Seagate releases a firmware fix for the firmware fix

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01-22-2009, 12:33 PM
AgentGOD

Seagate releases a firmware fix for the firmware fix

As you all know, Seagate's famous 7200.11 lineup of drives has had a firmware bug that caused drives to die spontaneously on a random power up, and they released a firmware to address and fix this issue.

However, the firmware update bricked all 500 GB drives flashed with this update, and Seagate received numerous complaints on Seagate's web site alone.

Today, Seagate releases a fix firmware for that firmware, still dubbed version "SD1A".

There are reports from users with the affected 500 GB drives saying that it worked perfectly after flashing, and even de-bricks the previously-bricked drives (from flashing):
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/...thread.id=6927

Personally, I have not flashed this new firmware yet, and both of my drives have SD15 (stock). If anyone can confirm that this new firmware is truly fixed and is flashable on the ST3500320AS with SD15 please let us know!
01-22-2009, 01:05 PM
Particle

Excellent news! I eagerly await the results from owners.
01-22-2009, 01:08 PM
Jamesrt2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by Particle

Excellent news! I eagerly await the results from owners.

you mean if there ARE results :p:

If it doesn't work there will be no results as they don't have there computers haha!
------------------------------------
and what about the people who now have all there HD broken?? and can't flash them to fix etc??
01-22-2009, 01:09 PM
Particle

The OP made it sound like those bricked drives can be brought back to life.
01-22-2009, 01:12 PM
ToTTenTranz

And if a guy has only one hard drive and it's bricked, how is he supposed to flash the drive?
01-22-2009, 01:12 PM
[XC] Lead Head

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamesrt2004

you mean if there ARE results :p:

If it doesn't work there will be no results as they don't have there computers haha!
------------------------------------
and what about the people who now have all there HD broken?? and can't flash them to fix etc??

The drives are only bricked in that the drive itself cannot access the platters. Seagate said multiple times that reflashing the drive with the new firmware will bring it back to life. The actual workings of the drive is still fine. Like if you have a bad bios-flash on your video card. You pop in another video card, and have the flashing utility flash to the borked card.

If a person only has one drive, then they can go to a friend and have them burn a CD with the new firmware. But I'm assuming anyone who actually had the knowledge to know to try a firmware flash would have a backup solution
01-22-2009, 01:21 PM
tylerw13

i flashed both my 500 gig hds and they are working well now...even my bricked one that died on me months ago is back up and working!! my other was part of my raid and it was fine as well...no data issues or anthing
01-22-2009, 01:24 PM
Sparky

Good to know... I'll advise my friend who has a new seagate 1TB drive.
01-22-2009, 01:30 PM
highoctane

Quote:

Originally Posted by tylerw13

i flashed both my 500 gig hds and they are working well now...even my bricked one that died on me months ago is back up and working!! my other was part of my raid and it was fine as well...no data issues or anthing

Thats good to know!
01-22-2009, 01:46 PM
AgentGOD

Quote:

Originally Posted by Particle

Excellent news! I eagerly await the results from owners.

I got two 500 GB 7200.11's as in sig. Both have SD15 as stock firmware. One of them I got in June 2008, and the other is from RMA. I actually got two drives in June, and only one is here with me, the other is the RMA like I said. I have them in Matrix RAID, and was first hesitant to flash the update.

Anyway, I successfully flashed the new firmware to both of my drives at once.

What I did was first unplug my Caviar Black from the SATA port (for obvious safety reasons), and then I saved my OC settings (ty P5Q OC profiles), and reset the BIOS to default settings. Then I set the SATA mode to "IDE Enhanced" so that the drives are out of RAID mode as far as the BIOS is concerned. Then, I booted from the CD and simply followed the instructions to flash. Each drive takes 15 sec to flash. Then it tells you to "Press any key" and it will power-cycle the drives (the PC too).

I turn on PC to confirm the drives are working, and indeed they are. Then I load my original OC profile back, and turn off the PC. I plug in the Caviar Black, turn back on, go into BIOS to fix boot order, and presto... Windows boots and all my data are still there :) the Matrix RAID with RAID 0 and RAID 1 works perfectly.

So there you go, my story.

Pictures of the flashing:
http://i43.tinypic.com/2iley3s.jpg

http://i44.tinypic.com/21nmvx5.jpg
01-22-2009, 01:49 PM
Face

Quote:

Originally Posted by AgentGOD

Personally, I have not flashed this new firmware yet, and both of my drives have SD15 (stock). If anyone can confirm that this new firmware is truly fixed and is flashable on the ST3500320AS with SD15 please let us know!

