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

[Ant]

I read about the known issue for Seagate HDDs on http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931 ... My new 500320AS model (17 days old) was on the list. I read that I can fix the problem with the newer firmware. I have SD15 right now. Is this the affected version? If so, then where can I download the latest firmware to fix it before it is too late?

Also, HDD Inspector 2.42, in Windows XP Pro. SP3, is warning me that my new 500 GB HDD's current seek error rate state is at 43% (current=60, best=100, threshold=30, and worst=57). Um, is this related to the issue?

Device S.M.A.R.T. status
    SMART interface                :    SCSI-miniport; Physical Drive
    Monitoring started at            :    1/17/2009 2:45 PM
    Last checked at                :    1/17/2009 9:48 PM
    Death time                :    not defined
#   Attribute                               Value   Thresh           Raw   T.E.C. date     Flags
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1 Raw Read Error Rate                       114      6 233,580,137        -        LC OC PR ER
  3 Spin Up Time                               94      0 0          -       LC OC
  4 Start/Stop Count                          100     20 22          -        OC EC SP
  5 Reallocated Sector Count                  100     36 0          -       LC OC EC SP
  7 Seek Error Rate                            60     30 8,592,191,466          -        LC OC PR ER
  9 Power-On Hours                            100      0 415          -        OC EC SP
 10 Spin Retry Count                          100     97 0          -       LC OC EC
 12 Device Power Cycle Count                  100     20 22          -        OC EC SP
184 (Unknown Attribute)_184                   100     99               0          -        OC EC SP
187 (Unknown Attribute)_187                   100      0               0          -        OC EC SP
188 (Unknown Attribute)_188                   100      0               0          -        OC EC SP
189 (Unknown Attribute)_189                   100      0               0          -        OC ER EC SP
190 Temperature:                               68     45     555,024,416          -        OC SP
194 Temperature:                               32      0  81,604,378,656          -        OC SP
195 Hardware ECC Covered                       41      0     233,580,137          -        OC ER EC
197 Current Pending Sector Count              100      0               0          -        OC EC
198 Offline Scan Uncorrectable Count          100      0               0          -        EC
199 UltraDMA CRC Error Rate                   200      0               0          -        OC PR ER EC SP
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LC-life critical  OC-online collection  PR-performance related
ER-error rate  EC-event count  SP-self preserving

Thank you in advance.  

[Bender1001]

Having the same issue but mine is at 47% seek error rate (did I dream last night that I responded to this thread or did my posts get deleted?).

[Wh1tey]

Well I would think the one that came on the cd with your drive would be the correct firmware but who knows now with the way seagate has been doing things. Just return the junk and get a real drive that will fix all your problems.

[Ant]

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Wh1tey wrote:
Well I would think the one that came on the cd with your drive would be the correct firmware but who knows now with the way seagate has been doing things. Just return the junk and get a real drive that will fix all your problems.

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What non-Seagate drive brand and model do you recommend then? Ugh.