Seagate firmware update bricks 99.9% 500 GB 7200.11 Barracudas

As you all know, the 7200.11 series of HDDs have been failing within 4 months of usage. Seagate claims that they are aware of this issue, and has released a firmware update that was supposed to fix it. All 7200.11 Barracuda 1 TB, 750 GB, 500 GB, 320 GB drives are affected (including server counterparts).

However, the firmware update did not work initially. This afternoon, they released another update which changed the firmware upgrading utility, and some had successes flashing the 750 GB and 1 TB drives, however, 99.9% of people that flashed on the 500 GB (ST3500320AS) bricked their drives.

People with multiple 500 GB drives had all of them bricked as the tool automatically flashes all of the detected models.

This thread is known as the "thread of the bricked 500 gig cudas":
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/...cending&page=1
This is where all people that have bricked their 500 GB drives with this new firmware posts.

This is the original 7200.11 firmware issue thread (official, stickied):
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/...thread.id=4771

Tonight, Seagate decides to remove the firmware from the site.
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207951

"Note: This file has been temporarily taken offline as of Jan 19, 2008 8PM CST for validation."

A bit too late. I'm sure lucky I did not flash the firmware today. I played it smart and waited for other people to try it out first. Someone at the Seagate firmware testing center will most likely get fired soon. This is a big widespread problem.

I really don't know if I'll buy another Seagate drive after this one...

I've been satisfied, but it really sounds like they might have gone down hill since. :(

Oh dear, more fail at Seagate. What's happened to them really and do they have like only 1 tester or something, how could they miss the firmware incompability with 500GB drive is beyond me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sly Fox

I really don't know if I'll buy another Seagate drive after this one...

I've been satisfied, but it really sounds like they might have gone down hill since. :(

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I really hope my two Seagates don't brick on me :( I'm running them in Matrix RAID. I've personally had a drive brick on me, so one of the drives I'm using is from RMA.

And the bricking I experienced is, according to Seagate, a firmware issue. Well now they release a firmware that is supposed to fix that issue, but apparently it ends up breaking the 500 GB drives quicker (instantly) :shakes:.

People panic cause their drives fail.
Seagate wants to rectify this
Seagate rushes
Drives die
People scream

Hmm whose really to blame?

The firmware for my drive is apparently validating. I'm not too anxious to flash it, but I'd rather not wait to have it brick on its own either. Damned if I do, damned if I don't...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by firebane

People panic cause their drives fail.
Seagate wants to rectify this
Seagate rushes
Drives die
People scream

Hmm whose really to blame?

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Seagate for initial testing problems. The drives already had a firmware problem at first. Refer to my previous post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cybercat

The firmware for my drive is apparently validating. I'm not too anxious to flash it, but I'd rather not wait to have it brick on its own either. Damned if I do, damned if I don't...

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Well I wouldn't (yet) because they just pulled the firmware from the site... obviously there's a problem with it.

glad it seems the ES2 500G arent hit by this, i got 8 of them in a raid 5 on a server! (basically the enterprise edition of these drives)


i have had issues with a few segate 500G last year but the 7200.10 models, i also had 3 320G 7200.10's go bad in the span of a month, i am with some others, i dont trust segate anymore, back to WD or hitachi for me!

I think the problem with the firmware is some people flash their drive and it then become unseen in the bios or in window, or you can see the files on your drive, but you cant access them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr.Guvernment

glad it seems the ES2 500G arent hit by this, i got 8 of them in a raid 5 on a server! (basically the enterprise edition of these drives)

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Unfortunately, yes they are. :(

Affected ES.2 drives:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207963

Original KB article: (Lists 7200.11's ES.2's, and some Maxtor drives as affected)
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931

Quote:

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Originally Posted by firebane

People panic cause their drives fail.
Seagate wants to rectify this
Seagate rushes
Drives die
People scream

Hmm whose really to blame?

