[Tfug] FYI: Segate 500 GB USB hard drive

[Angus Scott-Fleming]

On 16 Dec 2009 at 0:21, earljviolet at deserthowler.com  wrote:

> I recently bought a 500 GB Segate hard drive from Office Max at a fairly
> good price.  I hooked it up to my Ubuntu 9.10 box and it was immediately
> recognized.  I copied a few files to it and it unmounted itself.  It was
> completely gone with no trace ... including lsusb not seeing it.
> 
> I quit 9.10 and booted into Ubuntu 8.04 with the same results.  I then
> tried the drive on a box with Mandriva 2010 with the same results.  My
> laptop running 8.04 gave the same results.
> 
> I returned the drive and got another one.  I tried the new one with the
> sme results.  In a moment of desparation I hooked up to my XP box I use
> for my MagicJack phone.  It worked fine and was up for a day.  I'm not
> sure but I think XP added a few files.  Anyeay, I tried it on the linux
> boxes and everything works great now.  It has been up for 4 days on Ubuntu
> 9.10.  Strange fix but I thought someone else might run into this
> situation.

Final paragraphs of this story might explain some of what you're seeing:

Review: 3 top Linux distros go for different users
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9142148/Review_3_top_Linux_distros_go_for_different_users?taxonomyId=89&pageNumber=1
or here if the above wraps unusably: http://is.gd/5qvJe-

    The bad news is that Ubuntu has real trouble with two types of hardware: 
    some Intel graphics chipsets and some hard drives.

    The Intel graphics problem is a real pain -- I would sometimes start my 
    session and then the screen would freeze up as solid as a block of ice. In 
    theory, Ubuntu tried to speed up Intel integrated graphics, but the 
    reality is that Ubuntu often brings graphics to a complete stop. The 
    surest way to avoid this seems to be to revert to the older Intel graphics 
    driver. It worked for me -- but such a critical problem shouldn't have 
    made it into the final release.

    In addition, there seems to be a problem in some systems with how the 
    Grub2 boot loader interacts with hard drives via the BIOS. What happens 
    here is that the boot loader comes up, but when you try to choose between 
    different operating systems, the computer will sometimes lock up. The only 
    solution is to power your PC off and on again. Ubuntu is working on this 
    problem, but there is no single fix yet.

--
Angus Scott-Fleming
GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona
1-520-290-5038
+-----------------------------------+