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PC Gamers: Seagate Hard Disk Firmware Problems Acknowledged

Schrade

Schrade

Member
I posted this in another thread but I think this deserves it's own thread before someone's drive fails.

Basically, many Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives have firmwares that may make it so the drive fails on bootup. Once that happens you can't fix the firmware on the drive.

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

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-7200-11-failing,6844.html
Updated: Seagate Barracuda 1TB Drives Biting The Dust

12:40 PM - January 15, 2009 by Gavin Steacy
Source: Tom's Hardware US – Category : Internal Storage

In the wake of freezing issues with Seagate's 1.5TB drives comes yet another problem with the Barracuda 7200.11 series. Failure rates of the 1TB drives in particular are abnormally high, but Seagate has not acknowledged the problem.

Now 11 pages long, the "official" problem discussion thread on the Seagate support forums is full of users reporting problems with the ST31000340AS, the 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 drive.

One user built a 6TB RAID array three months ago. In two months, one of the drives failed. A second drive failed about a month later, and a third eight days after that. Another user had four out of five of their drives fail within 12 days of purchase. Reports of failures can also be found on other forums as well. Some data recovery and RMA centers have reported failure rates of approximately 30 to 40 percent, but Seagate has not released any official information.

The issue lies with faulty microcode in firmware version SD15, found on drives manufactured in Thailand. Generally, the drive will operate normally until the time of failure and at some point will lock up and prevent detection by the BIOS, rendering it completely unusable.

While Seagate has not publicly acknowledged the problem as of yet, they have reportedly updated the firmware on all newly manufactured drives, however the firmware cannot be update on drives that have already failed because the BIOS does not even detect them. This means that owners of affected drives require data recovery services to save their critical data.

No recall on unsold drives with the affected firmware has been issued.

Update: Seagate has acknowledged the problem and is providing firmware updates through customer support. Additionally, if your hard drive has already failed, Seagate will provide free data recovery services, since the data is not actually affected.

For more information, visit this page.
Click to expand...

So to detect if your drive might be one of the problem drives, you need to run their Drive Detect program that gives you the Drive Name, Serial Number and Firmware Revision:
207921-1.jpg


35k1xdc.png
 
D

Davidion

Member
Everybody in the PC enthusiast community acknowledged the poor dependability of Seagate's recent drives, except Seagate.

I'm about to drop some money for a couple of drives; going with Western Digital's 640 giggers.
 
S

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
ZombieSupaStar said:
ive got 2 ST3640323AS with revision SD35? Have had no issues, I take it have to reflash it to be safe if I email them?
Click to expand...

Contact them asap. You wouldn't want to find your HD dead the next time you switched on your pc.
 
Z

ZombieSupaStar

Member
Dani said:
Contact them asap. You wouldn't want to find your HD dead the next time you switched on your pc.
Click to expand...

i did,

PS companies its annoying as fucking hell when u make a link called email and then make me register everything but my goddamn blood type just to send a message PROTIP use "a href="mailto:" u meally mouth botched abortions
 
L

larvi

Member
I bought one of the 1.5TBs and updated the firmware and so far no issues. Among my PATA drives I've found Seagates were the most reliable. It's Maxtors that I've had bite the dust a lot, but I guess Seagate owns them now so who knows.
 
G

GaryD

Member
Wow Seagate really dropping the ball here. They used to be #1 by a mile. Back when I was working in a PC shop I think I ever only replaced one or two seagate drives. Used to be all WD, Maxtor, Quantam etc.

WD have really come a long way from those days, now I have about 5 of their drives (inc 2xraptor raid 0) and havent had any problems yet.
 
RadAndrew502

RadAndrew502

Member
Wow, seagate is really slipping.

My first ever hard drive failure was a PAIR of seagates 3 years ago. Totally different models too. And now this.

Strange thing is, a WD drive has never failed on me.
 
R

ravenstorm

Member
larvi said:
I bought one of the 1.5TBs and updated the firmware and so far no issues. Among my PATA drives I've found Seagates were the most reliable. It's Maxtors that I've had bite the dust a lot, but I guess Seagate owns them now so who knows.
Click to expand...
I just bought 2 1.5TB drives, they have firmware CC1J. Is this the latest firmware or do I need to contact Seagate?
 
M

Mamesj

Banned
fuck, just bought one and its on there.

yeah, "simply" emailing them wasn't a clusterfuck at all. Thanks seagate. oh wow, and my email was bumped to "Self-service" status. what the fuck.
 
L

larvi

Member
ravenstorm said:
I just bought 2 1.5TB drives, they have firmware CC1J. Is this the latest firmware or do I need to contact Seagate?
Click to expand...

They sent me CC1H to fix the problem, since yours is later than that I would say you are fine.
 
Schrade

Schrade

Member
From the sound of things, the firmware update for the affected drives should be released around Tuesday. So if you currently have your system fired up with one of these drives in it, I'd recommend keeping it running until you're able to apply the firmware update.

I always leave my system running 24/7 so I'm not worried :)

Edit: Hmm I just noticed my microcode is SD35. Apparently that isn't a problem.. just the SD15 one that SIP YEK NOD has.
 
D

DJ GT-S

Banned
Oh wow, thanks man I've got a 7200.11 500 GB on SD15 myself! gasp! time to comit a few hundreds of gigs to DVD-R until this is sorted!
 