I have the same drive, but I think i'll wait a bit more before I do anything. Just to make sure it's really safe. I just hope it won't die before i get to it, because it's started giving me very weird noises all of a sudden in the last few days.
01-22-2009, 02:08 PM
AgentGOD

Quote:

Originally Posted by Face

I have the same drive, but I think i'll wait a bit more before I do anything. Just to make sure it's really safe. I just hope it won't die before i get to it, because it's started giving me very weird noises all of a sudden in the last few days.

Worked for me, just tried it. I posted exactly what I have and did in a previous post. It did not kill my RAID array.

Weird noises sound like a hardware failure, not firmware :( Should get that checked out ASAP.
01-22-2009, 02:23 PM
XS Janus

OK those pics are like taken with the first color camera ever!
01-22-2009, 03:22 PM
AgentGOD

Quote:

Originally Posted by XS Janus

OK those pics are like taken with the first color camera ever!

Camera phone actually :D In poor lighting.
01-22-2009, 03:24 PM
JohnZS

My 3500320AS flashed perfectly, it seems to be less slugish on POST now and boot but this might be the placebo effect?
John
01-22-2009, 03:38 PM
003

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnZS

My 3500320AS flashed perfectly, it seems to be less slugish on POST now and boot but this might be the placebo effect?
John

No that happens some times... like for me after a heavy OC failure and the PC resets, it takes forever to detect the drives and drive controller.. anybody else ever notice that?

And lol.. debrick the bricked drives.. I love it.
01-22-2009, 03:51 PM
AgentGOD

RAID array is healthy and working, with both HDDs using the "new" SD1A:
http://i42.tinypic.com/osu8h5.jpg
01-22-2009, 04:08 PM
safan80

now if seagate wants to make people happy they should release working 2TB hard drives before march.
01-22-2009, 04:10 PM
Speederlander

Quote:

Originally Posted by AgentGOD

Pictures of the flashing:

No offense but spend $9.95 and get a better camera.
01-22-2009, 04:17 PM
Mr.Guvernment

unreal, i think their QoS department should get some new peopleware in it.
01-22-2009, 04:22 PM
STaRGaZeR

Quote:

Originally Posted by safan80

now if seagate wants to make people happy they should release working 2TB hard drives before march.

You mean 2 months after WD(WD20EADS)? That makes me sad instead of happy.
01-22-2009, 04:49 PM
eleeter

Flashed 2 1TB units, worked fine.

I strongly recommend that when people do this, they disconnect all other hard drives except the ONE being flashed. And set your BIOS to standard ATA mode.
01-22-2009, 04:59 PM
AgentGOD

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speederlander

No offense but spend $9.95 and get a better camera.

I didn't feel like getting my Digital Camera.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eleeter

Flashed 2 1TB units, worked fine.

I strongly recommend that when people do this, they disconnect all other hard drives except the ONE being flashed. And set your BIOS to standard ATA mode.

I'd say just disconnect all NON-Seagate HDDs before doing this. It wouldn't be good if it flashed your precious Caviar Black. I made sure to unplug it from SATA before flashing. Then I let the tool do its work and flash both of the 500 GB's at once.
01-22-2009, 05:05 PM
safan80

Quote:

Originally Posted by STaRGaZeR

You mean 2 months after WD(WD20EADS)? That makes me sad instead of happy.

can't count that drive until it's in stores available for purchase(not backorder or preorder crap).
01-22-2009, 05:18 PM
tiro_uspsss

Quote:

Originally Posted by safan80

now if seagate wants to make people happy they should release working 2TB hard drives before march.

I've lost too much faith in them :( - I'm staying away from Seagate for ~6 months if I can - I'm gonna go WD for the 2TB (providing the WD2TB *isnt* 6x333GB platter design)
01-22-2009, 05:41 PM
YukonTrooper

I feel bad for anyone that threw out or destroyed their drives in frustration after the initial firmware release.
01-22-2009, 06:06 PM
lowtcell

I need to flash mine but have no blank CD-Rs. Will the flash work from a USB stick?
01-22-2009, 06:16 PM
T_Flight

And why would anybody trust this firmware patch now? I think they are beyond the level of trust for people to flash their drives now. I think they should take them back and flash them and test them to make sure they are functioning and send them back.

If I was sitting on one of thesed rives now, there is no way I'd risk flashing. They didn't test the last one, so how do we know they tested this one? If they had properly tested these drives to begin with they would've never needed flashing.

I have always liked Seagate, and Western Disgital Drives, but I'm still floored over that last blunder.
01-22-2009, 06:26 PM
AgentGOD

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowtcell

I need to flash mine but have no blank CD-Rs. Will the flash work from a USB stick?

