Seagate and I are done: 320GB AAK firmware - they won't help me with a HD swap!

[jeeka]

Back to the store you got it from, tell them it was DOA. If it was newegg, they will be nice and help ya

Ya, got it from Newegg, but if I ask for a replacement, it will not guarantee a "good" replacement....

[REVHEAD]

Yeah it was flash.bat

Burn it to iso and boot from the cd, skipp thru all the mumbo jumbo and hit the esc key then you will be brought to the Seagate boot screen a:\>

Then just put in flash.bat when it is finished hit the restart key on your computer dont alt cnt del.

I did check my drives for the -308 till you mentioned it , and yeah both of mine are -308 so I am unshure why they flashed I gained about 15mbs average read flashing, and the Intel Matrix software now picks it up as aam firmware.

I hope you can get it flashed, becasue its been annoying me for about 5 months now knowing I had 2 drives with aak firmware.

Yes I have 500gb drives.

EDIT I just noticed they said in the thread firware only works on 500gb drives ,sorry for the fals lead guys I just noticed it

[jeeka]

Thanks REVHEAD,
I will give it another go, I turned off the power on the machine instead of resetting it. Did you disconnect ALL your other drives (if you have any) before you tried?

[REVHEAD]

Thanks REVHEAD,
I will give it another go, I hit the turned off the power on the machine instead of resetting it. Did you disconnect ALL your other drives (if you have any) before you tried?

yes mate I pulled the power off my other drive, I noticed after re reading there thread that that firmware only supports 500gb drives sorry, I think a good idea would be to keep a close eye on that thread because I am shure a version will come out for 320 drives.

[jeeka]

Will do, Thanks REVHEAD!

[ziddey]

In your picture you point to where it says 320GB AAK. That's what you yourself labeled your hard drive partition. Looking down, it says 3.AA. That said, it is probably still AAK and hdtune just didn't read all the information for some reason.

[jeeka]

In your picture you point to where it says 320GB AAK. That's what you yourself labeled your hard drive partition. Looking down, it says 3.AA. That said, it is probably still AAK and hdtune just didn't read all the information for some reason.

Right, I see what you are sayin'. I labeled that because I didn't want to confuse it with my other drive if I had to do work on it. So, yes, that is my label. But I confirmed it as still AAK by using the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, as well as HDTune to test the 70MB/Sec. Cap.

Sorry, should have made that more clear.

Any other thoughts guys???

[jeeka]

UPDATE!

Seagate just sent me a BETA 3.AAM Firmware for the 320GB Drive. I will test it out a little later and get back to you guys here. Spread the word to have others keep an eye on this thread.

There might still be hope for us 320GB AAK Firmware owners!!!!

See you in a bit! Hopefully with good news to report. We'll See...
jeeka.

[One_Hertz]

all this commotion over <3mb/s avg speed difference? Are you joking me? Its a bit faster only at the start of the drive when it is using outer tracks. Nothing you would EVER notice without running a SYNTHETIC benchmark.

[jeeka]

all this commotion over <3mb/s avg speed difference? Are you joking me? Its a bit faster only at the start of the drive when it is using outer tracks. Nothing you would EVER notice without running a SYNTHETIC benchmark.

Would you buy a part that you KNEW was slower, even before benching it, based on tests done in the real world (writing files back and forth, etc..)?

What if I sold ya' a "Widget", saying it was this, that and the other? What if you bought it, and then came back a month later and said you wanted the exact same model, which is the exact same price and product code?

What if I sold it to you at the same price, and then you go home to find out it is NOT the same "WIDGET" I had promised you?

Would you be pissed/irked?

What if I sold you tires to your car, just like the previous ones I sold you, at the same price, but they turn out to be re-treads...or made from cheaper materials....What if that cheaper material caused you to lose "data" (in this case, your health, the actual car, etc...) if it caused an accident?


I wanna make sure that if I buy something, all things being equal, that I am getting the same thing, or at least SIMILAR to "it" as before. My money, my choice......

Just goes to show, if you lean on someone who asked for your money in exchange for something, you just might get the support you ask for that comes with the product....

We'll see if this firmware flash works though, hopefully!

[kiwi]

Did you run some other benches? Flashing firmware for desktop drives is not common, I am surprised Seagate is even cooperating here

[jeeka]

Tons, the standard stuff, all consistently slower and capped at 69.8-70MB/sec.
My thinking is that if Seagate acknowledges this by releasing an AAM update to the 500GB as well as the 320GB drives, the issue is real enough for them to fix it.

Thoughts?

I am surprised they are working with me as well, but tons of people have the same issue, perceived or not, and a fix looks like it is being worked on...

[[XC] Lead Head]

wow! I had bought a 320 SATA2 about half a year ago, and I was amazed at how much faster it was then my only 80GB 7200.1. I just fired up HD Tune now, and realized that it is the AAK firmware!

Could you PM me a link with that Beta AAM? Do you have to wipe the drive before you format?

My drive caps at about 63MB/s until it hits around 70&#37; of the drive, where it drops off as normal

[Sparky]

I ran HD tach on my AAC 250GB and I get ~85MB/sec sequential read and 217MB/sec burst, this was with the quick test.

[jeeka]

SUCCESS! Well at least in HD Tach...
Here are some screens of the 320GB AAM Firmware Beta...