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Seagate for rushing. People always panic. Seagate should know better and fully test their updates.

Sounds strange to be "flashing" a hard drive :wth:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr.Guvernment

glad it seems the ES2 500G arent hit by this, i got 8 of them in a raid 5 on a server! (basically the enterprise edition of these drives)

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ES.2 is affected. Seagate has a thing online where you can enter your drive serial numbers and it will tell you if your drive needs the update. My two 250GB ES.2 drives did not need it, thank god.

I bought a 7200.11 320 GB barracuda 16mb cache hdd

Is mine one of the susceptible to the fail in the first place?

If so is the firmware ok to update for this since only the 500 gig gets bricked?

What are the specifics of this EPIDEMIC?

Are the 1.5Tb dieing also?

Guys what the heck is going on with Seagate lately? This is the second huge failure report on this forum. These are pretty bad reports we're getting.

Segate and WD are about the best there is. Something must be up. Whatever it is they need to get control of it. This is gonna start to raise panic. People get real worried whehn it comes to their data. I mean you could potentially have a mirrored array of these things and both drives could get took out if you updated them. Even tyour backup would get killed in that circumstance. This could be really bad news.

It said they removed the file for validation?!? WTH?!? Did they not validate it before they unleased this onto the world? That is a serious "oooops" if they didn't.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by firebane

People panic cause their drives fail.
Seagate wants to rectify this
Seagate rushes
Drives die
People scream

Hmm whose really to blame?

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Seagate of course.

I can't see Seagate getting any money out of me again for a very long time. The trust is just gone.

Reminds me of the game Lemmings for some reason. Price them cheap and watch those guinea pigs fall over into a pile of bricks.

WTF! What is Seagate doing?
Situation could be interesting if that firmaware update would have been distributed trough windows update.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 003

ES.2 is affected. Seagate has a thing online where you can enter your drive serial numbers and it will tell you if your drive needs the update. My two 250GB ES.2 drives did not need it, thank god.

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I was initially relieved when I entered my serial and found I was supposedly "NOT affected" - capitalization is Seagate's.

A quick google later, and I find that my firmware, SX15, is actually affected anyway - even those it's not on the "official list". Again, not surprised considering how lazily/haphazardly Seagate has been handling this. Found a Seagate forum thread where one user was only seeing one out of his two 1TB drives, with my firmware.

Needless to say, panic is a good emotion to have right now. OTOH, I'm not really, since my 1TB Seagate is just for backup purposes. I can't imagine those who have 100% 7200.11 HD setups tho. Or the random old man who checked out at Microcenter with 5 of those drives last weekend - now I'm pitying the old fool :(

stoped using seagate since 2006.
saw samsung at friends rig, been a samsung guy ever since.

i feel sad for those who lost their data. seagate should die for this!
also look at how many oem builders could be using their drives as well.

Damnit Seagate, WTF, I have two 500gb 7200.11's I bought in dec. I've always preferred seagate drives but after this fiasco I'd be lying if I said I'm still just as confident with them.

Luckily I haven't started migrating any data to them yet, now I'm a little paranoid about bringing them online for daily use if they are experiencing a high failure rate. I have them currently setup in a RAID1 config but how things sound I might as well be running them in RAID0.

Does anyone know if there has been a recall on these drives? Since there was already bad firmware and they botched the launch of a revision with bum firmware patch, shouldn't they be getting control of this by now?

Ouch that hurts, first the drives fail, then the fix to prevent that bricks even more harddrives.:down:

Goodbye Seagate, Margins on HDD's are allready rockbottom, I doubt they can afford a screw up like that, especially since people are sensitive about what hdd they trust with their data.

Just to bring some optimism to the discussion - i have Barracuda 7200.8 250 GB(for 3 or more years) and 7200.10 500 GB (since series 10 release). No signs of failure :up:

i notice some guys have the affected drives and still running? i would start backing up on ex-drives,dvds or whatever.

my 1TB seagate has been perfectly fine. Updating Firmware on a HD is always very dangerous, I would have hoped Seagate made a BIG NOTICE about how if it fails the drive will be dead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by firebane

People panic cause their drives fail.
Seagate wants to rectify this
Seagate rushes
Drives die
People scream

Hmm whose really to blame?

