Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[AndreyCo]

I have a ST31000333AS with SD35 firmware. Part number 9FZ136-336

I get the "ERROR OPENING FILE" message when I try to use the firmware flash provided in (seagate's most popular) KB article.

Using ICHR6 Chipset in Gateway computer.

Any ideas or information as to why I'm getting this error? 

[P5WDG2-WSPRO]

well not being funny about this but "so was I".

If you are getting errors with your disks and you can't back it up properly then you should consider doing all that you can to protect your data. In 20 years of IT work i have never ever experienced this sort of problem.

Paranoia about losing your data is not paranoia its genuine concern. THough we all lull ourselves into the false assumption that electronics will always be there. They Will Not. That is why back up and restore is important. Thats why I am trying to get to a RAID 5 best of both RAID 0 plus RAID 10 or better 0+1 database people.

I am considering having got used to 2 disk raid 0 to put all the good stuff on raid 10 on a ICH7R  controller so I have at least 1 disk fail help and the first "half" speed of the disk and the rest either RAID 5 or RAID 0 if one fails write on RAID 5 is disaterous like 5MB/s max. on raid 10 or 0+1 it is still 200MB/s given these disks in 4 disk raid system the second half of the disk raid 0 would be 210 max at the end but 300 plus at after 72% of the disk so I'd have to loose this but good for DVD ripping compression etc prepared to loose it. If raid 5 fails or you get a shut down unexpectedly via turn off it has to rebuild and that takes days on an ICHXR the CPU has to do the work. 

the advantage to DVD ripping is one disk to another is way faster serial read serial write. on the same array / disk the heads have to move so much you lose the advantage of 400MB/s because its stop start but you must protect data so same place on ICH RAID 0 call it prepared to lose same area might not be so bad and raid 10 or better 0+1 is where you keep the good stuff

[P5WDG2-WSPRO]

what are you guys thats CAP_ included using to burn the ISO image of this file

[P5WDG2-WSPRO]

just to let you guys know I have an EloneX 286 12MHz 1987 with a 20MB HDD that still works with DOS 3.3 and GEM that machine doesn't get turned on very often but it can still play games ofthe era in VGA and the disk has no problems at all but it sounds like a tractionengine when it works reassuring though

 If you have had the email then upgrade the firmware. Remember though to make sure you have the latest MOBO BIOS and your data is safe.

Make sure you download the correct ISO image for your drive they are different.

If you do not have any problems no lock ups no freezing no SMART reporting erros etc leave it alone.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Still Seagate recommends doing it if they send you the mail do it.

If you have a second machine that might be able to flash and yours will not put it in the second machine and do it.

[P5WDG2-WSPRO]

your disk image burn is no good use the free stuff listed as to get a iso burn to cd has to be DOS compliant that's why its wrong the download etc can't be right

[cap_]

I'm sure you think I'm a totally newbie (just see your last posts) and I'm sorry to disappointed you but huh I know how to burn something.

[P5WDG2-WSPRO]

cap_ i did ask and I will state that I meant no disrespect of your knowledge if I am to give help without knowing you I must assume nothing.

burning a bootable disk is not trivial depending on the way its done for all I know there are errors on the bootable iso image that you have produced not all software to burn a disk allows the reading of file names properly dos does 8.3 and that has to be taken into account .

Despite me not wishing to be condescending I must ask how and what software did you burn it with are you using dos compatible ISO burn. if you do not want my feed back or help then I can respect that we are all here to help each other on this forum and any obvious help I can give may sometimes be overlooked even by the most qualified of engineers. I know I've been grateful many times in the past for the "obvious" that I have assumed or not been told by people with information that have not provided it when it was needed.

Such as is it turned on; i kid you not. all the lights in the building are off why does my machine not power up!!

All computer problems come down to this. Is it turned on and is it plugged in. (to the correct port) there are no other considerations to IT.  0 1 01 0001    etc

They all come back to it.

So have you check it and if you are sure contact seagate as I am sure they will provide support eventually.

[mm30]

I've upgraded the firmware of my ST31000333AS from SD15 to SD1B and now it no longer spins up in one external enclosure.

It still spins up in a different enclosure (but that one doesn't have a fan and isn't as reliable as the one which in which the ST31000333AS no longer spins up). A Samsung drive, however, works fine in the external enclosure in which the ST31000333AS no longer spins up.

A table might be clearer than my broken English:

                               FANTEC     EverTech   internal
Seagate ST31000333AS SD15      works      works      works
Seagate ST31000333AS SD1B      *DEAD*     works      works
Samsung                        works      works      works

Who's to blame? The enclosure or the drive or the firmware?

[bkraptor]

So do we still update ST3640323AS with SD13 or not?

PS: I was going to buy a 7200.12 when they showed up, but now I don't think I'll do that any more. Thanks Seagate!

[gimpel]

I also have a

* ST31000333AS

* SD35

* P/N 9FZ136-568

I also get the "firmware file not found" error, but I tried only once.

The Image is burned using Nero LINUX, as described in the knowledge base article.

So, reading around the Tech news pages, Seagate seems in trouble in every regard: Leadership, Support Quality and QA level for its hardware. They even lowered the warranty to 3 years on 3rd of January. Nice.

This is the first Seagate drive I ever bought for personal use, and for sure it was the last one. I really kept cool on this potential issue, simply waiting for a reply, which we got today, and now suddenly out of the wild the part number matters?

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AlanM's sig reads:
Give a hoot. Backup your data on a different storage media.

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Make that a different storage vendor.

Going to get a mix of Hitachi and Samsung disks, and that Seagate thing here will end up as an untrustworthy array spare.

Or I might just put it in an old box and powercycle the heck out of it until it dies and return it.