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

[Sea Gate User]

1) Reading some other posts there seems to be some issue with firmware upgrade; should I not bother with it?

2) I have four of these drives which i want to update the firmware; i can update them all at the same time right?

3) Also can you confirm that the firmware program works for windows 7 in AHCI mode since updating via bootable disk will be difficult for me.

[Drew.C]

1) Worst that can happen is you cannot get it to work.

2) If you have the correct firmware on your existing drives you can update them all at the same time.  From my experience, you can only update certain firmware versions.  Most CC4x can be updated to CC4H.  CC9x cannot update to CC4H.

3)  My PC has AHCI enabled and it worked.  Even though I have Windows 7, I no longer use Seagates Windows firmware loader because it changed my MBR and my system thought it had a virus.  See link below. 

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Momentus-XT-Momentus-Momentus/Norton-boot-tidserv-MBR-virus-after-Momen...

I download and convert the CD bootable image to a USB and update the firmware from the bootable USB 1GB stick. I used this tool named Win32 Disk Imager at:

http://www.megaleecher.net/Seagate_SeaTools_For_DOS_Bootable_USB_Maker_Kit

I used WINRAR to extract the Barracuda-ALL-GRCC4H.iso.  Renamed the GR-CC4H.ima to GR-CC4H.img.  I ran the Win32 Disk Imager program and used GR-CC4H.img as the image file and wrote it out to the USB stick.

[Sea Gate User]

1) Ok ill try updating all of them at the same time. But your second comment suggests that if there is different firmware on the drives; (the two old ones are CC9C),  two bought just last week i could encounter problems if there is different firmware on the new drives (only if seagate updated their drives before shipping?

2) Interesting links to do with the MBR. I had issues creating a USB boot disk can i simply burn an ISO to DVD and boot from that rather than using it via windows 7 thus avoiding the MBR issue? Also can i use any new DVD like +/- R/RW?

Thanks for the help

[Drew.C]

I would think if you downloaded the CC4H firmware it would only upgrade the CC4x firmwares and not touch the CC9C ones.  Were the 2 CC9C purchased new as internal drives or removed from external USB drives?  Just curious.  For the CC9C drives, I would check here:

https://apps1.seagate.com/downloads/request.html

and type in your model and serial #.  Maybe there is another firmware upgrade for the CC9C.  One of mine was CC9D.  I could not upgrade this drive to CC4H.

Yes, using the bootable CD will also avoid the MBR issue.  You only need to use a CD, not a DVD.  CD-R or CD-RW.  The image is approx. 7MB.

[Sea Gate User]

1) All drives were OEM, not in enclousres etc. The two old drives (2 months +) are CC9C, the two NEWER drives are unfortunaley CC4C. Strange how nwer drives have older firmware! How do i go about updating these different firmweares, all at the same time?

2) Is there a 3rd party tool to reduce the power managment featrure which i assume is the cause for the high load cycles and/ore noise/churp.  Anything i can do via windows or disable via HD sentienal?

Thansk a lot for your help mate

[fzabkar]

Try QuietHDD or hdparm.

As for a firmware update, the links to the original CC9D ISO and EXE files are broken. This begs the question, was there a problem with CC9D firmware?

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/downloads/firmware/Barracuda-ALL-GRCC4CD9.ISO
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/downloads/firmware/Barracuda-ALL-GRCC4CD9.iso
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/downloads/firmware/Barracuda-ALL-GRCC4CD9.EXE
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/downloads/firmware/Barracuda-ALL-GRCC4CD9.exe

[Sea Gate User]

1) Since two drives are CC9C and the otehr two are CC4C can i use the same update disk to update the firmware? How sould i proceed to update these differing firmwares? For example should i only connect CC9C drives while updating to CC9D and then disconnect these when updating the otehrs? Do i need a different software/ISO file for the two types etc?

2) I can still acess CC9D firmwarew i beleive by using the following link https://apps1.seagate.com/downloads/request.html But i bit worried that the "offical" links dont work. Anyone with high up know-how can explain this? Should i still update to CC9D?

Thanks for any help

[Sea Gate User]

bump

[fzabkar]

(1) The one update package (ISO or EXE) includes both the CC9x and CC4x firmware. I can't answer your question regarding updating several drives at once, but I'd play it safe and do one drive at a time.

(2) Did you manage to locate the CC9D firmware?

[roy7]

Is there a location to get the older firmwares? I want to try downgrading one or two versions before I return the drive (have the issue where the drive disappears after a warm reboot until the next cold reboots). Asus web site says it's an issue with "recent Seagate firmware" but that post wasn't dated, so I don't kow if they mean the newest or if it's been an issue since 2009.

Thanks.