IzzyDeadyet wrote:I thought I got a good deal as well ...foolish me. When I calculate the cost of the dead 1TB spread over the other drives the special price wasn't that special. The dead drive contains sensitive information so no way it's getting shipped back to Seagate. Luckily I backup my really important info on 4 drives. I'll just have to eat the cost of this 1TB.
I updated 7 other drives today with the new firmware and it went smoothly but I still have zero confidence in those drives right now. The new firmware doesn't mean it won't crash and burn.
Here's my new plan, backup my Seagate to Maxtor, then backup the Maxtor to Hitachi, then backup the Hitachi to a Samsung and then, here's the failsafe part, get a couple hundred thousand sheets of paper, ten thousand pens and a hex editor ... well you get it ...
What I really need to find is a drive FULLY made in Japan.
The best drive i ever owned (and still works) 120GB WD, i don't know how many times i dropped it and stay in the trunk of my car one whole winter, i found it by accident and wouldn't you know still works today. I used it to back up all the work data and bring it home, i was to cheap to buy enclosure so just keep plugging in into both computers, just forgot it there.-- i found it spring time and felt sorry for it and bought usb enclosure-- i used it to back part of the information from teh crappy Seagate drives. Made in Malaysia that drive.
Once i'm done backing up all the data into the new WD's i'll attempt to reflash the drives, but they won't be used to backup anything important anymore.
womanmarine wrote:Okay, I thought I knew how to do this. When the CD opens up, I read the directions. What exactly do I type at the command arrow to get flash.bat to run?
Also, when, exactly do I turn it off and on again?
Old women shouldn't have to do this, Seagate!!
Also, I have two seagate drives, I don't know which one to unhook so it only shows the one I need to update. Will it really ruin the other drive if I leave it attached?
Frustrated housewife here.
I will certainly appreciate any help anyone can give me. I have what I hope are good backups of both drives.
Thanks in advance!!
Ruth
Hi Ruth. I also have two Seagate HDDs (320 GB from two years ago and the 500 GB that needed the firmware). I did not disconnect any of the drives. I *DID* make a backup just in case since I am risking an upgrade that could fail. 
I believe Seagate recommended disconnections to be safe.
As for being stuck in CD boot, do you know what HDD models you have? Figure out which one it is and then upgrade.
And yes, the CD boot interface isn't friendly but it is the safest way to upgrade. Also, it is recommended for those who knows computers. Maybe you can find a computer person/friend to help you? Even as a computer expert, I got a bit worried about upgrading my firmware. At least you have backups (hopefully workable -- but you should also back up your personal datas to somewhere else like your e-mails, documents, or whatever that can't be recovered; I have two different backups -- full of everything and personal datas) in case something go wrong (can't trust computers).
tonytoronto wrote:
IzzyDeadyet wrote:I thought I got a good deal as well ...foolish me. When I calculate the cost of the dead 1TB spread over the other drives the special price wasn't that special. The dead drive contains sensitive information so no way it's getting shipped back to Seagate. Luckily I backup my really important info on 4 drives. I'll just have to eat the cost of this 1TB.
I updated 7 other drives today with the new firmware and it went smoothly but I still have zero confidence in those drives right now. The new firmware doesn't mean it won't crash and burn.
Here's my new plan, backup my Seagate to Maxtor, then backup the Maxtor to Hitachi, then backup the Hitachi to a Samsung and then, here's the failsafe part, get a couple hundred thousand sheets of paper, ten thousand pens and a hex editor ... well you get it ...
What I really need to find is a drive FULLY made in Japan.
Once i'm done backing up all the data into the new WD's i'll attempt to reflash the drives, but they won't be used to backup anything important anymore.
I have too a WD 120gb made in malasya, is 4 years old... now i buy a maxtor diamondmax 22 because i cant find a WD now (no stock in my city) but after this news... i will continue using my WD to store my important data.
I successfully updated my ST3500320AS to SD1A
From reading all the comments I would like to make my own.
Everyone should go to the KB article Firmware Recommendations for Barricuda….. and read it CAREFULLY and follow the steps.This is the article that AlanM mentions at the top of this thread.
Step 1 deals with downloading and running DriveDetect
Step 2 runs a utility that requires you to enter your Model Number. When I did, it replied:
The model number entered is on the list of potentially affected drives. We recommend you validate the serial number to see if this drive is affected
So far so good, my drive might be affected.
Step 3 runs a utility that validates the Serial Number. When I did, it replied:
Drive is affected. Proceed with Step 4
Step 4 downloads the ISO image of the firmware update, read and select carefully.
When I created my bootable CD-ROM, looking at it with Windows Explorer only showed two file: DriveDetect and the README file. However, the rest of the stuff is there:
I booted my PC with the CD-ROM and it booted in FreeDOS and pulled up the README file.
After reading it and then hitting ESC, I got a menu with several choices:
Most important, SCAN your disk first to see if it thinks your drive is there. That is the S selection.
Once you confirm your disk is there and visible select the correct choice from the list of Drive Model Numbers. In my case there were three;
ST3500320AS
ST3500620AS
ST3500820AS
Not sure if it really matters which one you select, but since there are choices, choose carefully. In my case the correct choice was “A” (the 320AS).
After about 30 seconds the drive light quit flashing and I got a message about things completing and to Cycle Power. It also said to press ESC to exit. I pressed ESC and the PC powered off. You can test this part by just booting the disk as above and pressing ESC.
I powered back up and everything was happy.
It shows 32 MB of Cache and Firmware is SD1A
I saw on this forum several discussions about part numbers ending in -303, -300, etc. Not sure if that is relevant. Mine ends with -303.
To reiterate, the key thing is to carefully read and follow the directions and only apply this fix if all the utilities indicate that you have an affected drive.
