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

[butz]

Hi there, last week I bought my first Sata Drive....it had been working a few days, but yesterday it suddenly 'crashed'.....so actually what happend is that my computer didn't react anymore and I shut it down. While trying to restart the computer it wouldn't boot with the sata drive connected. Without everything works fine.
I really don't know what to do, the problem is that I can't even get into the BIOS.

So here's some information of my computer:
Microsoft XP SP2
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
MSI k8n Neo4
1,5 gb ddr sdram
550W bequiet

Help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance (I know that there are some threads with problems similiar to mine around here, but none of them really gives a solution)

[gman]

Hi Butz

I see that nobody has responded yet- I do not have the exact drive or the exact motherboard but I have seen the exact problem numerous times. 

I am still researching this but this much I know.  Your motherboard has an Nvidia nForce4 chipset and when paired with specific Seagate SATA drives you will see data missing, data corruption, numerous disk errors in the Event Viewer and finally a non-bootable system.  We have built about 50 systems with a motherboard using an nForce4 chipset and a Seagate ST3160815AS (160GB) drive and have spent untold (un-billable) hours doing reinstalls and data recovery (and damage control with our clients).  I saw a link on an nVidia page concerning one of their own nForce4 motherboards and they offer a BIOS update for the nVidia motherboard that they claim will fix the issue.  NVidia claims that a firmware update may be in order on the hard drive (for systems that the issue was not addressed with a BIOS update) but from what I read here on Seagate's page a firmware update does not seem likely at this time. 

We called Seagate and were on the phone for over an hour but were not getting anywhere.  When I told the rep that my boss wanted to speak with her we were mysteriuosly disconnected...  I am still holding out hope that this can be resolved before it snowballs and kills our business but at this point I have not found a viable solution.  In a couple cases we have actually had to install a new (Western Digital) hard drive and reload the OS from the ground up and restore data for customers and then the systems appear to be fine and actually operate faster. 

I do not mean to defame Seagate but we have been asking for help and have not gotten any yet.  The WD drives we have used do not seem to have this issue at all.  I will post a new message to this forum with basically the same info as I have to hope somebody else already has a solution but I will name it according to generate the interest it needs.  Good luck Butz, if we get it figured out we will post a solution here.

Gman

[AlanM]

Plz post the firmware levels of the drives in your posts and that might help.
You can see them on the drive label or use Seatools to find them.


Message Edited by AlanM on 02-15-2008 08:41 AM

[gman]

Hi Alan

Of the 6 ST3160815AS drives in question that I have here at my office I have the following firmware-

1 unit has:       3.AAC

5 units have:   3.AAD

Please advise

Thanks

Gman

[Tower]

we have the same problem with a ST3160815AS tested with two Systems:
MSI K9N Neo V2 with Nvidia Nforce520 chipset and
Shuttle XPC SK22G2V2 with VIA K8M890CE chipset
on both system the Installation of Windows XP SP2 is running perfect but after working there are errors with loss of data, until after some time the system is not booting with data corruption on the harddisk. The SEATOOLS found no errors on the harddisk. After new installation of windows the same again: the installation is ok and after working first data corruption than later no booting because of data corruption.

We have firmware 3.AAD

Please advise what we can do.

Thanks
Frank-Michael from Germany

[AlanM]

I think firmware updates are available for these drives from AAD to something higher (but don't quote me on that).
Gman, getting that one drive from AAC to AAD, or getting all the drives to the same level (if there's one higher than AAD) would probably help.
But you have to contact Customer Service directly whether by phone, email, or chat for that.

Good luck!

[accipio]

Hi.
I've the same problem with a pair of 250Gb 7200.10 , ST3250410AS, mounted in a Shuttle SN25P with Nforce4.

I've read in Shuttle's support page that they've reports with this kind of problem in a  Nforce+Seagate mobos. And say the problem is firmware 3.AAD and earlier ( http://eu.shuttle.com/)

I've asked Seagate for a frimware update and I'm waiting for a response.
as soon I've, i'll write here.

