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

[shawnc]

Hello everyone!

I am one of the thousands of unfortunately owners of the dreaded 1TB problem drives.

Like many, I was happily using this drive (about 8 months) before it began failing. Why did this drive (and three other identical drives) take about 8 months (to fail)? No one has ever been able to answer this question. Anyhow, suddenly I needed to update the firmware on these drives from SD15 to SD1A (MooseDT-SD1A-3D4D-16-32MB).  

So I updated the firmware to SD1A. As a result, all my updated drives began working again. That was three weeks ago. About a week ago, two of the drives began acting odd, data taking a long to transfer. Very shortly after I noted this behaviour, Windows Vista popped up the following message:

Windows Disk Diagnostic detected a S.M.A.R.T. fault on disk ST310003 40AS SCSI Disk Device (volumes Unknown).  This disk might fail; back up...

Shortly after this message, two of the three recently firmware updated drives completely failed!

The lesson here is DO NOT TRUST THE FIRMWARE UPDATE. It may seem as though the drive's problems are resolved but you may also encounter the same problem I just encountered!  

Because I had renewed trust in these firmware updated drives, I have lost important data that I just never got around to backing up! Ultimately my mistake, however, Seagate did lead me to believe that these drives just required a firmware update to fix their problems! Clearly this was not true!

Bottom line, after you do the firmware update, backup your data, wipe the drive clean, and request an RMA for the drive(s)!

Good luck!

Message Edited by shawnc on 05-25-2009 08:24 AM

[shawnc]

What a bunch of nonsense!

The Seagate drives are behaving in the same manner as they were BEFORE the SD1A firmware update!

For a few weeks, they worked fine and now I'm seeing SMART drive failure messages. If I pull the drive, allow it to sit for a while... then plug it back in, I can extract no more than about 3 GB from these drives before they fail with a 'drive not connected' error.

Then I repeat the process, pull the drive, wait, plug it back in, extract some more data (until it fails again)!

This is just like before the the SD1A firmware update!  BS! 

[BadBunny]

I smell a troll

Sounds to me like you had the drive problem BEFORE the firmware update.

Message Edited by BadBunny on 05-26-2009 01:52 PM

[shawnc]

Especially after reading hundreds of messages from others BEFORE determining whether or not to procede with the SD1A firmware upgrade. Once the firmware upgrade worked, I was able to retreive all my data from the drive.

When I was reasonably satisfied that the drive was working normally again, I made the fatal error of temporarily moving non-backed up data back to it. I had intended to store the data on this Seagate until I had my new SAN storage array on line. Unfortunately, four weeks later and this drive began slowly failing. First, Vista gave me a S.M.A.R.T. warning. The drive begain to transfer data very slowly, before failing. Each time I powered up, I was able to retreive less data. Now, it is no longer recognized by the BIOS and I still have about 40 GB not yet transferred.

FYI: info on 1 of 3 Seagate's affected:

Serial: 9QJ2xxxx      
Model: ST31000340AS
Part # 9BX158-303
Firmware: SD15
Date code: 09104           
Thailand

I've been dealing with this for months now. And yes, FYI I do have both an RMA and a request for recovery filled out.

Additionally, I had actually posted a message on Experts Exchange that the SD1A firmware upgrade worked. Since it is IMPOSSIBLE to edit EE postings, I think this provides CLEAR evidence that my drives were working AFTER the upgrade. 

EE Message posted on about April 20, 2009:

Thank you everyone for your help! Ultimately dbrunton was the most correct, however, I gave everyone points for their useful input.

I ended up backing up as much data as possible (using traditional methods - which required powering cycling the drive several times). Non-critical data (about 1/2 GB) was left on the drive while I flashed it using the latest firmware update from Seagate. Everything worked and the drive is now operating normally.

Ref: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Misc/Q_24282476.html

I am just providing a public service by warning people that the firmware upgrade may not actually fix their drives. 

 

Message Edited by shawnc on 05-26-2009 03:00 PM

 [Edited in compliance of the community rules and regulations.]

Message Edited by BradC on 05-26-2009 08:33 PM

[shawnc]

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 [Edited in compliance of the community rules and regulations.]

Message Edited by BradC on 05-26-2009 08:33 PM

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BradC, perhaps if you tell me what you removed, I can make sure I don't break the rules next time...and make your job easier.

I read the rules but I could not determine what I did wrong.

[anti]

I've yet to see a failure on any of my (7) affected drives. They have all been flashed to the SD1A firmware.

If the firmware is still at fault then I'm not sure what you expect from an RMA of working drives other then the hopes of recieving a ST3100033AS. Then again hoping that the problem does not persist with that model as well. I have 15 Re-Allocated sectors on a brand new 33AS, which I hear isn't a good sign from the posts around here. You could cry and run to WD, but I have 22 RAS as well on one of their brand new Caviar Blacks. So far my RAS on new drives is around the same ratio for both manufacturers.

We won't bother talking about the1.5TB lines.

Bottom line seems to be if you need a 1TB drive, buy two from different manufacturers.

[shawnc]

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anti wrote:

I've yet to see a failure on any of my (7) affected drives. They have all been flashed to the SD1A firmware.

If the firmware is still at fault then I'm not sure what you expect from an RMA of working drives other then the hopes of recieving a ST3100033AS. Then again hoping that the problem does not persist with that model as well. I have 15 Re-Allocated sectors on a brand new 33AS, which I hear isn't a good sign from the posts around here. You could cry and run to WD, but I have 22 RAS as well on one of their brand new Caviar Blacks. So far my RAS on new drives is around the same ratio for both manufacturers.

We won't bother talking about the1.5TB lines.

Bottom line seems to be if you need a 1TB drive, buy two from different manufacturers.

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I concur with your 'bottom line'. Being in an IT manager for 15 years, I should have known better. But sometimes my professional experiences doesn't always trickle down to my personal life. I broke the cardinal rule when purchasing multiple drives.

That is: NEVER purchase a group of drives from the same manufacture with similar serial numbers. It's always better to ensure dissimilar models, or failing that, get drives from different manufacturers.

Potentially lost 40 GB of data (not super critical, just super inconvenient)..... lesson learned! :-]

After the second failure on one HDD, another that just disconnected about 1 hour ago (it began to exhibiting the same symptoms a few days ago)... how can I possible trust any of these four 1 TB drives?

And can someone PLEASE explain to me how/why these HDDs behave this way. In over 15 years, I have seen out right PCB failures (blown caps, diodes, etc.), burnt data cables, spindle rot, head crashes, etc.... BUT....

I have never seen a drive:

- Suddenly and rapidly progressively fail after running well for more than 8 months (or ~ 6000 hours),

- Go back to perfect working order after a firmware patch (SD1A)

- After about 4 weeks... suddenly and rapidly progressively fail, again for a second time.

And this has occurred on 2 (of 4) ST31000340AS HDDs with similar serial numbers!

Message Edited by shawnc on 05-28-2009 03:27 PM

[Cantbecanit]

Shawn, have you considered trying the not seen in bios fix yet, i.e with a mobile phone lead and hyperterminal?

I've a feeling that even though you've flashed the units the problem may still reside in the HDD tables, my own personal experience has been a good one with my Max500 drive, maybe if you were to do the things in my Fixed It thread it might resolve it properly, I know you shouldn't have to but if it fixes it once and for all it's gotta be worth it.