I have a Seagate® 3.5-inch Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drive that is giving me some problems.?
Answer:
I'm not familiar with pre-built external HD's, I have 6 or 7 I put together myself (I like knowing what's inside). I have used a lot of Seagate HD's to build them and have never had a problem.
Have you tried to take it apart to install in a desktop computer? Unless there is some sort of onboard ROM you should be able to connect it to either an IDE cable or an SATA connector and see if it is operational.
If it's an IDE drive (takes a 2" ribbon cable) check to make sure it is set to "slave" if the other drive is set to "master". (Assuming there is another drive on the cable). Otherwise, you set it to CS (cable select), making sure it's in the secondary position or else the computer may try to boot from it. If you have a free IDE channel - doubtful if you have an optical drive installed (CD, DVD, etc.), set the drive as "master" or place in the first position on the cable.
If it's an SATA drive just find power and data cables and plug into a free SATA slot.
Then see if it is recognized. Seagate also has a diagnostic/repair utility available either supplied as a CD with a new drive or as a download from their website. If you can "see" the drive once you've installed it in a desktop, you should be able to run the diagnostics on it and maybe a repair procedure will fix it.
Seems like a few people have been running into problems with their external drives (not all Seagate) recently. This is the third one I've seen today. Maybe there's some malware circulating. Maybe it's just having all these people n one place it becomes noticeable.
Anyway, best of luck.