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

[KLA1973]

Wanted to add another success story with the new firmware for both of my ST3500320AS drives that were locked out by the previous bad firmware. All data is intact and my RAID configuration was unbroken. There also seems to be some tweaking of the firmware since I have noticed more responsiveness during I/O operations within Windows.

As far as users who did not upgrade and are wondering if they should apply the new firmware to drives that are listed as "affected" but are still working OK: That's a judgement call. The bug the SD1A firmware was designed to fix, from what unofficial information I have read, occurs in a minority of the drives models affected. ANY firmware flash can be risky so if you do choose to update make sure all critical data is backed up to a different media and ONLY have one drive hooked up to a controller when you run the flash utility. Check that drive with Seatools for DOS to make sure all went well before flashing any more drives. 

[loco_stevie]

Seems like the firmware has worked on my ending -501 1TB 7200.11, however, I wonder if people checked, I think the firmware basically just kills you cache, because after the firmware update under HDtune and SisSandra, they all say there is 0MB cache. When my other non-defective seagate drives are reporting the correct cache size. Can someone check on this?

[KLA1973]

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loco_stevie wrote:
Seems like the firmware has worked on my ending -501 1TB 7200.11, however, I wonder if people checked, I think the firmware basically just kills you cache, because after the firmware update under HDtune and SisSandra, they all say there is 0MB cache. When my other non-defective seagate drives are reporting the correct cache size. Can someone check on this?

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I was wondering if anyone with a ST3500320AS has seen the cache problem? I'm running RAID on an Intel ICH9R so all the tools I've tried can't access the drive data behind the RAID controller. The Intel Matrix tool does report cache enabled, but not the amount. I tried booting into BartPE with HDTune (ICH9R set to IDE mode) and it reports "Cache: n/a." I'm not sure if it's reading properly in BartPE or not.

Could someone with the 500GB 7200.11 running non-RAID use HDTune or Sandra to check their cache size reading and report in? Thanks.

[swills]

My ST3500320AS had SD15 and was working fine, but I've read about issues, so I updated to the firmware that was released today, SD1A. I didn't disable the RAID or AHCI, but they drives flashed fine, FWIW. But, I notice the drives are a lot louder now. Has anyone else noticed this? Is this normal? Is there anything that can be done about it? I preferred them quieter.

Thanks 

[delirious]

I have tried to upgrade the firmware.  I put the iSO file on two different cds and when I boot with it, it stops at this message.  Please note that I have a SATA bluray/dvd combo, So I don't know if this makes a difference when booting from that device

Message is:

Turbodisk 2.1 - Drive C: unformatted

Bad or missing command interpriter: Command.com /p /e :256

Enter the full shell command line

It doesn't go into any other instructions.  I have only one drive installed, it's the ST1000340AS which is formatted and performing normal in vista.

Thanks.

Message Edited by delirious on 01-22-2009 07:59 PM

Message Edited by delirious on 01-22-2009 08:00 PM

[Ukininam]

Everest Ultimate Edition reports my newly updated SD1A ST3500320AS have 32MB buffer, so no problems there.

Copying or installing from or to the hard disk is I noticed much faster now than w/ SD15 firmware before.  

[m0rais]

Some people and myself are getting this:

This is dmesg log on Linux (seems normal now)

[   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

[phenix1819]

@ UKI:

Are you really sure that you are getting better performance?? I did the update (third one) from the original sd15. But still the cache is showing up as 0!!!

Apparently they fixed the updated firmware but the issue is still there. I tried to check the cache thing, even in windows device manager i can not turn on write caching!

I am never going to buy seagate again, this is outrageous. Bad luck for seagate, I work for Best Buy and you just lot a ton of customers...

[R]

KLA973   Here is hdtune on my ST3500320AS - Note I have not flashed yet - and I also have no cache?   I came to this site because my system seems to go to sleep at times and someone told me that  Seagate was having that problem with the type of drive I'm using.   I didn't expect this situation... not sure if I should update or not.  And not sure if my drive has failed since no cache?

Here is what hdtune Info shows:

Firmware version:   SD15

Serial number:   9QM9KSGL

Capacity:        465.8GB (500.1GB)

Buffer:                       n/a

Standard:    ATA/ATAPI-0-SATA I

Supported:  UDMA Mode 6(Ultra ATA/133)

Active:     UDMA Mode 5(Ultra ATA/100)

Thoughts anyone?

Message Edited by R on 01-22-2009 09:05 PM

[Ukininam]

 PHENIX1819 here's mine so i'm sure about it