Sure, but you'll have to grab the floppy image from the ISO and rip the boot files and put them onto the USB flash drive.
01-22-2009, 06:30 PM
[XC] Lead Head

Quote:

Originally Posted by T_Flight

And why would anybody trust this firmware patch now? I think they are beyond the level of trust for people to flash their drives now. I think they should take them back and flash them and test them to make sure they are functioning and send them back.

If I was sitting on one of thesed rives now, there is no way I'd risk flashing. They didn't test the last one, so how do we know they tested this one? If they had properly tested these drives to begin with they would've never needed flashing.

I have always liked Seagate, and Western Disgital Drives, but I'm still floored over that last blunder.

Because of all the people on the seagate forum, and even in this thread that have flawlessly flashed their drives, and even resurrected dead ones?
01-22-2009, 06:30 PM
Morais

dangit i have this power on problem, im so happy i didnt updated the firmware before.Got the SD15 Firmware. Now imma little scared we need some guinea pigs to test it out!
01-22-2009, 06:34 PM
safan80

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

I've lost too much faith in them :( - I'm staying away from Seagate for ~6 months if I can - I'm gonna go WD for the 2TB (providing the WD2TB *isnt* 6x333GB platter design)

so am I... actually I'm waiting for the Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB to hit ≤100 so I can get 14 of them lol
01-22-2009, 06:38 PM
[XC] Lead Head

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morais

dangit i have this power on problem, im so happy i didnt updated the firmware before.Got the SD15 Firmware. Now imma little scared we need some guinea pigs to test it out!

Read the beginning of this thread?
01-22-2009, 06:41 PM
safan80

Quote:

Originally Posted by [XC] Lead Head

Read the beginning of this thread?

shh let him suffer.
01-22-2009, 06:45 PM
highoctane

I think I'll still stick with Seagate after this fiasco, at least unless my two 7200.11's really die within the next year.

It basically boils down to I haven't had a Seagate fail on me in at least 10+ years but I'm definitely going to be watching for any odd trends.
01-22-2009, 06:49 PM
T_Flight

Quote:

Originally Posted by [XC] Lead Head

Because of all the people on the seagate forum, and even in this thread that have flawlessly flashed their drives, and even resurrected dead ones?

How do we know in a week all of those drives won't fail? The point was, that the last FW version was not tested before release. They can't be trusted. For the ones that did test it out I gotta hand it to them. They are brave.
01-22-2009, 06:49 PM
Morais

ok done the update...no problems (for now)...
And some people are talking about disable AHCI mode to a safe upgrade...is this true, i did on AHCI
01-22-2009, 06:52 PM
tiro_uspsss

Quote:

Originally Posted by safan80

so am I... actually I'm waiting for the Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB to hit ≤100 so I can get 14 of them lol

:shocked: u bar-stool :p: & here i am sitting on only 2TB, wanting a mere 2TB more :p:
01-22-2009, 06:53 PM
ericware

I am still using the stock firmware .. I don't see any problem yet .. I am wondering if I should update the firmware
01-22-2009, 06:56 PM
[XC] Lead Head

Quote:

Originally Posted by T_Flight

How do we know in a week all of those drives won't fail? The point was, that the last FW version was not tested before release. They can't be trusted. For the ones that did test it out I gotta hand it to them. They are brave.

Because if the firmware was faulty, it would brick the drive instantly? Any potential read/write problem would show within hours, if not minutes after power up.

Anyways, seagate has already shown that even faulty firmware can't kill the drive. Just reflash it with the new firmware and good as new. After what happened with the original firmware, they weren't gonna let it happen again.
01-22-2009, 06:58 PM
eleeter

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morais

And some people are talking about disable AHCI mode to a safe upgrade...is this true, i did on AHCI

It's just a precaution to run in legacy mode.
01-22-2009, 07:01 PM
T_Flight

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

:shocked: u bar-stool :p: & here i am sitting on only 2TB, wanting a mere 2TB more :p:

If it's not too terribly expensive per GB I wouldn't mind getting one of those ina couple months either. I'd like either a 1 or 2TB fast drive. I wish they made them a bit faster. I know they are basically storage drives, but I still like the speed. I'd like to see a rather large cache. It doesn't have to be friggen huge, but maybe 16MB or so would be nice. Maybe a Black edition type of drive. Aw, WD of course.

After a year or so I might look at Seagate again. I have nothing against Seagate other than lack of trust right now. It's not personal. It's just too big of a blunder. I have to be able to trust a company when it comes to data storage like this. I have too much time invested to risk that kind of a loss. Those are mistake you cannot make when you deal with people's data. That was totally uncalled for and they know better. This is a top HDD company. They know better than that.
01-22-2009, 07:05 PM
halo112358

Quote:

Originally Posted by Particle

Excellent news! I eagerly await the results from owners.

