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

[Denisc]

I repaired my own 7200.11 500Gb drive a few days ago, got all my data back and drive working again. 

[halvarez]

I just bought a 500GB Barracuda 7200.11, ST3500320AS, firmware SD81, made in China, date code 09something (looks like recently made)... I checked with the serial number checker and supposedly is not affected... but I want to read experiences from other users about this particular firmware version...

Thanks in advance and sorry for my poor english!

Message Edited by halvarez on 03-03-2009 06:03 PM

[nevdull]

In order for Seagate's serial # checker to work for me, I had to use Safari.  For some reason, FireFox 3.x wasn't giving me the Captcha Code to type in, so what it looked like I had was blank results after typing in my HD's serial.

Anyway, I followed the directions for burning the ISO image of the firmware update for my ST31000340AS - SD15 (on my Mac Pro).  I booted from the CD as instructed, and I started panicking when it was taking several minutes to get the instruction screen, so if you run into it, it took my machine about 5 minutes-ish to come to the instructions screen.  Before that screen came up, I got some scary message about "initdiskdrive is too large to handle" so be patient.

I ran the firmware then had to wait about 20 seconds-ish for the drive to begin activity and the drive to boot.  The boot went fine, and though time will tell, my firmware upgrade seems to have gone smoothly.

[Traboukos]

Greetings everyone, haven't checked the forums for some weeks and since i have made backups of pretty much all my data i think of updating my firmware i was wondering if i have to format my drive after applying the firmware update(the one with the OS), also i have an issue with one of my drives (i have two barracuda 7200.11, a ST3500320AS with SD15 and a ST3320613AS with SD22) according to the serial checker the 320gb drive doesn't need to update but during loading times of games i hear a mechanical noise from the drive, should i update anyway?

[Trouly]

Hi All,

i've contacted seagate with my problem - the hard drive non-responsive, no os being loaded, the firmware updater doesn't recognize/find the drive. I got through only after about 30 mins on hold.  The tech at first tried to tell me that this was not a firmware issue, probably just a bad disk. How about that????

I convinced the tech that it probably is a firmware issue, not just a bad drive. he was nice enough to transfer me to another rep, i filled out the form for i365 and plan to drop off the HDD to their Santa Clara location, just down the street from me. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I'll keep you updated of progress.

Thanks all

[Photodom]

Denisc 

Any chance that you could share with the rest of us the methods you used to rescue your dead drive.

I'm sure there will be hundreds of greatful 'brick' owners out there.

Thanks

[FrenchGuy]

JuliaEkb wrote:

it is safe - to use new firmware MooseDT-SD1A-2D-8-16-32MB.ISO? 

 I m afraid.....

My HDD : Model: ST3500320AS, Serial: 9QM5LLD7, Firmware: SD15 

---

The serial checker (http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931&NewLang=en) says your drive is affected by firmware SD15 ...

I have two drives ST3500320AS so, I have flashed these drives (with SD1A) few weeks ago and they work fine !

It is better than a bricked drive ...

[Denisc]

Photodom, I think references to the site that describes the cure are banned on here so I won't irritate the mods by offering a link.

In essence, the 7200.11 board has a serial receive and transmit connector (not the sata connector) that you can talk to with your PC. Enter a few commands and the drive is unlocked and all data still there. 

[archinla]

I've got a Mac Pro too with two x 1 GB ST31000340AS - SD15 inside. One failed to appear after a restart, the other isn't dead... yet. I downloaded the same ISO image: MooseDT-SD1A-3D4D-16-32MB.ISO but after burning with Disk Utility it does not boot on the Mac using either the C or the Option key after a restart. So I cannot even run the gauntlet of trying the firmware. Any advice?

The firmware would, I imagine be updatable if the drive was put into a SATA drived PC - correct? But rather than try to find someone who can do that do I have another option? I'd rather not send the drive off to Seagate and hope for data retrieval as once it's out of my hands they might well return it wiped - or a replacement. 

[Karlston]

---

archinla wrote:

I've got a Mac Pro too with two x 1 GB ST31000340AS - SD15 inside. One failed to appear after a restart, the other isn't dead... yet. I downloaded the same ISO image: MooseDT-SD1A-3D4D-16-32MB.ISO but after burning with Disk Utility it does not boot on the Mac using either the C or the Option key after a restart. So I cannot even run the gauntlet of trying the firmware. Any advice?

The firmware would, I imagine be updatable if the drive was put into a SATA drived PC - correct? But rather than try to find someone who can do that do I have another option? I'd rather not send the drive off to Seagate and hope for data retrieval as once it's out of my hands they might well return it wiped - or a replacement. 

---

Did you burn the .iso as an image (correct) or do you have a cd with just a .iso file sitting on it (incorrect)?

The firmware update should run on any computer that has the SATA drive to be updated connected to it.  The installed OS shouldn't affect whether it works or not (though it's a long while since I used a Mac).