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

[mechad]

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Emmerson wrote:
mechad, had you updated the firmware? What´s your model and original fw? When you bought the hd? You had any problem with bios, as detecting 0 gb or not detecting? In windows, the drive do not mounts?

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Emmerson, i purchased an ST3750330AS from Newegg in mid-january which came with firmware SD15. The drive worked for about 10 days and then failed suddenly. After that BIOS has had somewhat intermittant sucess in recognizing the drives as follows:

   - cold power cycle: the ST3750330AS is not recognized at all, and it also prevents my PATA maxtor drive from being recognized in BIOS at all as well

    - reboot #1: the ST3750330AS and other drives are all recognized, but the computer takes about a minute to complete POST

    - reboot #2: all drives detected quickly, post completed in 5-10 seconds.

Vista Bootup:

Windows vista does not mount the ST3750300AS drive, the event logger shows the following message about 10 times in a row:The device, \Device\Harddisk1\DR1, has a bad block. After booting into Vista, if i got to the device manager and manually "scan for hardware changes" the ST3750330AS is immediately found and mounted. The computer is still completely responsive, but any action involving scanning the hard drive freezes indefinately (open my computer, try to navigate to e:\, Open Disc Managment, etc.).

Linux:

I'm terrible with linux, i had a friend help me here so pardon my explanation. We booted into Gentoo and were able to mount the drive immediately. The entire file structure is in tact and everything appears to be there, however we can't copy any of the files as it sequentially marches through the blocks being accessed as "bad sectors in block 100001, 100002, 100003, 100004, etc."

SD1A upgrade:

After upgrading to the SD1A firmware, the only difference I have is that now on cold power up the maxtor drive is always detected in BIOS. Also the HDD light is pegged MUCH less often now.

Message Edited by mechad on 02-11-2009 06:24 AM

[amanisea]

I think SD1A is less of a problem in SATA AHCI mode.

I updated the firmware on my 'affected' 500 GB ST3500320AS from SD15 to SD1A.

After a few boots it just went missing (the SATA mode was IDE).

I changed the SATA port (for putting in another drive) and SATA mode to AHCI (with raid). But I am not using raid.

So far I am having no problems. 

Update: That was. It goes missing from bios often!

Message Edited by amanisea on 02-12-2009 07:19 AM

[GenFailure]

AlanM,

You write "... there are ~30 users reporting these issues here on the forum". Let me make sure I have been counted.

I own only one 7200.11 drive. Bought it last August, used it sporadically, and it went south last month after updating the firmware.

It is an ST31000340AS and is possibly only a hardware issue. I suppose all issues here are possibly only hardware, so every post here may be off topic.

My experience is that 100% of my extremely limited sample of 7200.11 drives have failed.

Although I can replace my drive at no cost with a new one of the same model, I can also write my important data out on air and running water.

GenFailure

[Emmerson]

I purchased an ST350032015 in 04/28/2008, with firmware SD15.

It was working as my system unit until a computer reset, in 01/18/2009, about 2am. The HD has 5 partitions (a different SO in each).

I was using Vista Ultimate 64 in the moment of the crash.

The ST350032015 was working well before the BIOS stopped to recognize it, but in the last months the computer sometime hangs for 2, 3 seconds. I thought this was problem of the SO.

My motherboard is a Maximus Formula and, in the moment of the crash, I was using the BIOS version 1201. After the BIOS stopped to find the ST350032015, I upgraded to the last version, 1302, but the problem continued. Later I will try to use older BIOS versions to solve the problem.

When the ST350032015 is attached, the computer do not recognize it and after a little hang, boots normally with others HD working well. I have only tested with cold power cycle.

My machine:
Asus Maximus Formula Intel X38
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66MHz@3.6MHz
4 x Ocz DDR2 800 PC6400 Kit Dual Channel 2GB
Creative Sound Blaster X-fi XtremeGamer FATAL1TY 64Mb X-RAM
Antec 850W Modular - TPQ-850
The computer has other 5 satas and 2 ides HDs, all of SEAGATE (1 tb and 500 gb)

Just a few hours before the crash, I had upgraded the video cards from 2 x ATI Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 X2 to 2 x ATI Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2, with CrossFire.

