Seagate 1 TB drives comitting suicide?

[3 of 7]

Originally Posted by enaberif

My point was that this whole 1tb drive failing thing has been blown out of proportion and that all the drives out there aren't prone to failure. That some are and others aren't and a lot of people on the internet are blowing this way beyond what it needs be.

Well, I happen to have 2 of them that are at risk and have been totally unsuccessful at getting through to Seagate to get the firmware update ( if it even exists) their site keeps telling me my account has been deactivated and every time I try and make a new one the site crashes. Their phone lines are jammed.
This is what has me ( and a few other people) pissed off, they've posted which drives are at risk and then haven't made the firmware readily available to us.

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by 3 of 7

Well, I happen to have 2 of them that are at risk and have been totally unsuccessful at getting through to Seagate to get the firmware update ( if it even exists) their site keeps telling me my account has been deactivated and every time I try and make a new one the site crashes. Their phone lines are jammed.
This is what has me ( and a few other people) pissed off, they've posted which drives are at risk and then haven't made the firmware readily available to us.

That's because Seagate sees the consumer as just that.

Not someone who may know how to do it themselves.. and even if you did you run the risk of bricking the drive.

Firmware is out there.

[DarKStar]

[quote=enaberif;139737] and even if you did you run the risk of bricking the drive.

[quote]

I'm guessing that maybe their phone lines are jammed because of that -

[1Tanker]

Doesn't sound like it was all blown out of proportion, to me.

Seagate offers fix, free data recovery for bricked Barracudas - The Tech Report

Originally Posted by Seagate

But if you are unable to access your data due to this issue, Seagate will provide free data recovery services. Seagate will work with you to expedite a remedy to minimize any disruption to you or your business.

If it wasn't a serious issue, they wouldn't be offering free data-recovery...which can be ungodly expensive.


Models affected:

Barracuda 7200.11's -16 model #s
Barracuda ES.2 -4 model #s
(Maxtor) DiamondMax 22 -10 model #s

[3 of 7]

Originally Posted by enaberif

That's because Seagate sees the consumer as just that.

Not someone who may know how to do it themselves.. and even if you did you run the risk of bricking the drive.

Firmware is out there.

Using that logic I should have to jump through hoops to get a motherboard bios update?
This is utter BS, if there is a firmware update for our drives, make it available on the site and give some info on it ( I'm not flashing my drives with firmware from somewhere else)
This isn't the only firmware glitch they've had with the 7200.11 drives, some of the SD04 and SD14 ones had to be flashed to see the full amount of cache.

[thenewguy001]

Seems to be a lot of conflicting information from the support reps (according to the seagate forums) and that seagate's internal staff aren't properly apprised of the situation.

Some reps are telling people they don't need an update, contrary to the knowledge base article. I tried to call but didn't get through. Some people basically got told, after a 30 minute phone call, that they don't need a firmware upudate... and that they wasted their time with that call. what a fiasco.

What we do know for sure is that the firmware update is NOT available yet. Reps are saying tuesday, wednesday, or even end of next week.

At least I know my data is safe. I bought a new drive and backed up everything. Reports are saying that the drives typically fail after 3-4 months and my drive is about that old now so I wasn't taking any chances. My machine hasn't been powered down for almost a week

[thenewguy001]

FYI firmware updates have been released

Firmware Update for ST3500320AS, ST3640330AS, ST3750330AS, ST31000340AS

Firmware Update for ST31500341AS, ST31000333AS, ST3640323AS, ST3640623AS, ST3320613AS, ST3320813AS, ST3160813AS

[3 of 7]

Thank you!

[3 of 7]

Interesting, the flash locked up on my ST3500320AS and scared the crap outa me, it booted just fine though, still SD15 and it didn't work on the other drive at all, kept saying it expected ST31000340AS and that's what the drive is....
Not very impressed I might say.

[thenewguy001]

I just got home so I haven't tried it yet, but the reports out so far are that the updates don't work for anybody... this just keeps getting worse and worse. I'm going to wait until they release another fix and reports of success before I muck around with my equipment