:boom:
01-22-2009, 07:06 PM
tiro_uspsss

does this new FW fix the 1.5TB? It all 'seemed' to start with the 1.5TB - thats when I first got wind of trouble with Seagate anyway
01-22-2009, 07:19 PM
orangekiwii

how exactly does one flash? I have a so-called affected drive and want to flash before it goes wanky
01-22-2009, 07:29 PM
safan80

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

:shocked: u bar-stool :p: & here i am sitting on only 2TB, wanting a mere 2TB more :p:

lol what? how else as I gonna backup blurays? :rofl:

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

does this new FW fix the 1.5TB? It all 'seemed' to start with the 1.5TB - thats when I first got wind of trouble with Seagate anyway

well it should in theory, but I would for someone that has/had the problem with the 1.5TB before even think about it.
01-22-2009, 07:41 PM
Morais

Seems like a lot of people got strange warnings running some programs (including myself):

http://members.home.nl/dualdude/pics...SD1A_SMART.jpg

Linux:

Code:

[ 79.472286] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.472293] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 79.814275] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.814281] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 79.977564] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.977569] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.218199] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.218206] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.372146] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.372150] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.517447] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.517451] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.662713] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.662717] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.916449] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.916454] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 81.061494] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 81.061498] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404
01-22-2009, 07:53 PM
AgentGOD

I can't test those, I'm running my HDDs in RAID 0.
01-22-2009, 08:00 PM
Morais

The boot time is slower on me with this SD1A, especially on grub load...with SD15 it took like some milliseconds to find my operating systems, now its up to one, two seconds :(... Well, I hope they release another update
01-22-2009, 08:15 PM
safan80

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morais

The boot time is slower on me with this SD1A, especially on grub load...with SD15 it took like some milliseconds to find my operating systems, now its up to one, two seconds :(... Well, I hope they release another update

remember seagate doesn't support Linux and you shouldn't be supporting them ;)
01-22-2009, 08:32 PM
Vienna

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

I've lost too much faith in them :( - I'm staying away from Seagate for ~6 months if I can - I'm gonna go WD for the 2TB (providing the WD2TB *isnt* 6x333GB platter design)

Did some quick research, seems the new 2TB drive from WD should be out in the next coming weeks and its based on 4 new 500GB platters.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/wes...-hdd,6828.html
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/13/w...en-hard-drive/
http://www.electronista.com/articles...reen.2tb.soon/
01-22-2009, 08:35 PM
eric66

500 gb platters s_ck from what i understand my wd started to make clicking noises like my 2 old 500 gb samsungs :(
01-22-2009, 09:31 PM
RVWinkle

To all you guys hating on Seagate, be sure to note that WD has done several recalls in the past. I've seen mountains of 1.6gig Caviars with crashed heads.
01-22-2009, 10:43 PM
tiro_uspsss

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vienna

Did some quick research, seems the new 2TB drive from WD should be out in the next coming weeks and its based on 4 new 500GB platters.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/wes...-hdd,6828.html
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/13/w...en-hard-drive/
http://www.electronista.com/articles...reen.2tb.soon/

that aint good enough! :p: I want it out in next coming *days* :D :up:
01-23-2009, 02:54 AM
biohead

the knowledge base on seagate's website mentions potential failure on startup for drives manufactured through December of 2008. All my ES.2 and 7200.11 drives are older than that, so there shouldn't be a problem, right?
01-23-2009, 03:41 AM
don_xvi

As I've watched this from the outside, I've noticed that there's been some change in their wording, sometimes they've said "through December" at other times "in December".

Just to clarify, "in December" would mean drives with a manufacture date of 12/2008.
"Through December" is used to indicate, in your case, all drives manufactured in 2007 or 2008. So, yes, if they're currently going with "through", your drives would be affected.
01-23-2009, 04:24 AM
alexlyc

Quote:

Originally Posted by AgentGOD

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowtcell

I need to flash mine but have no blank CD-Rs. Will the flash work from a USB stick?

Sure, but you'll have to grab the floppy image from the ISO and rip the boot files and put them onto the USB flash drive.

How exactly to rip the iso onto the usb flash drive? :confused:
01-23-2009, 06:21 AM
knissel

It's pretty lol that they would even let firmware like that out in the first place. I mean come on, you have to test firmware before you release it!
01-23-2009, 07:36 AM
tiro_uspsss

Quote:

Originally Posted by biohead

the knowledge base on seagate's website mentions potential failure on startup for drives manufactured through December of 2008. All my ES.2 and 7200.11 drives are older than that, so there shouldn't be a problem, right?

