Freecom Mobile Drive Classic 160GB

The drive will not operate after you unmount it. When you plug it back in, it isn't recognized. Wipe it, start over, then unmount, then wipe it again and start over.

Forget customer service. Forget the forums.

I barely used this drive... and really, I mean I "barely" used it. Owned over a year but never used.

In the garbage it went.

Non standard connector on the case, and Freecom don't sell replacement cables, so if you lose the supplied cable, all your data is lost.

Buy something else.

i had 2 freecom tough drives 160 gig both failed

bloody waste of time and no support cant get drivers

why do i have to pay 250 to get my data back

rubbish product dont ever buy it

buy it at your peril!!!!!!!!!!

My experience with freecom external drives is not good. Cheap but edging towards the nasty i am afraid. Not the design - the design is good, well, it at least looks good, but the reliability of Freecom is very much in doubt. Stick to the reputation boys me thinks!

I think Freecom Mobile Drive Classic 160GB is good because it's cheap and cheerful. The Usb cable is not very long. Works fine for me on both a laptop and desktop (front usb ports).Being a 2.5" design is much more portable than bigger 3.5" based solutions.

I bought the Freecom Mobile Drive Classic 160GB because I thought my PC was about to die. I took it out of the box, plugged it in to the front USB port and off it went. Perfect. Windows found it straight away and withing an hour I'd backed up all my photos and documents and I felt safe. That's where the wheels started to come off it.

An hour or so later I wanted to back up another file. So, I plugged the drive in and tried to access it. It threw up a message saying 'this drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now?'. Gahhh!!! There was nothing on it. I tried rebooting several times. Nothing. I phoned the technical support number and got through straight away to someone in England. He told me that it sounded like I needed the optional external power supply as my USB wasn't providing enough power. He said I'd have to order it from them and it would take a few weeks. Brilliant. They also absolutely assured me that my data was not on the disk now.

I decided to just return the thing to PC world. But, I was worried that the data may still be on the disk. It had my bank details, address, photos, everything on it. I asked PC World to plug it in to a computer, which they did and there was all my data! The guy that did that told me that USB ports at the back of the computer are more powerful than those at the front so I should try one of the back ones. I did that an low and behold it flipping worked. There was my data again.

So, I have a drive that I don't think I can rely on. That I can't leave plugged in because the PC won't boot when it is connected. Only after the PC has booted up can I plug the USB cable into the back of my computer, which is under a desk in the dark. Nice drive Freecom!