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

[adamish]

@Searing

My case has also been silently moved to "Agent Solved (Closed)", despite not providing a solution. Absolute ****ing ****ers.

I've contacted theregister.com and a couple of other tech-news sites to try and get their interest again so we can pile on the pressure

I'm so angry. 

[adam d]

After reading all the arguments and different opinions on here, I'm thoroughly confused.

Just want to ask a simple question. I have an ST31000333AS, firmware SD15. I've been using it for about a month and it works for the moment.

Should I:

a) update the firmware now, to avoid any future issues? If so, which firmware?

b) leave the drive unplugged and unused until a proper solution is found?

The data on this drive is very important to me, I used it to archive a load of data from all my old hard drives and some of it is sentimental. I'd hate to lose it. But I can't afford to buy another 1TB drive. Any help would be most appreciated.

[ohno]

Seems like I lost all data on one of my two 1TB Seagte hard discs. I have to read through this forum to find out how to get my data back.

As I am using the 1TB hard disc as external drives with my laptop I see no way todo a firmware upgrade. My bios does not show the external drive. How to do a firmware upgrade with external drives?

Message Edited by ohno on 02-19-2009 06:14 AM

[okayman01]

Hi adam d,

I am in the same situation as you are. Waiting for a solution, worrying whether the drive will sudden went out of sight from the BIOS.

If you can't afford to buy a new drive, and can't afford to lose any precious data, I suggest to leave the drive idle. Put it aside as I do. This is dumb (as we buy the drive and of course wanted to utilize it) but I'm sure in case your drive disappear from BIOS suddenly, you will be more frustrated than can't use it now.

I suggest you wait until Seagate announce it that the problem is eventually fixed (reliably) or other users here reported very firmly that updating to which version of firmware is stable (you know, it's hard to tell the version as Seagate has been releasing different version at different time, but with the SAME version number! What are they thinking?)

Try to use other computers (such as office ones or your friends) and try to make backup of new files to a USB stick (make sure the computer you work on is clean, free of virus). Until the whole mess is proved to have been fixed, then you update the firmware and update all new files from USB to the drive (or never, who knows what problem there actually are, and Seagate cannot reassure their customer of anything about the issues being resolved).

It's dumb, but I guess your data (and everyone of us here, and customers around the world) is more precious than money.

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

Felix

[mawi]

Hello Alan,

I am curious about what you wrote in a reply.

---

AlanM wrote:

I doubt the engineers are finished looking into these issues, but my guess is it's on the downswing.  A very small % of these drives actually have the firmware problem, no matter what others may speculate about.  Untrue statements do not become true through mere repetition.

You asked for official statements, and those are the official statements.  I am unsure to what other things you refer.  Other drive failures reported on the board that are unrelated to the symptoms of the firmware problem are due to other normal issues.  Drives sometimes have mechanical or electrical failure, even brand-new ones, unfortunately, and that is true for every manufacturer in the world.  There are tens of millions of these drives in the marketplace at this very moment.  

---

Interesting, you claim that the problems are "normal" - in your words. There are issues that are categorized as "firmware issues", but what these problems actually are seems to be an unanswered question, one indeed asked by the post above. Nevertheless, apart from this imprecisely defined set of problems, whatever is left of the problems are "normal".

During my career (15+ yrs in IT) I cannot say that it has been common that drives fail within the first week. And I have never seen such a large portion of people having these issues. Regardless of this categorizing ("firmware issues" or not), can you cite any cases that would substantiate your claim that the volume of problems we are seeing during this time are "normal"? That this happens for many - if not most - drives?

In other words, could you say "last year we had the same problems and people all over experienced the, it got the same exposure due to the volume - this is just as it always is. Google for Seagate/WD/... drive X and you'll see the same coverage. And it was the same for drive T two years before that, and so on... This is normal, happens all the time."

I would actually be very interested to learn of all of the drives/times, that duplicate the volume and other characteristics of the problem situation we are seeing now, in such a way that it could be deemed "normal".