[donidonidoni]

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donidonidoni wrote:

I finally got an email from Seagate support -- thanks Alan for escalating my ticket. They say they will be calling me to explain why it does not seem to be a firmware issue. I'll post back with any useful information.

So if it really isn't a firmware issue afterall... I wonder if some commonly-reported symptoms are not of widespread firmware problems, but in fact widespread hardware problems (is that better or worse?) that may be exacerbated by firmware updates. So perhaps we are seeing a mix of firmware and hardware quality control problems. Niether case is a happy one, but I'll post back with whatever I find.

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Got a call back from Seagate. Some useful info:

(1) The mysterious SD3B firmware is only for drives with SD3x series firmware, it is not an upgrade over SD1B and will not flash on drives with SD1x firmware. It is functionally the same as SD1B, but released for SD35 drives that would not flash to SD1B. So no need to keep looking for SD3B as a magical fix.

(2) Seagate maintains my symptoms are of a hardware failure, not firmware. As I hypothesized above, Seagate believes the application of the firmware may have made the problems worse simply because it was applied to an already-failing drive. I will therefore be RMAing my drive, and Seagate has graciously offered to run the replacement through some extra tests before sending it out. 

Not that Seagate has admitted to anything, but extrapolating from my phone conversation and from all these reports of similar symptoms, it does indeed sound like perhaps we are seeing not simply a rash of firmware problems, but both firmware problems and hardware problems at once, muddying things quite a bit. And that Seagate still has to answer for all these hardware problems, the most alarming part being that people are reporting receiving back faulty drives as well. Here's hoping my replacement is a good one.

Message Edited by donidonidoni on 02-11-2009 10:30 AM

[nomoreSg]

both firmware problems and hardware problems at once

Hi, thats the point - Seagate released defect product both with wrong mechanics and wrong programs on it. Then 100% customers lost their data. Who does not care about data, they are getting other HDD, replacements from Seagate.

But many of us care for the data - and Seagate promised to recover the data! When Seagate finally asks all of us to send the HDD and gives us the data back????

[Freaked]

I have one of the infamous HDs named ST31000340AS with a SD15 firmware (serialnumber 9Qxxxxx)

I hasn't bricked yet..... but I expect it to soon. What can I do? I'm really freaked out! What frimware do I need? Should I update the firmware now or wait? Can I trust Seagate my 1 TB HD won't brick after it is uppdated?

[nomoreSg]

As I visited Seagate, they told me all 7200.11 HDDs need firmware update.

Now the question is what firmware, as there are bunch of them, and Seagate releases new ones every week.

I do not put my fingers into it, I let to do that Seagate. They have to update or whatever, for my trouble free usage of HDD.

[stapler2]

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donidonidoni wrote:

(1) The mysterious SD3B firmware is only for drives with SD3x series firmware, it is not an upgrade over SD1B and will not flash on drives with SD1x firmware. It is functionally the same as SD1B, but released for SD35 drives that would not flash to SD1B. So no need to keep looking for SD3B as a magical fix.

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Hey, good to hear they are actually acknowledging the existence of SD3B. Any information on how to obtain it though?

[Karlston]

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Freaked wrote:
I have one of the infamous HDs named ST31000340AS with a SD15 firmware (serialnumber 9Qxxxxx)

I hasn't bricked yet..... but I expect it to soon. What can I do? I'm really freaked out! What frimware do I need? Should I update the firmware now or wait? Can I trust Seagate my 1 TB HD won't brick after it is uppdated?

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You should be backing up anything that you can't afford to lose. That's just common sense advice. An external drive is ideal for backups.

Assuming your drive is a boot (system) drive, personally I would then get a non-Seagate brand drive minimum size 1TB and image your existing one onto it, then swap the two to make the new drive your system drive and the Seagate one a data drive. You could then try and update the firmware, as specified in this sticky...

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=8968

Also maintain a backup strategy, especially for the Seagate one.

Then if/when the Seagate one turns to kiln-dried extruded clay, RMA it, and sell the replacement Seagate one.

One last thing, take the flaky Seagate serial checker's advice of "unaffected" with an enormous grain of salt. There's way too many examples posted of "unaffected" drives failing with exactly the same symptoms as "affected" drives.