Well, that's something of a comfort to me, but I would like to beat the problem. I guess I'll have another bash - or two, and then see how my son gets on before making the decision to give it back.
One thing he mentioned was Amazon forums. I've not looked in there yet, but it seems they thrash out problems with stuff they sell.
The blurb says that the device manager should show Seagate devices ****. Nothing. and no change under ordinary drives. Nothing even remotely like it or its function in the entire list. Time for a reinstall.
Having found it won't do all sorts of things in W7, I read this.
Others are just plugging it in with no software and it goes - backup only I suppose.
The problem lies in the documentation from Seagate, which, sorry to say, has missing information and is full of errors. Only through experimentation can you get it to work, I’m not familiar with 110/220 firmware so these direction may not be exact but here is a general guideline to follow to get the media server to steam media.
I removed all the new software and simply plugged it in. It acts as a network fed drive, so at $59 it wouldn't be a dead loss to persevere with it. I copied 12,000 photos to it, and checked some of them. That works fine.
The big issue is weather Seagate will provide specific W7 drivers for something being sold off on clearance. The hunt is on.