I've got an 1TB ES.2 that I bought last yr in january - no issues what-so-ever :up:
01-23-2009, 07:58 AM
Kaldor

Quote:

Originally Posted by RVWinkle

To all you guys hating on Seagate, be sure to note that WD has done several recalls in the past. I've seen mountains of 1.6gig Caviars with crashed heads.

People dont want to hear that! :)

Seagate is a decent company, with a decent product. It looks like they solved the issue. All this was typical kneejerk media/blog/forum BS. Its been said before, if your going to mess around with firmware, maybe you should back up first?

I own 4 Seagate HDs atm, 2 500s, 2 250s, all are 7200.11 series. No issues with any of them. People are too quik to update everything and seem to forget the old saying "If it aint broke, dont fix it." But people seem to follow the "Lets fix it till it breaks" motto. It was one of those things where people were taking perfectly functional drives with no issues and no need to update and then flashing and bricking them. I never install latest firmware on anything. I prefer the tried and true, even if it is 1 second slower or slightly less fancy.
01-23-2009, 08:02 AM
tiro_uspsss

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaldor

People dont want to hear that! :)

Seagate is a decent company, with a decent product. It looks like they solved the issue. All this was typical kneejerk media/blog/forum BS. Its been said before, if your going to mess around with firmware, maybe you should back up first?

I own 4 Seagate HDs atm, 2 500s, 2 250s, all are 7200.11 series. No issues with any of them. People are too quik to update everything and seem to forget the old saying "If it aint broke, dont fix it." But people seem to follow the "Lets fix it till it breaks" motto. It was one of those things where people were taking perfectly functional drives with no issues and no need to update and then flashing and bricking them. I never install latest firmware on anything. I prefer the tried and true, even if it is 1 second slower or slightly less fancy.

+1 QFT :up:
01-23-2009, 08:43 AM
Face

Quote:

Originally Posted by AgentGOD

Worked for me, just tried it. I posted exactly what I have and did in a previous post. It did not kill my RAID array.

Weird noises sound like a hardware failure, not firmware :( Should get that checked out ASAP.

Thanks for the advice. Hope it's gonna be OK. I'll check it soon as I get back home Sunday.
01-23-2009, 09:23 AM
don_xvi

Fanbois or what ???

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaldor

Seagate is a decent company, with a decent product. It looks like they solved the issue. All this was typical kneejerk media/blog/forum BS. Its been said before, if your going to mess around with firmware, maybe you should back up first?

I'm only quoting you b/c you're the last person to express this sentiment.
This wasn't "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", this was a ticking time bomb, cross your fingers and hope you don't shut the computer down when it has 320 entries in the journal. I've seen plenty of hysteria in my day, but this is a case where there is a clearly identified failure mode, with a root cause, and a fix was offered to prevent/correct the issue. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... Unfortunately, the first fix was a rush job, so it introduced another failure mode. That's a big oops (which one could argue was caused by the level of excitement, but is really more a function of management pushing too hard to minimize the PR damage, and engineering bowing to that pressure and missing something).

Why will I stay away from Seagate for some time as a result of this and the 1.5TB issue ? Because they show that the controls at Seagate are sloppy right now, and I don't want to get caught in the next one. When you make low quality products for a while, you have to earn that trust back. Hence, while someone can say "WD had a recall on 1.6GB drives" that was a long time ago and they haven't had any other problems that I know of recently. Not to mention that their reduction of their warranty coverage doesn't speak positively to their confidence in the product they're pushing out the door these days...
01-23-2009, 11:18 AM
Kaldor

Quote:

I'm only quoting you b/c you're the last person to express this sentiment.
This wasn't "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", this was a ticking time bomb, cross your fingers and hope you don't shut the computer down when it has 320 entries in the journal. I've seen plenty of hysteria in my day, but this is a case where there is a clearly identified failure mode, with a root cause, and a fix was offered to prevent/correct the issue. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... Unfortunately, the first fix was a rush job, so it introduced another failure mode. That's a big oops (which one could argue was caused by the level of excitement, but is really more a function of management pushing too hard to minimize the PR damage, and engineering bowing to that pressure and missing something).

Yes, Seagate did drop the ball with the firmware update I wont dispute. Ticking time bomb or not, you never rush into a situation where your updating firmware on something that is working unless you test it first. It would be like if I decided to update the firmware on the RAID array at work without testing and I hosed a years worth of backups. Part of the issue is thousands of wanna be techys ran out, downloaded a firmware update which was rushed and untested, didnt fully understand what the fallout of what will happen to their HDs if it fails, and proceeded to brick their HDs. After they bricked their HDs they proceeded to run to their favorite forums and starting spewing "seagate sux" and blah blah blah. Like I said, knee jerk reaction. I wonder how many million 7200.11s were unaffected by this problem?

