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

[HughR]

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donidonidoni wrote:

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HughR wrote:

Question for all: have you had a drive fail in the characteristic way?  What did the SN checker say about your drive?

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Hugh, no offense, but have you been reading the posts? YES, the drive failed characteristically. NO, the most-current firmware release does NOT solve the problem (in my case, makes it worse). YES, the serial number checker says my drive is "unaffected." YES, the serial number checker is wrong.YES, there have been many similar reports in these forums. No matter why Seagate thinks only their programmed sn range is affected, the evidence seems clearly to indicate they are wrong. Refuting that without insider knowledge, when there are many posted examples, isn't helping. While I'm not sure the tool is "clearly worthless," it is clearly wrong. And of no use to me.

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As I understand it, if your drive failed in the characteristic way, it would be bricked.  You could not use it.  Seagate has tools to fix such drives without losing the data.

In one posting, you said:

My own ST31000333AS drive is affected, despite the fact that the serial
number checker says it is not. In fact, upgrading to the recommended
SD1B firmware made it worse!

Clearly your drive wasn't bricked if you were able to subsequently update the firmware.

I suspect that you are experiencing a different problem from the one that is the subject of this thread.

As far as I can tell, you've never actually described your drive's misbehaviour.

Please don't be rude to me.  I'm not being rude to you.  I'm trying to help you.  I'm not working for Seagate.

[gwittel]

I hoped for more, this time they sort of addressed my question about my drive+firmware version.  Here's the latest from Seagate support:

Unfortunately I will not be able to give you the specific reasons we know that your serial number is not effected, but the serial number checker is accurate. Your particular hard drive is not effected by the firmware issue. There are some drives of this model and part number that are affected that is true, but the odds of actually being effected by the issue are very small. When there is an issue such as this, people are apt to blame things on the reported issue instead of what the actual problem is.

 At this point the response seems to be "just trust us".  I'd really hope that Seagate could be more specific.

 -Greg

[Crusnik01]

Well, now that they have released the latest firmware options, it seems I too have been struck by the issue.

Even though when I checked those "do you need an upgrade" tools posted on the web, it said I was not affected, and that everyone with CC or LC in their firmware version were not affected.
That has abviously changed now, since there is a new firmware for my drive, and they have reduced their "Note:" message from CC and LC, to just CC.

The problem (besides the firmware itself), is that I have 3x ST31500341AS (1.5TB) in a Synology DS-408, with RAID5, and two of them now have dropped out of the array, meaning that I am not longer able to "repair" the volume, thus making over 600GB of data already on the NAS inaccessible.
My hope lies in that Seagate tells us that all the data is still intact, and that operations should return to normal when the firmware upgrade is applied, and this is something that I verymuch would like confirmed.
If not, then I belive that a free-of-charge data recovery option should be provided to me, considering this is Seagates fault, since they shipped drives with faulty firmware...

Tech. data:
==========
Model number:
ST31500341AS

Serial numbers:
9VS0SVVD
9VS0SV9H
9VS0SVL7

Firmware (same on all 3 drives):
LC1A

All help and constructive input with the matter is greatly appreciated!
A huge thanks in advance!

[HughR]

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h_45h wrote:
In my case, the SN checker tool is wrong. I have a ST3500320AS, reported as "not affected". For a brick, it doesn't seem affected at all.

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That is very useful and concrete information.  Thanks.

When I look at past postings, your problem seemed to be that the BIOS detected the drive size to be 0GiB, not that your disk was bricked.  Are these not different problems?

(Bricked means, at least to me, that the drive is indistinguishable from a brick.  You certainly cannot do a firmware update to a brick.)

[Dark_Trooper]

i guess the detection tool is really useless because my ST31000333AS with firmware SD35 and serial 6TE0DXCQ was labeled as "not affected" and failed to be recognized by the bios just yesterday. the drive was running for just 15 days! but i´m a clever guy, so today i bought another ST3100033AS with frimware SD15 - serial 9TE06L34 and guess what..!?  -"NOT AFFECTED"-

i decided to give the firmware update a chance just before i was planning to install vist for another time, but got cold feet because the updater told me that my serial nr. is not correct for the firmware. i honestly don´t know what to do right now because i have the strange feeling that the drive will die on me sooner or later.

[donidonidoni]

Hugh-- Nobody is being rude. I apologize if it came off that way, but your question seemed purposely obtuse considering all the information provided here and in other threads.

On topic: Why do you assume the only characteristic of these common failures are a complete bricking? Many users are instead reporting similar issues to mine. Folks are seeing atapi and disk controller errors, disks disappearing (from the OS and/or from RAID arrays), odd sounds, i/o delays. Not all manifestations are identical, other than their clearly being a firmware problem, esp since these probloems in many cases don't appear until or get worse after installing the latest recommended firmware. It wouldn't make sense to release a firmware update to fix the problem, if the update could never be applied by anyone. Clearly Seagate doesn't believe complete brickage is the only symptom.

Message Edited by donidonidoni on 02-04-2009 02:23 PM

[SQLRocks]

I have had it with 3 different ST31500341AS 1.5TB drives. 2 have CC1H and 1 as CC1J firmware.

Originally I had purchased 2 drives to use in a RAID1 configuration. One of the two drives started clicking (stuttering) and performance for disk operations became terrible. I RMAed the drive that was having problems and the one I got as a replacement also had the same problem. Then the other of the 2 original drives I purchased developed the problem (after 2 weeks use). So 3 for 3 on disk stuttering/clicks on these drives.

I'm at my wits-end on this and my PC performance is horrible for disk operations. Any ideas? I'm thinking of returning the drives and buying something else.

[donidonidoni]

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SQLRocks wrote:

I'm at my wits-end on this and my PC performance is horrible for disk operations. Any ideas? I'm thinking of returning the drives and buying something else.

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If you still have the option of returning it for a refund, I think you should strongly consider it. With Seagate refusing to offer even the hint of an ETA for a fix, they leave you little choice. Those of us who are beyond the refund period have no other choice but to wait. Unfortunately I'm on day 57 of a 30-day return policy, so waiting it is.

[amegalo]

Dear everyone I have contacted Seagate Support.

They responded.

I had asked if I should update the firmware on my ST3500320AS drive now, even though it is running well and I have no signs of trouble. The drive is only one week old

I was wondering if I should wait until I had trouble before updating.

My update went well, and now Drive Detect shows the SD1A firmware.

Below is the response and instruction That I received form Seagate Tech support.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for sending your Seagate E-mail inquiry.

I apologize for the late reply.  If you would like to flash the firmware update on your drive, you will need to do so before the drive fails and is no longer recognized in the BIOS.  The SN06 firmware update has now been added to the website.  To determine whether your drive is one that should have the firmware updated, I would use the following weblink:

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

If you do qualify you should be able to find the firmware update on that web link as well, if not then no action is required. If you have any additional questions, please let me know.

Regards,
Tech Name deleted by me
Seagate Techncial support
Phone: 800-732-4283 (North America)
00.800.4.SEAGATE (Europe)
1 800 759 109 (Asia, Australia and New Zealand)
Web: www.seagate.com/support/index.html

[superlgn]

The SN06 firmware is for NS drives. Did they send you the wrong info?