Regards

2x Seagate 7200.10 ST3250410AS
Frim. 3.AAC
Shuttle SN25P
WXP-SP2

[gman]

Hi accipio

I hadn't checked the forums for a while but was happy to see your message.  After my most recent call I was assured I would be contacted as soon as firmware updates became available.

I noted that you had not posted back so I wondered if you actually did get the new firmware?  I am on hold while a Seagate technician checks to see if 3.AAE is in fact available.  In the interim we have spent thousands of dollars on WD drives to replace the sick Seagate drives, not to mention countless hours doing re-installs and data recovery.  If this firmware update IS a reality it will be bittersweet.  Good that we finally have a fix but bad in the respect that we contacted Seagate last year in November concerning this issue and have gotten so little support.  It is a shame IMO when a micro sized company like ours has to point out an issue to a multimillion (billion $) company and we end up taking massive losses just for trusting in their products.  The tech has returned to tell me that no such firmware has been released so I mentioned the Shuttle page you posted and now (once again) I get to talk to level 2 support.

(listening to muzac)

OK well level 2 support tech Dustin confirms that no firmware update is available for our 160GB Seagates and no newer model is slated in a 160... now we are discussing possibility of exchanging this pile of pulled drives for another model... I have seen the problem with 160's, 250's and 320's so how are we going to determine a good swap?  Dustin is talking to a product engineer now... will post more later but it is refreshing to feel like we are going in a better direction. 

Stay tuned

[gman]

Sorry for the long silence.  As I posted last time we found a support tech named Dustin who genuinely seemed interested to help- I spoke with several prior who were just happy to get me off the line and had one hang up even though I was being very cordial. 

We returned 13 drives to Seagate, all were 160Gb model ST3160815AS with various Firmware.  We got 13 replacement drives that were 250Gb in size.  It was nice to gain size but at the same time we had hoped for new drives instead of "Certified Repaired".  I paid full price for the drives when I bought them originally and I paid full price for the WD drives I have replaced the failing Seagates with that were in my clients' computers.  Basically we have used these replacement drives IN HOUSE for various tasks including a RAID 5 setup for a new server (since I won't sell a "certified Repaired" drive to a customer).  Two days later the array needed rebuilt because one of the 5 drives was toast already.  Anyways the replacement drives are the same thin design as the 160's we sent back.  Dustin explained that the design was their "NightHawk" series although the labels all say Barracuda.  I was told that the replacements would be standard height and that they did not exhibit the problem I had been experiencing but the replacements were the thin style and do very much still have similar issues. 

In the mean time I had my 750Gb Seagate fail in my personal machine but was able to get it copied over to a 500Gb WD in time.  Another in-house system began to blue-screen on it's 500Gb Seagate and you will never guess what the solution was?  Yep it was copied over to a WD drive.  My system is an Intel Quad Core and I had not experienced the drive failure on anything but an NForce Chipset before.  The other in-house system I mentioned has an NForce chipset.

I had a client bring a system in today with an Asus Crosshair board and a dead data drive- about 200Gb worth of ACAD drawings gone with a crapped out 500Gb Seagate.  I cannot get any of three systems to even see it, whether connected with a SATA cable or with an external USB interface.  Nothing.  It spins fine but it is not detected.  I don't want to hate Seagate but I sure do want to get to the bottom of this.  We need some help to discover why this is happening. The Drive that failed and was brought in today was a model ST3500320AS, Firmware SD15.  It is a full height drive...

Anybody have any good news to share?

[gman]

Attempted to follow up with Seagate Tech "Dustin" but found that support issues may only be re-visited for 20 days.  Will have to start over with a new Ticket.  I noted on the nVidia Forum that a fix is available through some motherboard manufacturer's via a BIOS upgrade.  They state that if a BIOS upgrade is not available that a firmware upgrade from the HDD manufacturer is another viable fix but none of the units we have had issues with have a firmware update released yet.  Check here

http://www.nvidia.com/object/680i_hotfix.html

*************************************************************************

This is like computer cancer and we're still fighting for a cure