Quote:

Why will I stay away from Seagate for some time as a result of this and the 1.5TB issue ? Because they show that the controls at Seagate are sloppy right now, and I don't want to get caught in the next one. When you make low quality products for a while, you have to earn that trust back. Hence, while someone can say "WD had a recall on 1.6GB drives" that was a long time ago and they haven't had any other problems that I know of recently. Not to mention that their reduction of their warranty coverage doesn't speak positively to their confidence in the product they're pushing out the door these days...

Every company has had meltdowns over the years. WD had the problem with the 1.6gb's as well as other drives in years past. Maxtor had massive issues with all their drives before they we bought out. IBM had the infamous "Deathstars" and were bought by Hitachi iirc. Myself, Im building a new PC for myself, and guess what HD it will have in it, Seagate. Call me a fan boy, if you want but Ive built 5 different PCs this year for different people and have used all Seagate drives in them. Guess what, in the 5 machines I used 8 Seagate HDs, from 250s to 1.5s, none of them have crashed. I also am a 2nd and 3rd level tech for the State of WI you know what brand of HDs we use fail the most? Western Digital. I would say the failure rate on the WDs after 2 years is around 25%. We also use Seagates, and I would say the failure rate is roughly 5% on those. Needless to say, we stopped buying WDs.

Ive been actively building PCs since 1993 and have been working in IT since 2001. This is longer than some of the people that post here have been using a PC. In that time, in my personal machines, Ive had 2 of 2 IBMs die, 2 of 2 Maxtors die, 3 of 6 WDs die, and none of the 10 Seagates die. My time at my job has also proven to me that Seagate makes a fine product with the lowest failure rates of all the HDs we use.
01-23-2009, 11:47 AM
rogueagent6

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaldor

Ive been actively building PCs since 1993 and have been working in IT since 2001. This is longer than some of the people that post here have been using a PC. In that time, in my personal machines, Ive had 2 of 2 IBMs die, 2 of 2 Maxtors die, 3 of 6 WDs die, and none of the 10 Seagates die. My time at my job has also proven to me that Seagate makes a fine product with the lowest failure rates of all the HDs we use.

I remember my dad going through three (3) seagate SCSIs back in 1989. ALL failed just after the warranty expired. I'll let you guess what seagate said...

I have used Western Digital drives exclusively since 1990 and the ONLY drive I've had fail on me is a 6 year old 40GB.

Now they issue a bad firmware that BRICKED 99.99% of the 7200.11 500gb disks flashed with the firmware and you still defend them? That's pretty funny. Go ahead and keep supporting a company that has their head in the sand regarding SSD. Go ahead and keep giving your money to a company that doesn't test firmware before releasing it to the public.
01-23-2009, 11:48 AM
Revv23

man i would be so mad if an official update killed my drive. i hope all those people had backups!
01-23-2009, 12:07 PM
AgentGOD

Quote:

Originally Posted by don_xvi

As I've watched this from the outside, I've noticed that there's been some change in their wording, sometimes they've said "through December" at other times "in December".

Just to clarify, "in December" would mean drives with a manufacture date of 12/2008.
"Through December" is used to indicate, in your case, all drives manufactured in 2007 or 2008. So, yes, if they're currently going with "through", your drives would be affected.

They updated the original issue article again... and they removed the "in December" or "through December" phrases. I can't find it anywhere :P
01-23-2009, 12:34 PM
Kaldor

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogueagent6

I remember my dad going through three (3) seagate SCSIs back in 1989. ALL failed just after the warranty expired. I'll let you guess what seagate said...

I have used Western Digital drives exclusively since 1990 and the ONLY drive I've had fail on me is a 6 year old 40GB.

Now they issue a bad firmware that BRICKED 99.99% of the 7200.11 500gb disks flashed with the firmware and you still defend them? That's pretty funny. Go ahead and keep supporting a company that has their head in the sand regarding SSD. Go ahead and keep giving your money to a company that doesn't test firmware before releasing it to the public.

Sorry to hear of Dads bad experience. How long was the warranty period back then? Was it 5 years? If you get 5 years out of a HD, and then it fails, you got your moneys worth. Also the technology for HDs back then is not near what it is today. Everybody expects everything to last forever. They dont. And those that are whining about the warranty change from 5 to 3 years, stop, please. If you buy an OEM drive its a get what you pay for thing. You buy a retail drive your warranty is still 5 years.

