Momentus XT, Momentus, Momentus Thin, MobileMax, and other notebook drives

[Arstron]

Long story short, I have had a lot of problems with my momentus xt, earlier this week it came to the point that every time I would boot it up, it would not be detected by bios and just make the beeping noise.  When I recieved the drive, the first thing I did was use the windows update to get it to sd25 (it came with sd24).  I decided to see if perhaps something went wrong with the update from windows, so I just downloaded the bootable iso of sd25, I then tried to force install sd25 from the bootable iso and this apears to be working great, however it has only been installed for about 20 minutes.  I have 1 instance of vmware running on the drive as well as mafia 2 to try and get it to fail again. I usually wouldnt post something like this until I was certain it was working 100%, but I am feeling confident that this is working. 

Here is the post that I read on force flashing sd24, everything works the same, except the command is a little diffrent:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Momentus-XT-Momentus-and/Firmware-update-Momentus-XT/m-p/77254#M1133

The command line I had to use is:

FDL497A -m Anak -f ANSD25.LOD -i ST95005620AS -s -x -b -v -a 20

I will report back tomorrow to let you know if I have anymore problems. 

Edit: here are the exact steps:

1. Download and burn the SD25 Iso to a cd/dvd.

2. Reboot your computer, booting from that cd/dvd

3. once the program loads, press CTRL+C which will exit the program and put you into dos.

4. From here type the following command line (this is for the 500 gig drive):

FDL497A -m Anak -f ANSD25.LOD -i ST95005620AS -s -x -b -v -a 20

For the 320 gig drive, this should work:

FDL497A -m Anak -f ANSD25.LOD -i ST93205620AS -s -x -b -v -a 20

5. once the update program runs and finishes, shut the computer down and start it back up.  Once its back up and running, do what you usually do that causes your drive problems, after a day of good use, report back here and let everyone know if it helped.

Edit 2: Not sure why, but this is only a temperary fix for me.  It will work for a couple of days, then I have to reflash it such a shame.

[qvazzler]

Looking forward to it.

Personally I returned my G73JW (PC) to my vendor to have them RMA it. What happened is that they did a reinstall following what Asus told them, then they called me and said it was working.

I got it back, and perhaps 30 minutes later, I was having the same problem again. Really, **** you Asus.

[qvazzler]

I want to add however that Asus claimed that it had to do with the Intel chipset not being the recommended version.

[Arstron]

Well it can always be worst, I had my motherboard, screen, and some of the plastic bezels replaced under the accidental warranty plan.  The mechanism to hold the battery in and lock the battery in are reversed so my battery doesn't stay in, also a screw has come loose from the motherboard and gets lodged in one of the fans.

So far so good.  Usually by now I would have started having some problems, I am very hopefull that my problems was from a bad flash from the windows flash.

[qvazzler]

Good to hear.

So you actually went from SD25 to SD24 by forcing it?

I'm thinking of doing what you did actually. This problem is driving me nuts by now. I just hope I can boot from an usb (that I stole from work - success!).

[Arstron]

Actually I had SD25 on my drive which I flashed with the windows flash, I used the method above to reflash SD25 on it.

[Arstron]

I am happy to report, this is working great!  I think its been around 12 hours and still not a single problem, this is longer then this drive has ran since I got it.  I even put the laptop to sleep once, it came right out and hasnt given me any problems at all.  I am sure this wont fix everyones problems, but it sure is worth a try.  I plan on leaving my laptop on all weekend to see if I have any issues with long term use, I will also run 2 more virtual machines while im at it to see if I can stress it further.

[Arstron]

I am very happy to report, not a single problem, my laptop and 3 virtual machines ran all night and are just fine this today.  I now honestly belive my troubles was from a bad flash, not sure if it was the winflash and would recomend anyone experiencing troubles to atleast give this a try and report here to let everyone know how it works.

[union]

Tried what you did. Already had SD25 from Windows updater but did a reflash manually via CD boot.  No change in behavior; still having frequent momentary freezes. By freezing, my mouse cursor still works, but keyboard input and windows freeze and the HDD LED flashes.

Thinkpad X200

500GB Momentus XT

SD25

Windows 7 Pro 32-bit

[union]

Let me correct myself - the mouse cursor freezes too.  Wish this workaround worked for me though. 

Has anyone tried downgrading the firmware forcibly? I'd like to try really but my drive is being used as primary with all my production data.