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

[PcGuy]

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KaLin wrote:

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PcGuy wrote:

How the heck am I supposed to be able to find any replies to my post in this huge and uncontrollable thread?

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Hello PCGuy,

One suggestion I have for you woud be to go into your Profile settings under "Preferences".  Under the Personal Preference settings, tap the radio button to be notified of any replies to the thread you're participating in (subscriptions).  You will receive an email of any replies to the thread as they're posted. 

That might be easier to view the posts individually in the email notifications, rather than trying to navigate through all the responses in the thread itself.

Regards,

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Thats what I am doing but it does not help especially when there is a huge thread like this one. I still have to read each and every post (which on some days amounts to 5 or 6 pages) to see if the person is referring to my post, by accident (quoting my message when in fact they are referring to someone else's post)  or to some unknown/unquoted post days or weeks earlier.

[noegruts]

Good luck.

[Jeff_ratus]

100 people with same problem....i can't see solution to bricked drive.I dont wanna pay for stuffs to back my lost data.

warranty terms need to be change.Like if u sold a broken Stuff u return money back.

I pay $140 for to lost my data , like my friends.

Seagate japan is really such!

[TuantaQ]

Hi

Before update software, does your HDD still work well? And u have same HDD as mine?

I have HDD ST3500320AS 9BX154-303 9QM*** SD15. From 15/02 when my computer are running, HDD disappear misteriously, after reboot , I can see it again in XP. About 3-5 days after, when I copying some date, it disapear again. , after reboot, I can not access data more.

I saerch and see my HDD have to update new firmware. Downloaded 19/02 and then update. After update, SMART status is BAD (warming by BIOS), Windows still see it but can not access data.

Any one can help me to recover data? It is more important, more expensive than HDD itself.

Thanks all

[rrav]

My first post on this thread and probably my last.
I've open two support cases with Seagate over the last two months, since my drive bricked.
They closed the first one without notice so I opened another, it was closed, then I reopened it, closed again.
They tell me it's not the same problem, it's not covered, yada yada. When I insist it is the same BSY issue, they asked for the drive info and closed the case.

Has anyone else had similar experiences with support?

I ended up buying the parts and fixed it myself with the help of Gradius' posts. The drive is now unlocked, all my data was still there.

[donidonidoni]

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donidonidoni wrote:

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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.

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Update: My replacement drive from Seagate arrived on Fri. It came updated to SD1B and with a note that the guys in Oklahoma tested and certified it good, having performed a Windows install and ran various utilities. Swapped it into my box and so far so good. Return shipping my bad drive right now. Note that Robert @ Seagate (support supervisor) waived the return shipping fees and authorized a free cross-ship, after all I've been through with this. Which was kind of him and appreciated.

I'm hoping case closed -- that it was simply a hardware failure that became more apparent after flashing the firmware. Fingers crossed. So while Seagate seems to have some serious QC problems and customer service confusion, when you actually get through to someone who knows what they're talking about, they do a good job of trying to help. Not that it's any consolation for those who haven't yet gotten through to that magical person.

[schroed]

i will be updating my original thread here: http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=9756

here is a link to try if you are interested in doing it yourself:

www@msfn@org/  board / index.php ?showtopic=128807

change the @ symbols to periods, and remove the spaces

that should be plenty sufficient for those who can't get support, or have an OEM drive.

for those who are new to this thread: CALL SUPPORT, their email doesn't work worth beans. you HAVE TO CALL them. i know, it's retarded.

[Christos]

The best service all of us can do to ourselves and Seagate is to STOP purchasing their HARD DISKS until they present a reliable and realistic solution to us customers who have spent their hard-earned money to buy a flaky product.

I am a not so proud owner of a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 and I have no idea what to do about the drive. If I flash it I risk instant death, if I don't it will probably malfunction sooner or later. 

The worst thing is Seagate's attitude, as reported by all the users of this forum. They pretend it's a minor issue on some drives, etc., etc. and they don't even provide reasonable email support.

So, dear Seagate technical support, please understand that some of us are busy working, we don't have the luxury to mock around with serial interfaces and what have you's to get our products to work...

 Conclusion: Trash your drives and buy something else, until Seagate becomes reliable again...

[KrisRoberts]

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KrisRoberts wrote:

I have three ST31000333AS drives.

They all came with SD35 firmware.

All of them have part numbers that end in 336.

The serial number check shows that two of the three are affected.

I followed the links to the Brinks-3D6H-SD1B.ISO image and burned that to a CD-R.

(I burnt two actually, on different machines but they both behave the same)

I have followed the instructions and isolated one drive at a time to be updated as the only SATA device.

(I've tried this in two separate machines, but again they both behave the same)

The CD-R boots fine and after accepting the terms and conditions the A option to download the firmware it says:

Error opening firmware file.

Upon power cycle reboot the drive still shows that it is running SD35.

I've tried this with both the drives that are supposed to be affected with two different update CDs in two different machines and get the same results in all cases.

One thing to note is that when the utility shows the option to download the firmware it does not show the drive information correctly.  It says for example: 

A) Download Firmware to ST31000333AS 9FZ136-300

But the drive has its part number printed on it as: 9FZ136-336

All three drives are working, but I'm concerned and confused that the update does not work (and is complaining about an error opening the firmware file from disks that were burnt from an ISO).

I see many posts about this in one of the previous (now locked) threads, but resolution and no mention of it yet in this currently active thread.

Please advise. 

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I finally got a response from Seagate support, saying:

Firmware revision SD1B will work with your affected drives, even if they are on SD
35. SD3B is not a publicly released firmware, and not available to be updated to f
or the serials you've provided.

I will download the currently available SD1B iso and try it again, but I'm not optimistic.

Has anyone successfully upgraded an SD35 drive?

[adamish]

@ravv: Yes. Identical experience. AlanM replied saying sorry for the case being moved to closed, but no further action yet. I just returned my drive on Friday. Status says they received it, and they're sending a replacement. 

This is great for me because I'm in the unusual situation that I don't need data recovery as I'd backed up recently. Phew. If you want data recovery then things are probably more complicated.