Congrats on using WD for 18 years and only having 1 fail. I handle roughly around 1000 drives a year and WD has the highest failure rate. I think thats a little better sample than the sample youve had in 18 years, even if youve bought 50 drives. If I was really bored at work right now I could sit down with our problem tracking software and give you exact numbers.

Im not defending, Im simply stating that people need to understand the consequences of some updates. Read the fine print people. Its unfortunate that Seagate screwed this up. They will recover and hopefully it will lead to further testing before further firmware releases. The good side of this is they did fix the problem, and from what Ive read thus far its fixing almost all the bricked drives.

As far as the SSD thing goes, they have limited usefulness honestly. For the mainstream and workstation market, and thats where the money is, they are pointless except in low power netbooks. I wish we could get 80 gig SSDs for under $100. I would recommend we replace every failed HD with an SSD in every workstation. Or every new workstation, tablet, or laptop we bought would have an SSD. If we could eliminate HD crashing issues and users complaining of system slowness by simply using an SSD Id be all over it. It would cut my work load immensely.
01-23-2009, 01:15 PM
rogueagent6

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaldor

Congrats on using WD for 18 years and only having 1 fail. I handle roughly around 1000 drives a year and WD has the highest failure rate. I think thats a little better sample than the sample youve had in 18 years, even if youve bought 50 drives. If I was really bored at work right now I could sit down with our problem tracking software and give you exact numbers.

If you'd like to debate semantics, I work with every major vendor; IBM, Dell, HP, SUN, from SAN to TSM and Windows 2000 to AIX. You want to know who I see fail the most? seagate. That I confirmed with one of our SAN engineers, out of the seagates and hitachis that EMC uses, the seagates get replaced more often than the hitachis. No I don't handle all those drives personally, they are spread all over the US and parts of Europe, but I do deal with the aftermath when one fails, and have to coordinate with the vendor for replacements.

But since you brought the issue up, I bet I have just as much experience as you... I just choose not to use seagate, and from my experience, there are better hard disk manufacturers you can give your money to.
01-23-2009, 01:48 PM
Kaldor

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogueagent6

If you'd like to debate semantics, I work with every major vendor; IBM, Dell, HP, SUN, from SAN to TSM and Windows 2000 to AIX. You want to know who I see fail the most? seagate. That I confirmed with one of our SAN engineers, out of the seagates and hitachis that EMC uses, the seagates get replaced more often than the hitachis. No I don't handle all those drives personally, they are spread all over the US and parts of Europe, but I do deal with the aftermath when one fails, and have to coordinate with the vendor for replacements.

But since you brought the issue up, I bet I have just as much experience as you... I just choose not to use seagate, and from my experience, there are better hard disk manufacturers you can give your money to.

Im not here to debate semantics by any means. My point is that everyone has a short memory. In a year when this all blows over, will anyone really care? And yes you have a good chunk of experience with this as well. We are finding that Seagates are working out better for us in both our workstations and our SANs. The opposite is true for your company. We deal with IBM, and HP in a full Windows domain, mostly due to the genius way governments get themselves locked into contracts. Honestly does it really matter though?

The important thing is that Seagate did make the situation right. Did it make a few people nervous, you bet. Will they think twice about upgrading firmware without backing up first gain, definitely. Will it hurt Seagate that much, not really. They make their money from big OEM contracts, not selling HDs at Best Buy or Newegg. It hurt their name with enthusiasts mostly, and they are a drop in the bucket compared to like HP.

The other thing is that everyone acts like the sky is falling. But like I said before, no one takes into consideration the millions of 7200.11 drives that are not having any problems. Id be willing to bet that it far out weighs how many drives failed.
01-23-2009, 01:52 PM
[XC] Lead Head

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revv23

man i would be so mad if an official update killed my drive. i hope all those people had backups!

Can people not read? I'll say it again for the 3rd time. Even if your drive was bricked by the last update, the new one brings 99% of the drives back to life. There are a couple of drives that take to long for the bios to detect them, so people have difficulty flashing them.
01-24-2009, 07:41 AM
lowtcell

I flashed mine. No risk really since this is a new drive and had nothing on it. Just started moving files to it. No problems yet.
01-24-2009, 08:25 AM
stevecs

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogueagent6

If you'd like to debate semantics, I work with every major vendor; IBM, Dell, HP, SUN, from SAN to TSM and Windows 2000 to AIX. You want to know who I see fail the most? seagate. That I confirmed with one of our SAN engineers, out of the seagates and hitachis that EMC uses, the seagates get replaced more often than the hitachis. No I don't handle all those drives personally, they are spread all over the US and parts of Europe, but I do deal with the aftermath when one fails, and have to coordinate with the vendor for replacements.