(The reason for my interest is that I am very interested in product development quality and process, two areas that fascinate me in my line of work)

Best regards,

/marcus

[Bloodknight41]

Wow ...here is what I currently see from this immense thread:

I post a question and no one answer me totally ignored.... I post back (2 page after) same question.... still ignored

Then I read the the last 20 pages... all I see is some peoples ranting together about seagate, That they are bad bleh bleh blah blah

I also see multiple questions post (like mine) with no one answering them...

So as no one gave me tips I took some initiative so I'm writting it here for some people that do read post :

I've got 5 x 1TB drive from seagate

I've updated 3 affected, everything went perfect and they work flawlessly ! (they were affected (as by their serial checker))

After a month...

I had problem with 2 HDDS, (slow read) after inserting the serial, it was saying "update not required"

I backed the data of 1 drive, then I updated them (as no one told me not to (that was my question))...

And they work flawlessly too ! and they read/write at 100mb/sec now (instead of 20mbs/sec)

so I upgraded the firmware of my 5 1TB drive (2 batch) and they all work perfectly fine after the update.

THANKS seagate for the firmware ! 

As for some going WD instead ect ect

I've bought a 7200.12 for my gaming computer. I've run ATTO on some WD, on 7200.11, and on this 7200.12

the 7200.12 is a marvelous drive, excellent in every way, really stable, read/write about the same on everything.

The number are constant and the graph look really good.

they read/write at ~120mb/sec

I will post it when I come home.

So my conclusion is : Give them some credit, They did work hard to fix the problem and they did.

I've seen multiple corporation just "ignoring" their error completly like they don't exist.

And other that never fix problem, they just put the item as "outdated" and then "not supported anymore".

 

On a side note,

@Sarha : If when you run the seagate tools (drive checker) do it say firmware SD1A ? it it does  then it's done, and the firmware doesn't apply to you anymore. I mean, the affected firmware is SD15" and you don't have this firmware anymore.

The serial number of the drive will always stay the same, That's the reason you still see "affected" when you run the tools. It would be affected if you would still had the SD15 firmware

@Adam_D

I've upgraded my 5 HDD without any problem or data lost. If you follow carefully the instruction you should't lost any data. burn the cd slow (I've burned it on a DVD with imgburn (I don't have any cd anymore)); When booting on it, be sure that only your CD-Rom and your drive is connected. Scan first to see that you drive is well detected, then install the firmware.

3 things "could" happen

1) The drive will work like before everything will work fine (most probable)

2) the drive doesn't work anymore

3) MTF become corrupt and you can't access the file anymore.

If #2 happen... call seagate  

If #3 happen, you can just do a quick format, then run a recovery tools, you will be able to recover your data yourselft ( Easeus = one that worked like a charm for my friend).

If the firmware wasn't good, seagate would have it removed from their website.

@OkayMan1

"I suggest you wait until Seagate announce it that the problem is eventually fixed"

The problem is fixed... they released a firmware that fix it.

They only updated the firmware to detect more North Bridge

If something major would have changed, then they would have changed the firmware number.

Edit: Correctly syntax and typo

Message Edited by Bloodknight41 on 02-19-2009 08:11 AM

[Mark1982]

Thanks for the post Bloodknight41!

I am thinking of updating the firmware of my 500gb drive, even though the serial checker says "not affected".

[Firm and Steady]

[I will possibly get flamed for this, but what the hack...]

What Alan, as well as the other moderators are saying, is this:

1) Hard-drives can have many types of problems for many reasons: mechanical failures, electrical failures, bad sectors (for whatever reason) and possibly also firmware problems.

2) The frequency of hard-drive failures and whether or not it indicates a specific problem with a specific product is to be debated. Obviously, a large percentage of failures with the same model, may indicate a severe problem that needs to be addressed appropriately. But when reading these forums, one can get the impression that there are many failures (which is possible, I haven't done a study on the numbers). But this might also be misleading, because obviously, people usually post in these forums to report problems (duh).

