Seagate Freeagent Firewire Adapter

Does anyone know of a place that sells just the adapter? I bought two 500gb drives last year that have eSata and USB, but now I would like to use them for an older laptop with firewire. I know I could have gotten a FW option, but that wasn't my intention back then. In the documentation it says if you want to use (and have) the FW option you simple unscrew the eSata/USB adapter and replace the module with the FW module. I was just trying to see if anyone knew of a place that might carry that adapter. I'm sure Seagate would say no buy a new drive.

Your question got me interested in searching, and darned if I can find anything. I use ATA/SATA-USB adaptors from bare drives regularly, but I wouldn't try changing the connector at the back of a hard drive - I didn't know you could do that. From what I 'haven't' found I would suggest that there isn't yet a SATA-Firewire adaptor available, but your best option is probably Find the latest Performance Upgrades, Firewire and USB Hard Drives, SATA, Memory, Laptop Battery, and more at OWC. Good luck.

Check your documentation and then contact Seagate and ask for details. They also have a forum linked to the Seagate site. You can buy USB2/FW/eSATA drives, but like above unable to find an adapter.

The original two that I bought were only eSata/USB they didn't originally come with the FW option. I think they called the ones that did come with FW the Free Agent Pro. Basically, the drives are external drives that mount vertically. There is a screw on the bottom of the base that you take out and the eSata/USB module comes out and the FW module goes in. Kinda weird I know, but that is why I thought I would ask to see if anyone knew of a place that sold the FW module or if anyone had the FW modules that they weren't using and would be willing to sell them.

southwos said:

Basically, the drives are external drives that mount vertically. There is a screw on the bottom of the base that you take out and the eSata/USB module comes out and the FW module goes in.

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As Harry suggests, and by extension from that, I too would recommend an approach to Seagate. If they manufactured the F-A drives with a detachable interface module, one has to ask 'why?'. Did their engineers see a need and a market for a firewire module later on? Makes sense to me, so ask Seagate.

I'll be very interested in their response, being keen to get an ATA-Firewire adaptor kit (should one ever become available) so please keep us informed.

Edit: I've had a look at the Free Agent drive at Seagate and I see now what you mean by "module" It is, in their terminology, a "dock". So, you want a firewire interface with which you can connect your S'gate portable drives? Wiebetech make the Ultradock v4 connector for both ATA and SATA WiebeTech Micro Storage Solutions - UltraDock™ v4 - Hard Drive Docking Station, IDE Drive Dock, FireWire and USB Hard drive imaging but it's not quite a 'dock'.

I have sent a request to Seagate to see if they offer the module. I may just take the drives out of the seagate housing and buy an external FW housing to put them in. My reason for taking them out of the seagate housing is the following post I found Having problems with the Seagate FreeAgent 500 GB external disk drive « Are about everything

southwos said:

I may just take the drives out of the seagate housing and buy an external FW housing to put them in. My reason for taking them out http://arewold.wordpress.com[/url

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Yeah, I suspected there might be a problem looming. What a shame the Wiebetech adaptor is so darned expensive. Man, US$200 is way too much for me, otherwise I'd really go for one.

Enclosures get a lot of publicity, so take the time to explore thoroughly the posts on this and other forums. In mentioning Wiebetech, I remember a post on another forum [url]http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=84513&highlight=Wiebetech (page 2) about them making very good firewire enclosures with the Oxford chipset, which according to reports is very Mac-friendly and durable. Also G-Tech. OWC sells enclosures with the Oxford c/s, under the brand name Mercury.

Just a follow up, seagate did contact me to let me know that they no longer offer or have those adapters available and do not know of any distributors for those drives or adapters. I don't know how old my drives are exactly, but I do know I purchased them about a year ago. Of course they could have been on the shelf for months. I decided to buy a couple of FW enclosures and put the drives from the seagate enclosures in them. Yeah, it'll probably void the seagate warranty, but maybe not since I don't know if they track the external enclosure serial numbers with the actual drives serial number.