Just have to comment on the content in this. I also work for a large out-sourcer and data services company with tens of PB of disk. I also will NOT dispute that seagate drives are the largest number of drives that we replace. Now, this is a HUGE caveat here, the NUMBER of drives we replace is large however as a PERCENTAGE of deployment seagate is in the lowest failure bin than other manufacturers. The only reason we have a large number to replace is that most vendors use their product (orders of magnitude greater).

I won't discount the fact that this is not scientifically studied with a large enough deployed base over extended periods of time that also take into consideration environmental, use, transport, mounting and other types of errors/issues from birth to death of each drive. Seagate (or any company) can be good or bad due to your individual 'luck' but there's been no study to date that is complete enough to make a hard statement on quality in the whole.
01-24-2009, 11:39 AM
Cybercat

I installed the firmware update for my ST31000333AS last night without issue. It's nice to stay a step ahead of potential problems.
01-24-2009, 12:04 PM
Tulatin

Seagate really needs to fire it's firmware writers after these debacles. At least things work now!
01-24-2009, 12:30 PM
revenant

gah... I have the SD15 fw on my 500gb 7200.11... I guess it's time to upgrade to the fix-fix fw.
01-24-2009, 01:55 PM
LiquidReactor

So is there a way to bring bricked 1Tb drives back to life?
01-24-2009, 07:02 PM
tiro_uspsss

Quote:

Originally Posted by LiquidReactor

So is there a way to bring bricked 1Tb drives back to life?

if it is bricked because of bad FW, yes
01-24-2009, 10:01 PM
Satummoo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morais

Seems like a lot of people got strange warnings running some programs (including myself):

http://members.home.nl/dualdude/pics...SD1A_SMART.jpg

Linux:

Code:

[ 79.472286] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.472293] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 79.814275] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.814281] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 79.977564] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.977569] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.218199] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.218206] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.372146] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.372150] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.517447] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.517451] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.662713] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.662717] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.916449] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.916454] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 81.061494] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 81.061498] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404

Is that bad? I have the exact same things on my health tab, I've been running for 339 hours and have run smart scans, full error scans and no errors or bad sectors detected. Am I at risk? My firmware is CC1H
01-25-2009, 03:38 AM
gryle

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morais

Seems like a lot of people got strange warnings running some programs (including myself):

Linux:

Code:

[ 79.472286] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.472293] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 79.814275] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.814281] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 79.977564] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 79.977569] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.218199] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.218206] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.372146] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.372150] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.517447] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.517451] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.662713] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.662717] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 80.916449] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 80.916454] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404 [ 81.061494] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 3232 [ 81.061498] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 404

sr0 is the cd or dvd drive, not the harddisk.
Maybe the drive had a scratched cd or dvd?
01-25-2009, 09:10 AM
alexlyc

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satummoo

Is that bad? I have the exact same things on my health tab, I've been running for 339 hours and have run smart scans, full error scans and no errors or bad sectors detected. Am I at risk? My firmware is CC1H

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931
Enter your serial to see if it's affected.
01-25-2009, 09:14 AM
CoolZone

I have updated my 500GB 7200.11 but it is now working the same as before
01-26-2009, 07:26 AM
Razmatazz

I have three 500GB 7200.11 HDs. I have had two fail in the past nine months (66% fail rate...not good) My drives didn't brick but began acting erratic. The first was a drive in a raid-0. The second drive began failing 3 weeks ago. It began acting erratic and failed SeaTools short drive test. I now have 3 working drives, all with SD15. I've been waiting a bit to update the firmware just to make sure we don't need a fix of a fix of a fix. I'll probably give it a whirl sometime this week.
01-26-2009, 06:58 PM
DementeD

just curious..does this FW work on the 320s? mine works fine and has FW sd22 on it but the random access times are stupid like 18-22ms..

anyone with 320's using this FW or..anyone here even have a 320 they can test to see the random access times with?? itd be very appreciated..
01-27-2009, 12:59 PM
Face

Well, crap, looks like I'm deeply screwed. I was planning on flashing the drive today, only to find out it died during the night (ST3500320AS). Not only that, but now it's not detected in BIOS, So I can't flash anything (Got to the setup, Chose option A but obviously no drive detected). Tried all the disconnecting\reconnecting combo's, but nothing helped. Luckily my OS is on the old WD. Might have to RMA with a new one and lose all data. :down:

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/...thread.id=6711 8 pages of users with exactly the same problem and not 1 response from any Seagate officials. This is just :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing ridiculous.

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