I

Igo

Member
I recently dropped WD to go with seagate for my two 1TB drives in my drobo because i've had numerous problems with WD drives in the past. As long as they don't both fail at the same time i'll be fine.
 
Z

Zyzyxxz

Member
Seagates are dropping in quality, I recently RMA'd one and I got back a 7200.10 drive and it failed when I tried to format it.

Hoping my next hard drive works well.

I'm never buying Seagates again though, I'm gonna stick with Western Digital.
 
P

Philanthropist

Banned
This is true. I had a SD14 drive fail on me as described above and I actually have to rely on a data recovery lab because I had valuable files in there. Also, the next drive I got was DOA.

I'm never going to trust Seagate again. I used to because my first HDD was Seagate and it still works 15 years later and with lots of use and abuse. Thank you, but never again.
 
C

codswallop

Member
Thanks GAF.

I've a 1x1TB and 1x1.5TB that showed up on the list. Such a shame too because I've never had a failed Seagate disk that's been less than 5-6 years old. Mine haven't failed yet and I never turn the machine they're in off (and all the data is backed up!) so let's hope there's no power outage until after I update the firmware...
 
T

TouchMyBox

Member
Fuck, that's in the same family as my 750GB seagate, it only affects the 1TB drives? (kinda funny, i just bought this drive and it was broken, so i had to exchange it for another one)

edit: according to this drivedetect it is affected, thanks for the warning op.

edit2: just to make sure, there is no way to download the firmware? I've gotta ask them for it?
 
S

Schwowsers

Member
Thanks for pointing this out. I bought one of these drives during a sale at Newegg for a new computer I plan on building in a few months. I'll have to put the drive in my mom's computer temporarily to make sure it's fixed and ready for when I need it.
 
I

IJoel

Member
Huh? Drive detect isn't detecting any drives for me (list shows empty), and I have a seagate drive listed in the table.
 
R

ravenstorm

Member
IJoel said:
Huh? Drive detect isn't detecting any drives for me (list shows empty), and I have a seagate drive listed in the table.
Click to expand...

Same thing occurred with me. Just open your case, the S/N and firmware are printed on the drive.
 
I

IJoel

Member
ravenstorm said:
Same thing occurred with me. Just open your case, the S/N and firmware are printed on the drive.
Click to expand...

I was trying to avoid that... Ah the extent to which laziness can go! :p

davidion said:
Just go to your drive in explorer and hit the properties and go to the hardware tab. Nothing?
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I did initially to check the model, but I didn't see the serial number.

I'll just open the case and write it down.

Thanks.
 
D

Davidion

Member
IJoel said:
Huh? Drive detect isn't detecting any drives for me (list shows empty), and I have a seagate drive listed in the table.
Click to expand...

Just go to your drive in explorer and hit the properties and go to the hardware tab. Nothing?
 
Schrade

Schrade

Member
IJoel said:
Huh? Drive detect isn't detecting any drives for me (list shows empty), and I have a seagate drive listed in the table.
Click to expand...
I just found that out on another machine I put together. It has a 500 GB drive and it shows up differently in the Device Manager.

To see the actual model name and what firmware it has go to the Device Manager, right click on the HD and then select Properties.

Go to the Details tab and set the drop down menu to "Hardware IDs"

You should then have the full real name of your drive and at the end of the string is the firmware.
 
P

Philanthropist

Banned
How should we contact Seagate to obtain the latest firmware? Their site is rather confusing and they don't even provide any email addresses even after signing up. It only seems to allow users to create a case and do some kind of self service.
 
S

Schwowsers

Member
Philanthropist said:
How should we contact Seagate to obtain the latest firmware? Their site is rather confusing and they don't even provide any email addresses even after signing up. It only seems to allow users to create a case and do some kind of self service.
Click to expand...

I just made a tech support case.
 
S

senahorse

Member
I once was an IBM only man, and then moved to Seagate for many years. However last year when I built a new PC and NAS I thought it was time to change again so I got a 640GB WD for my PC and 2 x 1TB WD Green Power drives for my NAS, looking at that list I am glad. I hope Seagate cane come through this and provide high quality reliable drives again, as I have never had a problem with one.
 
F

Fragamemnon

Member
I've had one of the troublesome 1.5TB drives in my system since they released the firmware flash for itt and haven't had any problems. Just looked at the diagnostics earlier this week and everything still looks great.

Granted, I keep good backups so I'm not constantly worried about my drives dying and leaving me hanging.
 
B

bkw

Member
Thanks for the heads up! I just installed one of these drives last weekend. Luckily I've only spun down the drive once since it was installed.
 
Y

Ysiadmihi

Banned
Phew, my hard drive isn't in there. Although I'm getting some bad stuttering when new textures and stuff load in games...wish I'd known about Seagate earlier.
 
C

CabbageRed

Member
Woops, one of my drives is listed (w/ SD04 revision). Thanks for the heads-up, Schrade.

That said, I've never had trouble with Seagate drives. Hopefully they get over this quickly as their drives have consistently worked best for me (although my first-gen Raptor deserves a shiney star for still working perfectly).
 
M

Mamesj

Banned
Philanthropist said:
How should we contact Seagate to obtain the latest firmware? Their site is rather confusing and they don't even provide any email addresses even after signing up. It only seems to allow users to create a case and do some kind of self service.
Click to expand...

go back to "My Cases" and there's a discreet button that says "Escalate My Case" on the bottom of the screen.
 
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