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Seagate is at fault. They are supposed to have some sort of Quality Control.

If 99.9% of 500GB drives are bricking that means they didn't even test the firmware on that particular drive. They probably tested it on a different size drive, and made the same changes in the firmware of other drives, and assumed that that was the only thing they changed, there was no need to test it across all the various sized drives of that model.

That's the only way I can think of that would give them a 99.9% failure rate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Diverge

Seagate is at fault. They are supposed to have some sort of Quality Control.

If 99.9% of 500GB drives are bricking that means they didn't even test the firmware on that particular drive. They probably tested it on a different size drive, and made the same changes in the firmware of other drives, and assumed that that was the only thing they changed, there was no need to test it across all the various sized drives of that model.

That's the only way I can think of that would give them a 99.9% failure rate.

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This. :up:

Summed it up nicely.

Wow, I was || close to ordering a 1.5TB, only because I had to get it shipped from Melb warehouse held me off.

Might wait for the new WD 2TB instead, they aren't far off.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs they've got themselves in ... hopefully they can make amends!

I think we should accept now that all manufacturers have either had or are having their horrors.

I won't trust seagate after the last 12 months, and I've used them for years. I've been a firm seagate reliability advocate until about 6 months ago, and this takes the cake.
I know the samsung F1's can die and went with them recently anyway due to price and not having personal experience with samsungs.
And I will be trying WD's to see how they fit.
And that will last me long enough until I have to repeat the process all over again with SSDs. *sigh* :)

This is definately seagates fault. Cannot be aimed at the consumers. It can be argued on various levels, not just for failing to test the firmware properly, but for making bad drives to start with. I would also say there is potential to lay blame if they do not offer a recall or warranty for all drives bricked by firmware updates. I'd go so far as to say they should offer warranty on bricked drives with free shipping.


PS: Hi downforce

99.9%? From what I could tell, it's 100%. :lol: My 320GB 7200.10 is slow and sounds like a circular saw. Back to Samsung for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gumballguy

I think we should accept now that all manufacturers have either had or are having their horrors.

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Hell yeah, I've had hdd's from every manufacturer die in various batches and it wont stop be buying Seagate in the future, but definitely not in the next 3-6mths at least until we know these issues are sorted!

I just sold a few Seagate 500's to go in a file server! Making sure they aren't dodgy ones now.

PS: heya :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LOE

3 - what will happen with all the people who lost their drives, and MORE IMPORTANT - their data

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Seagate is providing free data recovery.

hmmm... got three 320gig 7200.11 running here ....


edit: checked firmwares, got 2 with sd11 and one sd22. e.g. I´m safe *knocks on wood* :sofa:

@ this rate I'm gonna be forced to get ripped off by WD RE3 HDDs :( :down:

-__-

wtf Seagate. You guys fumbled the ball during Overtime.


I trusted you guys. I had high hopes. I guess those days are over now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LOE

I still prefer having a healthy hard drive to giving all my private data to seagate so they can restore it

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No need to be embarrassed over your collection of "adult-oriented film", buddy.:up: Everybody's got one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by metachronos

No need to be embarrassed over your collection of "adult-oriented film", buddy.:up: Everybody's got one.

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:rofl::rofl::rofl:

IMO the last decent series by Seagate was 7200.9, hopefully they can back to what they used to be.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by randomizer

99.9%? From what I could tell, it's 100%. :lol: My 320GB 7200.10 is slow and sounds like a circular saw. Back to Samsung for me.

