Hacking Seagate FreeAgent GO 250 and 320 GB

erolz

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Hi,

some info from the wiki (http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/index.php/USB_Devices_Compatibility_List#250GB):

Seagate FreeAgent GO 250 GB
Works perfect with USB Loader, use the bundled software to disable inactive drive spindown (now available on the seagate site)

Seagate FreeAgent GO 320 GB
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 previously reported issue was incorrect, as long as you follow this process you can also connect the drive to a Vista pc to add/delete isos. Update!!! Drive appears to go to 'sleep' during some games (even with sleep mode set to never and using hdparm) creating black screen, thus some causing some games to crash.

Is this true? its a BIG difference between these two drives...
 

HisshouBuraiKen

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The 2nd one is likely wrong or misinformed, whoever wrote that obviously didn't disable spindown with the seagate software and probably didn't know what they were doing with WBFS as well.

I have the 250 though so I can't be sure, but given that the drives look identical and are from the same manufacturer you should be fine.
 

Kosaic

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I have 3 - 320GB Seagate FreeAgent Go's ...

You information is WRONG.

I simply created a "Raw" partition in Win Vista , then formatted throguh a WBFS Manager ... I have also formatted on the Wii .. ALL without issue, and NO need for FAT32, NTFS, or any other format before hand.

Only thing to watch out for is the "sleep" time on these drives is 5 minutes by default. Use the Seagate Drive Manager t turn this off "never" and all is good.

The drives work like a dream !!!
 

lucp4rt

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erolz said:
Hi,

some info from the wiki (http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/index.php/USB_Devices_Compatibility_List#250GB):

Seagate FreeAgent GO 320 GB
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 previously reported issue was incorrect, as long as you follow this process you can also connect the drive to a Vista pc to add/delete isos. Update!!! Drive appears to go to 'sleep' during some games (even with sleep mode set to never and using hdparm) creating black screen, thus some causing some games to crash.

Is this true? its a BIG difference between these two drives...

i heard the exact same thing so I created a fat32 partition using paragon partition manager then i formatted wbfs using pc. i hook it up before opening wii and there is no problem. i set 'sleep mod time' to never using seagate tool and it never caused me a problem.
 

Shinigami Kiba

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The 2nd one is wrong, I have a SeaGate Freeagent Go 320GB, there was no need to format to FAT32 at all.

These are the only steps you need to take to get everything up and running on your Wii.

- Install the SeaGate Manager software that comes with the HDD, disable standby/sleep mode by setting it to never. This HAS to be done while you're still on NTFS
- Download WBFS Manager, 3.0.1 is the latest version I think, select the drive letter for the 320GB Freeagent GO HDD and click the format button to format it to WBFS
- Install Wii games to it
- Play

that's it, works great with no problems whatsoever, some games freeze up at times but i think that's normal and it rarely happens.

Just remember, disable standby/sleep/idle mode forgot what it's called here before formatting to WBFS
 

squablo

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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!!!!!
 

G2K

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I have the same drive, but in 500GB. This info is a lie. One thing thoguh (I think this is supposed to happen) - I divided it into 2 partitions, and formatted one to NTFS for Windwos files, and left the other blank. When I plugged it in to the Wii, I had to format the NTFS partition to WBFS, and It wouldn't let me format the blank one.

The drives amazing though.
 

jono@home

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HisshouBuraiKen said:
The 2nd one is likely wrong or misinformed, whoever wrote that obviously didn't disable spindown with the seagate software and probably didn't know what they were doing with WBFS as well.

I have the 250 though so I can't be sure, but given that the drives look identical and are from the same manufacturer you should be fine.


not misinformed...

actual fact.. I wrote it.. and I am a fully qualified ICT Technician..

Yes I used the disable spindown with seagate manager and took the drive apart and used HD parm.. It randomly freezes on a few games.. the drive actually still continues to appear to spindown..

If you listen to the drive you can here it spin obviously when playing games... When the game freezes it does so because the drive spin downs, (listen to the drive its silent). Pikmin 1 & 2 most noticeable for it.. I found unplugging the drive and plugging it back in after a while whilst playing a game stopped it from spinning down.

It seems the problem lies with the caddy.. losing power somewhat... I came to this conclusion as I now use and Iomega portable drive which works flawlessly and uses the same seagate hardrive
 

Innovative1

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I have the 500GB FreeAgent drive. I have loaded it up and it seems to be working perfectly. I did not disable spin down. I have not spent a lot of time playing games yet, just loading them and testing if they boot. The only issue I have found so far is that I cannot get the Loader to recognize the HD unless I power cycle it after starting the loader (during the 30 second scanning time). I will play some games tonight and report back if it is spinning down mid-game or not.

Also, mine did not come with any software so I am not sure if the 500GB even has the spindown issue or if I need to get it off their site.
 

dlxowhd

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erolz said:
Seagate FreeAgent GO 320 GB
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 previously reported issue was incorrect, as long as you follow this process you can also connect the drive to a Vista pc to add/delete isos. Update!!! Drive appears to go to 'sleep' during some games (even with sleep mode set to never and using hdparm) creating black screen, thus some causing some games to crash.

total bullshit.
i have freeagent go 320gb (silver) and it works flawlessly without doing all that bullshit.
all i had to do was use the software it comes with, then put sleep mode to 'never'.
 

manias

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I have a 320gb freeagent go working PERFECTLY, someone should update that crap wiki, these are the #1 usb harddrives to use with the wii
 

Shinigami Kiba

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squablo said:
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.
 

tagteam3283

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Innovative1 said:
I have the 500GB FreeAgent drive. I have loaded it up and it seems to be working perfectly. I did not disable spin down. I have not spent a lot of time playing games yet, just loading them and testing if they boot. The only issue I have found so far is that I cannot get the Loader to recognize the HD unless I power cycle it after starting the loader (during the 30 second scanning time). I will play some games tonight and report back if it is spinning down mid-game or not.

Also, mine did not come with any software so I am not sure if the 500GB even has the spindown issue or if I need to get it off their site.

when you say power cycle it, do you mean turn off then on while detecting the drive.

if so, i cannot be bothererd with that. the drive should remain on all the time even if the wii is rebooted. cheers for the feedback though
smile.gif


i already have an older iomega 500Gb that works perfoect. it seems the newer drives are the problem.
 

manias

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my 320gb works perfectly fine, no powercycle needed at all, no idea why innovative1 needs it, probably could do with a format or another loader ap
smile.gif
 

Nintendo_Chick

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My 500 freeagent only needs to be power cycled when I switch it from my computer to the wii, if its plugged into the wii, and the wii is shut off or turned on with out the drive being disconnected it does not need to be unpluged. And this doesn't bother me because I just unplug it from my computer into the wii during the 30 second timer.
 

Innovative1

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Ok, I just did some testing with my 500GB. Playing games it seemed to work perfect. I tried pausing it for a minute and it did spin down and when I unpaused it locked up the game. So I am definitely going to have to shut off the spin down feature. Still having the issue where it is not detected at first though. Perhaps it will fix itself after I reformat and turn off spin down.
 

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