Before I used the software to disable sleep mode, my games would freeze about every 5 or 10 minutes into the game. After I hooked up the drive to the pc, the pc didnt recognize it, but the seagate software did. Guess what? sleep mode was set for 5 minutes. I changed it to off, and you know what? I have played games for hours at a time now, with no freezing.

I will say that every once in a while, I will have a game freeze on me. Its totally random when it happens, and I am putting that on the loaders themselves and not the drive.

Maybe I am crazy, but when games lock up consistently after 5 or 10 minutes, and then I run the seagate software and disable sleep mode, it results in no more freezing. If the software only worked on a NTFS drive, or FAT drive, then how do you explain that? Seems to me the software would work on the drive no matter how it is formatted, otherwise it would be pretty useless.

This is my experience. Freeagent GO 320GB

 

[tagteam3283]

the problem i have with a few of my externals is the detection of the drive by the wii.

the spin up is okay when i connect the HDD to the PC but no spinup when i connect to the wii.

i have to disx the power from the HDD when connect to the wii then reconnect to start spin-up

 

[Shinigami Kiba]

This drive is so good, you can still use the seagate manager software to disable spindown even after you format to wbfs. Buy this drive now!!!!!

not from my experience you can't, you can access the options and it will save the settings but the drive will still go to sleep mode, it HAS to be done while the HDD is formatted in NTFS, I had to reformat from WBFS back to NTFS because of this that's how i know.

Really? hmmmm well this would be hard to explain then. Before I used the software to disable sleep mode, my games would freeze about every 5 or 10 minutes into the game. After I hooked up the drive to the pc, the pc didnt recognize it, but the seagate software did. Guess what? sleep mode was set for 5 minutes. I changed it to off, and you know what? I have played games for hours at a time now, with no freezing.

I will say that every once in a while, I will have a game freeze on me. Its totally random when it happens, and I am putting that on the loaders themselves and not the drive.

Maybe I am crazy, but when games lock up consistently after 5 or 10 minutes, and then I run the seagate software and disable sleep mode, it results in no more freezing. If the software only worked on a NTFS drive, or FAT drive, then how do you explain that? Seems to me the software would work on the drive no matter how it is formatted, otherwise it would be pretty useless.

This is my experience. Freeagent GO 320GB

guess it works for most people dude, but it didn't work for me and I tested it a few times, even tried changing the sleep mode timer to different values before reformatting cause i didn't feel like formatting the drive but nothing worked.
Guess it was just me, sorry but I wouldn't post something as a fact like i did unless I've done some extensive testing.

Again sorry if people wasted time reformatting because of my posts but what can I do if that's how things worked for me.

 

[Alexrose]

Is this one fine as well?

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/...ernal-FreeAgent

 

[User423]

Don´t sure, if this work...
you can get the this one and you will be fine.

When you searching for some other offers, search for "Seagate FreeAgent Go"

/edit: In the Wiki stands for your drive:

Only works if the whole drive is formatted in FAT32 by a 3rd party app(Fat32Format), and then WBFS is installed from the pc as well. In order for the loader to see your partition, hook up the USB but leave the drive unplugged. Boot up the wii and plug in the drive in the HBC.

the same person like the 320GB one, who written that?

 

[Alexrose]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Hey maybe he was right and he was talking about this drive, not the other.

Or maybe I should just disregard everything he said

.

Regardless, I'm not really up for spending £10 more on a hard drive with half the capacity and a slower RPM

.

 

[Innovative1]

I guess it works for most people dude, but it didn't work for me and I tested it a few times, even tried changing the sleep mode timer to different values before reformatting cause i didn't feel like formatting the drive but nothing worked.
Guess it was just me, sorry but I wouldn't post something as a fact like i did unless I've done some extensive testing.

Again sorry if people wasted time reformatting because of my posts but what can I do if that's how things worked for me.

Don't worry about it man. It isn't like I sat and watched them transfer for six hours. I should have tried it first without formatting and if it didn't work then transfer, format, and transfer back. I saw conflicting reports so I should have known to at least give it a shot. Maybe someone else will read the thread and try it first.