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That's alot better than the crashing sound I heard one time...I hope I never hear it again. Sounded like a dang chainsaw! :eek::shakes: I had a crash one time. It was old. I count my blessings though. I've only had one fail me in all these years. I know one thing I hope i never live to see a 10 or 15K drive crash...heck, that might explode!

Now I feel sorry for my friend who purchased a 7200.10 500GB last year and he told me the HD just started to slow down lately. I've been using Seagate HD for all my rigs and never have such problems, luckily I didn't get one of the 7200.11 as I still use the 7200.10.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by firebane

People panic cause their drives fail.
Seagate wants to rectify this
Seagate rushes
Drives die
People scream

Hmm whose really to blame?

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You are, for posting drivel.

I've got two, soon to be four ES.2 250GB 32mb drives and one 7200.11 500GB drive. all are fine. what should I be looking for?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AgentGOD

Someone at the Seagate firmware testing center will most likely get fired soon. This is a big widespread problem.

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Who said they have a firmware testing center. :rofl:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Karak

Just to bring some optimism to the discussion - i have Barracuda 7200.8 250 GB(for 3 or more years) and 7200.10 500 GB (since series 10 release). No signs of failure :up:

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Same here, still chugging along doing backups every month! I know there were some failures recently with the cudas but I would still use this over a deathstar any day. We're talking droves of dead HDD arrays!!!

Just saying it could be worse... Surly everyone has a backup. At least for their important stuff. If not -- sorry to say you've learned your lesson.

Reading about all these bricked drives sucks.

"It's a good day to die" comes to mind :D

Affected drive here....
Backing up now.......:eek:

I use two 500g seagate 7200 and they have worked flawlessly in raid 0 with zero seek noise... I have never effed with firmware on my hard drives though so I can't vouch for this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Karak

Just to bring some optimism to the discussion - i have Barracuda 7200.8 250 GB(for 3 or more years) and 7200.10 500 GB (since series 10 release). No signs of failure :up:

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glad i just ordered a samsung HDD never let me down :):up:

I was aiming for one this drives about 2 months ago. Fortunately for me, it was out of stock, so I bought a WD. :)

Both my 500GB drives bricked, should have read this thread before doing the update :shakes: Anyone have any ideas on how I could recover my data? Only one drive has data I want off it, and there is about 350GB worth of stuff on it. Is SpinRite my best bet?

I just bought a 500GB 7200.11 last week for storage. Haven't transfered anything to it yet. I'll have to see how this plays out in the next couple of days.

From what I can gather you just need to find a copy of your original firmware to flash back with, the data should still be intact on the drives.

The firmware bricking issue isn't what bothers me as much as its supposed attempt to fix some possible reliability issue, it just feels like a ticking time bomb.

Personally I keep a majority of my data backed up but that still does not address the paranoia and confidence loss after reading about these issues.

While I haven't had a seagate drive fail in at least 5 years I've had a couple western digitals fail just last year. So needless to say I'm not 100% enthused about the situation.

Maybe its time to give samsung drives a shot, I tried to stick with the names I trust the most but it sure seems its all getting to be a shot in the dark for reliability these days.

I feel bad for anyone who has a 7200.11 right now.

That said, though I may not recommend Seagates for awhile, I do hope I can again. 6 months, a year from now maybe. I guess we'll see how this firmware issue plays out, it would be great if they could learn from it and wind up putting out higher quality firmware with extensive testing behind it. I've always found their drives to have an excellent price:performance ratio, and a very competitive performance - usually leading on first release of a new series.

It isn't reasonable to assume an entire manufacturer should be avoided just because you've had a couple of their drives fail. There's a big difference between a random drive death and something like the IBM Deskstar 60GXPs. ALL HARD DRIVES WILL FAIL. Most will kick the bucket within five years.

good thing i was buying WD drives when everyone was saying not too cuz now all those seagate buyers are kicking themselves.
i have multiple 500 and 1tb WD Green drives and have never had a single issue with them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Karak

No signs of failure :up:

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...yet :shrug:

I've got 5x 1TB 7200.11s in raid5 with all my data on it now :( Time to backup, and check my serial #s when I get home. Went with Seagate for the 5 year warranty, maybe it wasn't worth it.

