How to open a 1.5 TB Seagate FreeAgent Desk External Hard Drive

I bought two of these on sale at costco for $130, which happens to be the same price as an OEM drive straight from seagate. Basically, you get an enclosure for free. However, I wanted it as an internal drive; many people do this. Only problem - it's not very straightforward on how to get the enclosure open. I searched online and failed to find any tutorials on how to do so. Therefore, I figured it out myself and am putting this video on here for anyone else who would like to know how to do this.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• external
• seagate
• freeagent
• 1.5tb
• hard drive
• hdd

[thowell2989]

Just figured i would let everyone know that is doing this... It does VOID your warranty with Seagate to do so. We do watch to see if customers are doing this and we do void the warranty if you did not have the permission to do so by Seagate.

[almightytrent]

@thowell2989 There are no tampering indicators (like stickers that rip when you take the drive apart). So long as you don't damage the plastic case, there's no way to know the drive has been opened. Warranty is intact so long as you don't replace the drive with another one.

[johnwatkins39]

oh i have a question about the response to inkdmn666:

so wally world doesnt check the internal hard drive when you return it? if not then i am going to go and do it myself......lol

[almightytrent]

@johnwatkins39 No, they don't check. Just think about the type of person that works at walmart. You'll be lucky if they know how to read the serial number, or at all for that matter.

Just remember that you are STEALING, essentially SHOPLIFTING when you do this.

[inkdmn666]

now slide in a crappy old sata put back together and back to walmart for your 125.00$ refund and your free 1.5g drive compliments of wally world....

[toysareforboys1]

@LisaArinWolf The hard drive is SATA, from the Freeagent Desk 500GB and up, so to answer everyones question YES IT'S A REGULAR SATA DRIVE IN THERE! No you don't need to do anything to make it work in your computer, remove from enclosure, connect in computer, boom, all your data is there, everything works great.

[KakarotLee33]

p.s. I like the music, is it from Dawn of War?

[KakarotLee33]

wow thanks a bunch dude!! i had no idea I could take the shell off nicely

[flushstuff]

@iFreeze24 u cant do that lol. ur screwed haha! Only the small portable hard drives have laptop drives in them

[codybechtold]

@iFreeze24 I don't think this will fit. Looks like a desktop sata drive (3.5)

[iFreeze24]

Ok I just ripped this thing open now how do I install it into my macbook air?

[rattatterrier]

Thanks. Just what I was looking for.

[BanjoGate]

Thanks for this. Really clears it up. Video > images

Now, to buy another and replace it with a crappy sata drive :)

[tf2godlikespy]

is it sata 2??????????

[wtf0085ear]

I recently bought this external drive on sale. my computer takes esata and usb 3.0 so if i took it out could i put it in an external case? If i could what size case do i get?

[Trackstar064life]

The music...lol