Nowhere on the net could I find any information no how to do this or what might be in side the Seagate FreeAgent 500GB external drive. I was worried that there may have been a proprietary device inside and to my suprise and liking I found a regular 7200 rpm sata drive inside :)

I took it apart because I needed a drive for another system and was too lazy to go to the store heh. Awesome thing is that now I have a external usb enclosure that is reusable. Taking this thing apart was easy, you start at the bottom support platform and pry it off, this gives you access to 3 screws you can remove. Once this is done, you then gently use a flat edged screw driver around the reverse side of it to pry the case off. Once you have done this, it will pop right off and you will see a internal hdd mount. This is nothing more than a metal bracket with a sata interface on it so just unscrew the drive from it, and gently slide it out and violah! you have a new 500 GB sata drive!!