Im not sure why this is such a big issue.

I have purchased over 40 seagate ".11" and have only had a problem with about 3. and two of those issues werent even related to firmware issues.

Finally the one that was related as soon as you flash it you can get access to the drive and your data is fine.

More damage is caused by knee jerk reactions to people shouting about lost data and taking uneducated action, then the problem itself.

This is no "deathstar"

I guess stepping back and looking at the situation its something that happens to every vendor at some point. Kinda sucks when it happens from a brand you trusted with a solid prior track record.

Just look at what Nvidia recently went through with their gpu's and faulty soldering and all the laptops and possible desktop parts that where affected. Does that mean I won't buy an Nvidia product again, no, but I will wait until they get the issue resolved before doing so.

It would seem I can't even find the 7200.11 500gb drive even listed for sale at newegg right now either, they do have the 7200.12 500gb listed though.

Interesting that the firmware update also works for Maxtor Drives. Perhaps it is true that newer seagates are just re badged maxtors

I have a 7200.11 320 GB baracudda that is apperently affected

i'm curious if the firmware update will brick the 320 version... or if the 320 version has any reports of failure in the first place

also if I did the firmware update and it was sucessful would it format the drive or would I still have all my data

Im so glad I decided to stop buying Seagate. After the nightmare it gave me with... 500gb 7200.10 series (ironic?), I promised I wasnt going to buy Seagate anymore. I havent even RMAed the drive.

F- to Seagate

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Karak

Just to bring some optimism to the discussion - i have Barracuda 7200.8 250 GB(for 3 or more years) and 7200.10 500 GB (since series 10 release). No signs of failure :up:

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that's because, according to seagate's lists, these drives aren't affected at all, you know... ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by [XC] Lead Head

Interesting that the firmware update also works for Maxtor Drives. Perhaps it is true that newer seagates are just re badged maxtors

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Hope not. I've had bad experiences with Maxtor in the past. Lots of Vaio machines used to use them and I've seen many failures.

I updated my 1.5Tb 7200.11 to SD1A and still have lockup issues.

Wow, glad I did not update mine. I got 2x500GB in RAID1.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arnemetis

I've got 5x 1TB 7200.11s in raid5 with all my data on it now :( Time to backup, and check my serial #s when I get home. Went with Seagate for the 5 year warranty, maybe it wasn't worth it.

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I'm the OP, and as I said, I've had a 500 GB 7200.11 die from the original bug. I'm currently using one that is from a Seagate RMA (it says Recertified drive on it).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by highoctane

It would seem I can't even find the 7200.11 500gb drive even listed for sale at newegg right now either, they do have the 7200.12 500gb listed though.

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It's back now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148288

They pulled it before. Now we can add more negative reviews about it. I've already added mine, I gave it 1 egg because one of mine failed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ghost_recon88

Both my 500GB drives bricked, should have read this thread before doing the update :shakes: Anyone have any ideas on how I could recover my data? Only one drive has data I want off it, and there is about 350GB worth of stuff on it. Is SpinRite my best bet?

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SpinRite is most likely useless to you at this point, this is a firmware issue. The only way you can hope to recover it is if the HDD is still being detected by the BIOS, and you flash the firmware to an older revision. Otherwise, you'll have to RMA it, and possibly opt for the free Seagate data recovery service.

i used to be a WD+Seagate man.

But last year orso ive only been buying Samsung, hitachi and WD for myself and when building PCs for others.
Dunno y i havent bought any Seagates in the last year but now im happy i havent.

Stil got 2x320 7200.10 in raid in this PC. Been thinking of upgrading them for a while now and the urge has been getting bigger and bigger everytime i read more bad news about Seagate.

