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

[Bloodknight41]

@Firm and Steady:

Excellent post, sort of what I was trying to say, but said better.

@Mark1982 

If you don't have any problem whatsoever with your 500gb, don't update it.

I only updated my 1 tb drives because I had a issue with them (extremely slow read (20mb/sec))

I didn't update them because of the main reason the SD1A firmware was created. (that the drive can disappear of the BIOS)

I took a chance, and got lucky as the firmware fixed the issue I had.

So if you don't have any issue with it, don't update it "just for the heck of it" it isn't recommended.

 Hope it help.

@Sarha : you're welcome

Edit: (added comment of HurghR post)

@HurghR : 

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

This is true, my post was about 2 drive which was just slow and was asking if the new firmware would be fixing the issue, it was moved to this thread.

Message Edited by Bloodknight41 on 02-19-2009 09:27 AM

[adam d]

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Bloodknight41 wrote:

@Adam_D

Scan first to see that you drive is well detected, then install the firmware.

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

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Alright, good to hear someone is having some luck with this... and, which firmware should I use? Where do we get it from and which specific number am I looking for?

Thanks,

Adam

[Bloodknight41]

@Adam_d

your drive is :  ST31000333AS

first from there your HDD could be affected

The next step is to go there

Use the "Part 1 and Part 3"

Part 1 : Download the Drive Detect to know your serial number. (or check on the drive directly)

Part 3 : Insert your Serial Number on the page of Part 3 to know if your drive is affected.

If it is : then you should update with the correct firmware which is located here

Good luck

And just to be on the safe side, try to backup the thing you absolutly don't want to lose.

(like thing that you can't get back whatsoever)

I doubt you will get any issue, but it could happen.

Edit : typo... (I do a lot of them )

Message Edited by Bloodknight41 on 02-19-2009 09:38 AM

[Mark1982]

@Bloodknight41.  Thanks for the info!  Well, the only reason I want to update my drive is so that I don't turn on my computer one day and find the BIOS doesn't detect it. 

To those who have had their drives disappear from the BIOS - are there any symptoms to suggest that it's going to happen soon?  I've experienced some slow bootup times after a reset, and some occasional freezes during normal desktop use, but the freezes may not be hard drive related

[amblin1980]

if i had a SAS drive installed in my system (cheetah 15k.6 , for OS), do i need to disconnect the SAS drive before i attempt to flash the firmware of my SATA drive?

thanks!

Message Edited by amblin1980 on 02-19-2009 09:59 AM

[SierraRat]

Has anyone else had problems with the serial number checker?  When I enter my information, I get the window that should tell me if my drive is affected, but none of the information is filled in on this window.  Are they tired of having me check check my drive?  Also, I note my questions here, but no real definitive answers.  Tells you how customer oriented this company is.

[adam d]

Thanks bloodknight! will give it a try.

[noegruts]

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Firm and Steady wrote:

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).

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I dont have time to respond point by point.  Much of what you say is correct.  However, Seagate's moderators have explicitly closed and deleted other threads and moved them into this one, hence having to read "almost 400 posts".

About "don't shoot the messengers".  This is one of the biggest problems here - if Seagate were handling this correctly they would have actual support staff here.  To be honest, I have no idea what the point is of having people here like Alan etc that can't answer basic questions. 

There is zero doubt here that Seagate has handled this whole firmware problem atrociously.  Many other companies release software with bugs and hardware with firmware bugs.  I have never seen a problem handled this badly.

Case in point - my simple question about whether or not the SD1A firmware was changed when the download was changed on 2/9/2009 has gone unanswered.  What is the problem with somebody from Seagate actually answering one of their customer's questions here? 

[Firm and Steady]

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HughR wrote:

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.

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I would like to think that if the moderators moved a post from one thread to another, they had a good reason for doing so. I don't remember seeing any such posts that were moved into this thread, but I'll take your word for it. (This is confirmed by Bloodknight41's post)

As for the update, you don't need to theorize:

The KB article about this firmware update says just that and only that - the update is for this specific problem. Any problem that results from this specific issue or from deployment of the firmware update is related and needs to be presented here.

The only reason one should update the firmware is to prevent this issue, although they really should make it safe so that other unaffected drives will remain unharmed, if only to cover the possibility that affected drives were omitted from the serials list by mistake, thus allowing all owners of those models to protect themselves.

As for people who's drives already has other problems and then updated the firmware trying to fix those problems -  that's a bit of a gamble, even if the firmware is safe for all drives. You can never tell what the outcome would be in such case, espcially if the cause of the problems is unknown. And if the firmware update was made only to fix one issue, this will not help with other problems.

[Bloodknight41]

@Mark1982 : the drive won't disappear unless it is noted "affected".

So if it isn't affected, you shouldn't fear it will disappear.

As if you got symptoms before... I don't think so,as I've read it only you boot your computer one day and POOUF it not there...

As for you slow down... you can run Atto 2.34 let see here's a link  and benchmark your drive.

then google a bit to know if your result are similar to the other ...  (go in google image type your drive moddel and atto, you should find some)

@Amblin1980 : Better be sure then sorry; I would unplug it. It's not like it's long to replug it afterward.

The firmware program shouldn't update any other drive, but I wouldn't take any chance

@SierraRat : I also had the same problem with it ... be sure to press enter afterward (so you start a new line) and be sure you write the captcha correctly if you didn't get it right, it won't tell you , it will just say nothing like you have.

So to resume : insert serial (press enter to start a new line) enter the 2 word captcha (you can cycle them to found some you can read easily) then try again, did it work ?

@Adam_M : your welcome, give us news if it worked fine for you

@noegruts: you mention 

"To be honest, I have no idea what the point is of having people here like Alan etc that can't answer basic questions. "

The only reason he is here is to moderate and give people link for solution.

Without anybody to moderate any forum will be come ugly, and fast.

He can't give direct support as there could be some legal issue in that.

But he can give direction, "hey where can I find X,Y,Z : you can find it there and there" that he can.

Consider him more like a guide. That's how I see him (correct me if I'm wrong)

Edit : Typo and comment for noegruts

Message Edited by Bloodknight41 on 02-19-2009 10:57 AM