Summary:
Went from 13.3ms on AAK to 13.1ms on AAM
Min of 40.4MB/Sec on AAK and 40.4MB/Sec on AAM
Max of 70.0MB/Sec on AAK to 81.0MB/Sec on AAM
Avg of 62.7MB/Sec on AAK and 65.6MB/Sec on AAM
Burst went from 138.7MB/Sec on AAK to 137.6MB/ Sec.

The drive is faster now in the first 50&#37; and tails off like it should. Got some wierd leveling between 18% and 30%...
I am not saying it's good or bad, this is just a bench, but I feel a lot better now about this, and am confident enough to put into a RAID0 with my AAD 320GB Drive.

So here's the results!
Thoughts?
jeeka.

[One_Hertz]

3mb/s extra! Now you'll fly into servers!

[jeeka]

Hey, thanks for the constructive comments!
If this post was so unimportant to you, why did you respond to it? Just to cut me down? I'm not understanding your arrogance...

Hopefully this post will help somebody who has the same problems I had with this drive. The idea is to trade knowledge and discuss, not to be sarcastic to the point of insulting other posters...... Obviously you know that because you've been around since October 2004....and I am just "a noob" since Sept. 2006....

[ziddey]

Don't worry about him. He's Canadian.

Glad to see AAM has hit the other variants. I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in a copy if you wouldn't mind posting a copy.

[jeeka]

I will post it a little later, gotta step out for a bit.
What would be the best way to attach it? Or should I upload it to a rapidshare type site? What's the rules on that?

[One_Hertz]

Hey, thanks for the constructive comments!
If this post was so unimportant to you, why did you respond to it? Just to cut me down? I'm not understanding your arrogance...

Hopefully this post will help somebody who has the same problems I had with this drive. The idea is to trade knowledge and discuss, not to be sarcastic to the point of insulting other posters...... Obviously you know that because you've been around since October 2004....and I am just "a noob" since Sept. 2006....

And Im not understanding your need to go ahead and waste your own time and seagates time about your ridiculous "problem". If you were that anal about performance then you went the wrong brand to begin with, like someone else already suggested. You could have just worked the hours you spent "fixing" things at a job and bought yourself something that would have given you a larger improvement than 4% in avg str

[Ugly n Grey]

Don't worry about him. He's Canadian.

Glad to see AAM has hit the other variants. I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in a copy if you wouldn't mind posting a copy.

Yep we're all terrible people. Lord help us. As a point, despite my country of origin, that's not really within the context of the forum to say things like that. If you think One Hertz was being a butt saying so in a way that doesn't single him out because he's a dog/bird with brown spots or comes from Canuckistan would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

[jeeka]

Alright guys, let's get back on topic ok. Enough with the bashing, mocking and people getting mad at me because I want the best I can get. I didn't know that it would hurt One_Hertz so much. I am so sorry for wasting internet real estate on my 4&#37; problem. I should have run it by One_Hertz to make sure it's ok to post.

Because here at XtremeSystems Forums, I should have known better than to post something about getting the performance I can out of existing parts. I should have known better than to post without letting One_Hertz know so he can tell me about wasting time.

How dare I waste all of your time trying to get 4% out of my Hard Drives.
It's wrong of me to ask for help, I mean, after all, what if I were trying to OC my machine by 4% more, would that have made it better One_Hertz?

Is extracting the most performance, whether it be 1% or 25%, wrong? Why do you care? It's not your time I am "wasting". Tell the rest of us on the board that they are wasting their time by their 1,2,5,10 FSB clock gains when OC'ing. You're insulting everyone on here with that mentality.

Who are you to tell me that it does not meet YOUR STANDARD of "awesome-ness"?

I don't care where you're from, that's not relevant. I don't care if you were my neighbor. Your arrogance is relevant, though. I wasn't the one who said that. You are too up tight. You are the first one on this forum who has not been civil to me....everyone else has been really really cool. You took a shot at me.

Honestly, if you are not interested in my post, don't reply to it! Move on to insult the next guy who asks for help.

That being said, I hope to help you one day if you ever have an issue, or at least contribute in a civil manner that might lead you to a solution, honestly....or do you have ALL the answers and don't need anyone's help?

Cheers.
With that being said, here is the AAM BETA Firmware!
HERE
It worked for me, but backup your data prior to updating. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

[ziddey]

Thanks for the upload. Interesting! It's the same exact file as the 500gb aam I got from vrzone. People were saying it didn't work for their 320's. Hmm....

[jeeka]

Thanks for the upload. Interesting! It's the same exact file as the 500gb aam I got from vrzone. People were saying it didn't work for their 320's. Hmm....

WAIT!!!!

That was the wrong file! DONT USE IT....I fixed the link so now you can click on it....That previous incorrect link was in fact the one from VRZone that RevHead helped me with....

Linked Fixed in my post above, but here it is again: Here

SORRY FOR THE MIX UP!

GOOD LUCK!

EDIT/UPDATE: TIP - on my P5K Deluxe, I had to set my Harddrives to IDE in the BIOS. The flash.bat program would not detect the drive in AHCI and obviously RAID, as well. Also, as a precaution, on top of backing up what was already on the drive, I disconnected ALL other drives, even the DVD Drives just to be safe. It detects if you have the right version of the drive installed, even if you have an identical drive hooked up as well (in my case, an AAD Drive). It will only look for AAK Drives ending in -308.

This has a burnable .iso as well as a floppy setup. Obviously keep an Optical drive connected to use the burned .iso file, set it to boot from Optical and you are good to go.

Hope that tip helps somebody if you get stuck!

[jeeka]

Well guys? Anyone else try this AAM Firmware? I am interested in your results.
-jeeka.