Hi Sylv.
I bought one of these for my wife to back up her emails from her laptop.
I must admit to being a bit dissapointed when it came out the box,firstly the lid was'nt hinged which is a major problem as my wife will simply throw it in the bin like she does with all the lids in our house, and secondly the software was sluggish to load, which took two goes to get going.
I have still not managed to get the one push backup thingy working and not entirely convinced that the emails got on the disc as I can't find them.
It did back up all documents ok, but as their spokesman said on the web it's not an intelligent peice of software and will simply copy the folders again once you try to backup, leaving you with the job of removing the old backups from the disc, which is ok I suppose.
Thirdly the SteelVine software which I think speeds up the transfer was running in the background all the time making the machine grind to a halt, which was weird. Seems ok now though, maybe teething?
I did go onto the Lacie web site and register the thing and then downloaded the backup software again. I think there is a newer version? on there.
I bought this thing thinking it would be simple to operate for my wife who's not that techy, and so far I am still trying to convince myself that it will get its backside into gear and work.
I checked the web and found no complaints or chat about the disc being inherently faulty, except one chinese guy who thought Steel Vine was a bug, but then went on to talk about frogs
which was encouraging.
I have had one of the Porche design models for a couple of years now and lug it to work and back rattling around in my bag every day, and have never had a problem with it, so I am hoping that the technology is at least as good even if the packaging is a bit less robust.
Sorry for the ramble.
In summery if you hav'nt already I would go to the website and download the software again after registering it- do a reinstall / repair and see what happens.
I would also check your connections and make sure you do the safely remove hardware thing every time as I don't and have blown several usb ports on my computer with other devices.
Of course Lacie do give a two year warranty, but will not be responsible for lost data, which is not very helpful.
Good luck. I will post any further information that I manage to find out.