Think its time for them to start firing some people. Cause tbh this looks like a few guys overthere are pretty incompetent

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Starscream

i used to be a WD+Seagate man.

But last year orso ive only been buying Samsung, hitachi and WD for myself and when building PCs for others.
Dunno y i havent bought any Seagates in the last year but now im happy i havent.

Stil got 2x320 7200.10 in raid in this PC. Been thinking of upgrading them for a while now and the urge has been getting bigger and bigger everytime i read more bad news about Seagate.

Think its time for them to start firing some people. Cause tbh this looks like a few guys overthere are pretty incompetent

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Well, I think :banana::banana::banana::banana: happens in a recession. But yeah they should have AT LEAST tested the firmware BEFORE releasing and bricking drives, not AFTER :shakes:.

People should really think more often about the old wise saying: If it isn't broken, don't fix it!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by XS Janus

People should really think more often about the old wise saying: If it isn't broken, don't fix it!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by AgentGOD

I'm the OP, and as I said, I've had a 500 GB 7200.11 die from the original bug. I'm currently using one that is from a Seagate RMA (it says Recertified drive on it).

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;) My hard drives qualify.

oh eff me running... I have one of these as a storage drive... time to backup!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by revenant

oh eff me running... I have one of these as a storage drive... time to backup!

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Yeah I got the Western Digital Caviar Black right after I had one 7200.11 fail on me... as a safe backup disk.

I updated my firmware to SD1A and it fixed nothing. Same issue. I called Seagate and they recommended RMA. I'd rather wait for a working firmware than getting a recertified drive.

So which one of your said that there was no problem?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by safan80

So which one of your said that there was no problem?

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I don't think anybody said there was no problem.

Apparently Seagate is only recovering data for free on drives manufactured in December, regardless of whether your drive bricked from the original firmware problem or not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by randomizer

Apparently Seagate is only recovering data for free on drives manufactured in December, regardless of whether your drive bricked from the original firmware problem or not.

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Well that's even worse -_-

I just checked my seagate 500GB drive. Luckily it's older model, ST3500320NS Barracuda ES.2. But, this drives firmware had bugs too. When used in NAS's, there was some sort of spindown bug. But the guys at Infrant hooked me up with a beta bios for it. So far no problems. *knocks on wood*

Ive got a seagate 7200.10 AAK firmware...even to this day (close to a year and a half later) it still doesnt think the drive has more then 200 days use on it, and the read/write speeds are continually getting lower and lower, its slower than the hitachi 500GB I have in a vantec external over eSATA, and the seagate is set to SATA2, I think that once I re-delegate this computer to upstairs, it'll get replaced with my spare 500GB hitachi

Can someone confirm about problems on 320gb 7200.11 drives?


I've got one but luckily (??) it has firmware SD22.

Damn been using Seagate for years and just last year I nabbed a 640Gig WD and love it as well. Guess Seagate is out, and in with WD.

Lets see my list so far of where I went for drives....

Maxtor -> Seagate -> WD

Least I've been lucky so far and have purchased drives before the issues start happening.

Does this effect 7200.12 at all? I have two of those that just went into a customer system. I tested them so as long as the user doesn't update firmware (he won't) all should be fine, but I'd still like to know.

Looks like they shouldn't have cut some of those jobs...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrcape

Does this effect 7200.12 at all? I have two of those that just went into a customer system. I tested them so as long as the user doesn't update firmware (he won't) all should be fine, but I'd still like to know.

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are they even out yet? :eek:

edit: just checked newegg, they are too :cool:

trusty drives are under 500gb :)

"the true story behind the scenes" by Seagate's employee

Quote:

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I work for Seagate. I was there when the fit hit the shan, and I saw everything going in internally, as well as externally.
I really love my job, so please excuse the sock-puppet nature that creating a brand new account and claiming to be an authority on the subject I must seem to be. But I am a geek, and I really think you all need to know the true story behind the scenes.

