Early Seagate Microdrives incompatible with 20D and RebelXT (350D)

They have several versions of their CF-format drive. They're distinguished by their markings and by the part/model number. What is the part number for yours, and what colours are on the top label? Their OEM version has a sort of mustard and dark red label; the retail version is blue and orange. If you have any doubts call the Seagate support number at 1-800-468-3472 about getting an upgraded version.

The drive you have will work with EOS DSLR's except the latest firmwares. Seagate do a free return to base upgrade for you to allow it to work with the latest firmwares.

So if you don't upgrade your firmware everything will be fine, however I still suggest you investigate the return to Seagate option.

That is right. And Canon does not have the older firmware in support. So you can not go back to your older fireware. I believe the 0.2 version is the one that works with seagate but not 0.3

AWOID SEAGATES ANY CF AS LONG AS YOU CAN.

The little cheaper up front cost, will surely cost you a lot later....

I got my 350D today and sure enough it doesn't work I have a half gig CF that will do me OK until I get this smoothed out though... I guess figuring out RAW will have to wait. Thanks so much for all of your help everyone I really appreciate it, I would have been broken hearted today. Turnes out the cheap remote I got on Ebay doesn't work either, anyone have any advice (feel free to PM me since this is OT).

Immediately file a complain with ebay after sending an email to seller. If iteam is misreprsented , you are entitled to your refund minus S/H. Negative feed back is the first thing you want to mention in your email to the seller, but please don't leave it till things get really ugly.

Thanks, turns out the remote issue was a user error.

I took the card back, and the store was more than kind in giving me store credit (a month after their return policy ended), I ended up getting a 2 gig 100X CF, a card reader (both on screaming good deals for memorial day weekend sales), a lenspen and a few snacks for my kids with the credit and $0.55 out of pocket.

The new card is faster, more stable, and I don't need more space than that for a while yet anyway (will be needing another hard drive first if I let myself go that fast, hahaha! So it actually turned out really nicely for me. I called Seagate's customer service BTW, and they told me to just take it back...

Thanks again so much for everyone's helpfulness here, I appreciate the time you spent in helping me, POTN rocks!

Jeff Keller, proprieter of DCResource had 2 microdrives die on him within 6 months, losing lots of photos each time.

On the other hand I saw the photographer from The South Wales Evening Post drop one a couple of times as a demonstration and it seemed to work fine.

Interestingly, Amazon users have poor accounts of the Deagate microdrive: Read This!

I have just spoken to Seagate, they say all shipping drives have had the new firmware for a number of months now, however they said they have no control of old stock at some retailers. I am looking into one of these again due to the fact that I can get one for a third what the equilvelent flash card would be.

yes it is SLOW...and on top of that, last month while I was out on the field the micro drive failed on me. I got an "error" code after 100+ shots on my brand new XTi which I bought that day. I thought I could recover the images on my comp when I got home but my comp didn’t recognize the drive. I was forced to format the drive. after formatting the drive I was able to us it again. I called Seagate the following day and told them my problem of being slow and the error code. They said they knew about the problem being slow but not the error code, they said they were sorry yada yada yada. I turn’d in a 4gb micro drive for a replacment and in 4 days I received a 8gb, yes 8gb! micro drive from Seagate. I don’t trust this micro drive. I only use CF cards now….less moving parts=less worries.

Knock on wood, but i've got a 4GB Seagate (Model #ST64022CF) that i've had for a little over six months now. Dropped it twice, once on carpet, once on a hard tile floor, no problems. It was initially slow in my 20D, until i downgraded my firmware to 2.0.2. i still have the firmware if anyone's interested. i've taken a few thousand shots on it, filled it up a couple of times (raw + large JPEG... never again), and haven't had a problem with it. i keep planning on picking up a 2GB CF card when i catch a good sale, but the MD has done so well it's easy to forget to pick up another card. My only wish is that it were a little easier on my battery. On a full charge with no flash and little LCD usage, i can't fill the drive up unless i shoot raw and large JPEG.

Strangely enough, it worked fine in the XT i tried it in. Supposedly the 2.0.3 update in the 20D fixed a possible write error when writing to some CF cards, but it also made writing to those cards ridiculously slow. i almost returned the MD when i first got it -- IIRC it took 40 seconds to write a raw file, and a half hour to format the drive.

aoi tsuki wrote in post #2213967
Knock on wood, but i've got a 4GB Seagate (Model #ST64022CF) that i've had for a little over six months now.

Don't knock on wood.
Just put it on ebay asap not to fore get mentioning, "Though not DOA, this is a final sale with no return"....
You never know when....
Get something decent that is faster and more importantly durable with out fear...

Well at the end of the day look at the price of flash based cards, OK you pay more, but not much more, not worth the risk with these. Who is to say that a newer Canon model/firmware won't cause issues with the latest drives.

Also I have read how tough they are supposed to be etc, but I always felt nervious handling them, not so with flash based cards. In the end I went flash more for piece of mind than anything else.

Mathiau wrote in post #1402775
harddrive are mechanical and are more prone to failure! solid state media is the way to go!

___

Originally when I wondered why it they didn't work in my camera...

Thought it was to do with incompatibility however i decided to take it apart a (Seagate 6GB ST1 Drive Card, Model No: ST660211CF) Inside the discs were completely smashed up in so many pieces, however I just couldn't hear any rattle or anything! Weird! Thankfully i didnt pay for the item and was given it!