3) Concerning this firmware issue, for which this thread was started:

This specific firmware update, was made available to solve one specific problem that is the result of an established cause (a testing method that has gone awry).

Once this problems occurs (which can be, today, tomorrow, next year, never...) it causes the hard-drive to become completely invisible to the BIOS, and at that point, you can't even update the firmware.

Seagate compiled a list of the affected drive by serial number (not to be confused with model number, since supposedly not all drives from each model are affected, at least that's what Seagate says), and people who have drives with serial numbers on that list are advised to update their firmware before this problem catches up with them.

This thread was created to hold posts regarding this firmware update, and problems during its deployment or problems that are suspected to be the result of the firmware deployment (read/write problems, decreased performance, bad sectors that weren't there before you updated the firmware...).

4) If you have problems or questions regarding this specific firmware update, or after its deployment, this is the thread for you. If your drive has turned completely invisible to the system (assuming its not a 15 year old drive), this thread is for you as well.

5) If you have problems but:

        a) your drive is still recognizable by the BIOS (even if it is not recognized correctly, like some people report, but still recognized)

        b) you did not update your firmware before the problems started

This is not the thread to post these problems. But it's possible you may find threads concerning these other issues on the forums, or you can (and probably should) simply start a new thread describing the unique situation you have encountered.

Very simple.

I know this doesn't ease the frustration for any of you, as you all (or at least most), like me, seem to have legitimate claims against Seagate.

But there's no point of having to read almost 400 posts, which certainly adds to the panic (as justified as it is), only to later realize that at least some of those have nothing to do with the problem we are trying to get solved and were supposed to be posted elsewhere...

And one last thing - don't shoot the messengers. The moderators are just that, and not tech support staff. They can only provide the information they receive from tech support (if any).

So far, I got more response (and a kind one, too) from the moderators (thanks Alan), than from tech support (as they only sent an "automated" reply after 3 weeks).

I hope this clears the air...

[sarha]

Muchas Gracias Bloodknight41, for a very well written post.

SD1A is now my firmware and I feel much better.

[HughR]

---

Firm and Steady wrote:

4) If you have problems or questions regarding this specific firmware update, or after its deployment, this is the thread for you. If your drive has turned completely invisible to the system (assuming its not a 15 year old drive), this thread is for you as well.

5) If you have problems but:

        a) your drive is still recognizable by the BIOS (even if it is not recognized correctly, like some people report, but still recognized)

        b) you did not update your firmware before the problems started

This is not the thread to post these problems. But it's possible you may find threads concerning these other issues on the forums, or you can (and probably should) simply start a new thread describing the unique situation you have encountered.

---

What you said makes complete sense.  Unfortunately, the part I just quoted isn't correct.

The moderators have been moving any thread that seems firmware related  into this thread.

I think that this has really added to the confusion and uproar.

In their defence, nobody posting here actually knows for certain which firmware problems are related and which are not (not even the moderators).  Many of us think we have a good idea, but we have no basis other than extrapolation.  My guess happens to match yours, and of course we are right :-), but what makes us sure that we are right and all the other folks are wrong?

My theories are:

The firmware release described in the original posting was released just to prevent the BSY problem (where the drive is no longer visible to the controller, unchanged by power-cycling, and requires fixing through special hardware).

It was based on a firmware release that might be newer than the one in a particular drive, so flashing it might actually make other changes (one would hope good changes) to the drive.  For example, one such change was to address "stuttering" observed some time ago in 7200.11 drives.

(more speculative) There may be other firmware bugs.  They may even be exacerbated by the recent revision or revisions.

(inferred from many postings) Something is causing 7200.11 drives to go offline until reset by a powercycle.   Several RAID users are reporting this.  Several non-RAID users are reporting symptoms that seem similar.

In my opinion, Seagate could do a better job of damage control.  For one thing, this forum could use some technical input from Seagate.  The most useful technical info has been sort of leaked to Slashdot and other random fora.  Seagate's response to tech support requests (at least mine and some others) has been slow and incorrectly dismissive.  These have allowed a lynch-mob mentality to fester here.