This whole thing started with the 1.5 Terabyte drives. It had a stuttering issue, which at first we all thought was a simple bad implementation of SATA on common chipsets. Seagate engineers promptly jumped in and worked to try to duplicate the issue and prove where the problem was. This wasn't a massive rush as 1.5tb drives are what? 5% of the drives on the market. When it became obvious that the issue was more widespread, they buckled down and put out a couple of firmware revisions to fix it.........

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http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=...3&cid=26542735

Seagate promises second fault fix in 24 hours

Quote:

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This will be firmware to fix the firmware (SD1A) that was issued to fix the firmware (SD15) that caused some 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 drives and others to stop working. The SD1A firmware caused 500GB Barracuda 7200.11s to stop working.............

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http://www.channelregister.co.uk/200...ond_fault_fix/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by onethreehill

"the true story behind the scenes" by Seagate's employee

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=...3&cid=26542735

Seagate promises second fault fix in 24 hours

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/200...ond_fault_fix/

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nice find, good read :yepp: :up:

God dammit, my drives better not fail.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr.Guvernment

i have had issues with a few segate 500G last year but the 7200.10 models, i also had 3 320G 7200.10's go bad in the span of a month, i am with some others, i dont trust segate anymore, back to WD or hitachi for me!

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been there and done that (with maxtor added)... save yourself the heartbreak and go samsung. Its ironic as old put-into-oem samsung drives are garbage.

So thats what happened to my ST31000340AS, I thought it just failed due to overclocking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Particle

ALL HARD DRIVES WILL FAIL. Most will kick the bucket within five years.

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I have an old 4.6GB Samsung that's 11 years old and it's still kicking.

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Originally Posted by onethreehill

[bhttp://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=...3&cid=26542735

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That's a relief, in a way. Thanks for the link. According to the information in the link, it is a very slim chance of failure in the first place (assuming you aren't reflashing anything). My drive fell into Seagates "affected" list, but it runs 24/7, so I guess that greatly reduces the risk.


For anyone that is interested in exactly WHAT is happening;

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The conditions have to be just right - you have to reboot just after the drive writes the 320th log file to the firmware space of the drive. this is a log file that's written only occasionally, usually when there are bad sectors, missed writes, etc... might happen every few days on a computer in a nin-RAID home use situation.. and if that log file is written even one time after the magic #320, it rolls over the oldest file kept on the drive and there's no issue. It'll only stop responding IF the drive is powered up with log file #320 being the latest one written... a perfect storm situation. IF this is the case, then seagate is trying to put in place a procedure where you can simply ship them the drive, they hook it up to a serial controller, and re-flashed with the fixed firmware. That's all it takes to restore the drive to operation! As for buying new drives, that's up to you. None of the CC firmware drives were affected - only the SD firmware drives.

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- Seagate has now released new firmware for all models of hard drives affected by a software flaw, the company said Thursday.

Seagate has published detailed instructions for how administrators can identify the model of hard drive in service and whether it needs a firmware upgrade. Models affected are the Barracuda 7200.11, ES.2 SATA and DiamondMax 22.

The problem caused some drives to become completely inoperable, while other users found they could not access data on the drives. The new firmware will not fix drives that have become inoperable, the company said.

Seagate is offering customers whose drives are broken data recovery services from its i365 subsidiary. Data on drives that are not inoperable is still on the drives and can be recovered, the company said.

Seagate released new firmware last Friday for the Barracuda 7200.11 drives, but that upgrade was also faulty. Seagate withdrew it on Monday, said company spokesman Ian D. O'Leary.

It was originally thought that drives in the SV35 series, which are designed for surveillance applications, were also affected by the problems, but that now appears not to be the case, O'Leary said.

Seagate said it believes that vast majority of customers using the drives will not have problems. However, the company has not released figures on how many of the drives have been sold and what percentage may be affected.

"We regret any inconvenience that the firmware issues have caused our customers," according to a statement released Thursday.

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http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/2...okenharddrives