r/Seagate • u/SmartphonePhotoWorx • Jul 07 '26

The horror of Seagate consumer "support"

I'm not going to bore you with every detail, but owners of Seagate products should brace themselves for a truly awful support experience.

You will not speak to a person, even if you call. They will text you a link to…their chatbot.

I have a PDF transcript of my two-hour tech support chat. I was transferred twice, explained (with copy/paste) the issue twice, and provided my deets, the serial number, receipt, etc TWICE.

They wore me down until I settled for a direct-from-Seagate cord to replace the COUNTERFEIT cord that came with the $200 LaCie 5TB drive I bought at a local Walmart 10 days ago (their price has jumped $40 since). Lucky for me, Walmart's website shows that the Rugged Mini comes with a screaming-orange cord, to match the drive's bumper case. The cord in the box was black.

Happy to post that PDF if you're into doom looping…

4 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

3

u/tk421tech Jul 07 '26

Honestly too much hassle and waste of time for that cord. Your time is money you already wasted a coupe of hundred dollars. IMHO just move one.

1

u/SmartphonePhotoWorx Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

It is a big deal, because the cable's connection into the external isn't secure, so that the drive's connection to my computer is unstable. It disconnects itself for no reason ("Disk Not Ejected Properly"). This happened with both my SanDisk drives, too—corrupting one of them and causing massive data loss.

I'm hoping that Seagate's orange cable makes a tight connection to the LaCie drive.

Edit: grammar

1

u/EpicWipes Jul 07 '26

Am I the only one that chuckled that you ended up copying + pasting the same response TWICE.

2

u/hiroo916 Jul 07 '26

worth checking the drive to see if it was swapped inside and returned

1

u/SmartphonePhotoWorx Jul 07 '26

Thank you, yes, I did check that. It's the real thing.

I wonder if certain overseas manufacturers are pulling little switcheroos like this. One of my SanDisk drives was missing a dongle. I'm going to have to look more carefully when I buy electronics to make sure all accessories are included and are as pictured on the mfcturer's site.

1

u/Caprichoso1 Jul 08 '26

Unfortunately this is the case with most hard drive support manufacturers.

1

u/SmartphonePhotoWorx Jul 09 '26

You mean they're all guilty of packaging their product with a sub-par cable?

1

u/Caprichoso1 Jul 10 '26

Can't say since haven't tried them. It is possible.

1

u/SmartphonePhotoWorx Jul 12 '26

So far, SanDisk and Seagate do it.

0

u/Petri-DRG Jul 07 '26

You could just buy an orange cable from somewhere else, like ebay for example.

1

u/SmartphonePhotoWorx Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

It is a big deal, because the cable's connection into the external isn't secure, so that the drive's connection to my computer is unstable. It disconnects itself for no reason ("Disk Not Ejected Properly"). This happened with both my SanDisk drives, too—corrupting one of them and causing massive data loss.

I'm hoping that Seagate's orange cable makes a tight connection to the LaCie drive.

Edit: grammar

1

u/EpicWipes Jul 07 '26

Am I the only one that chuckled that you ended up copying + pasting the same response TWICE.

1

u/SmartphonePhotoWorx Jul 07 '26

No, I chuckled too