Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing

[Steve R Jones]

SEAGATE'S FLAGSHIP desktop Barracuda 7200.11 drives, in particular the 1TB (ST31000340AS) units, are failing at an alarming rate and prompting outrage from their faithful customers.

Continued

Ouch. Hate it when things like this happen

[jdc2000]

Thanks for the info. I have several of the new 7200.11 drives that I have not yet put into use. Time to locate the firmware update and get them updated before using them.

[SuperSparks]

Yes, thanks for that Steve. It is a timely warning in my case, as I was planning on getting a 1TB or 1.5TB drive in the very near future too.

It's unusual for Seagate, I normally find them extremely reliable

[Train]

Seems there is a firmware problem.
Link to the update.

http://files.hddguru.com/download/Fi...dates/Seagate/

[jdc2000]

I'll be trying the update later this week on some new 1TB drives I just got for a Windows Home Server. I'll let you know how that goes.

[fink]

My Seagate B'cuda is a 7200.10 fortunately.

[Train]

Welcome, Seagate hard drive owners. A number of Seagate hard drives from the following families may fail when the host system is powered on:

Barracuda 7200.11
DiamondMax 22
Barracuda ES.2 SATA
SV35

More on that . . .

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931

[Ridgerunr]

Thanks for the heads-up Train...

[Train]

Seagate's Update Bricking Working HDDs
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sea...date,6867.html

Forum
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/...cending&page=1

[jdc2000]

Nice. I'm glad I didn't have time to apply the update last weekend.

[Train]

I can see why.

[SuperSparks]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01..._and_recovery/

[rgarr]

Thanks to all of you! I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1 Terabyte HD that I got from Directron in Oct. It is a ST31000340AS, SER.# 9QJ1528Y, Revision SD15.

I built this PC and so far I haven't had any trouble with the HD, however, today I went ahead and burned an ISO Image to CD for my specific drive listed above. (as you know Tomshardware and others say that the breakdown occurred only in Dec. involving Thailand).

Seagate , of course, won't get back to me after I filed an incident report...the technical chat people skirt around the topic...and tecnical phone service won't touch the subject only saying that they are looking into it. What a deal huh!!!

This is not only a timely tread but it is as about as well informed as you can find.

[rgarr]

I would be very careful and cautious about any new Firmware Updates for the Users of 1 TB (ST31000340AS) and 750 GB (ST3750330AS) drives are reporting successful updates. However, while the firmware is not available for download, anyone who wants to update will have to wait. Remember that only drives which have not already locked up can be updated with the new firmware.

Who are these users reporting successful updates and where can you find their reports. I would wait until there is more positive feedback from Seagate...who remains pretty silent so far...and others who can really verify their specific Firmware updates are working IMO. YMMV!







After updating to version SD1A, read errors occur preventing users from accessing their data. Fortunately, the failing drives are still detected by the BIOS and therefore updates to the firmware are still possible, unlike the previous SD15 version which locked out the drive.


One user who contacted Seagate customer support was told that only drives manufactured in December need to be updated, and their drive, manufactured in October, failed after update because of this. No indication is given on the knowledge base article that the date of manufacture was important, only a list of affected models and firmware. The user was also told to revert to version AD14 for the time being, which has temporarily fixed some people's drives.


Users of 1 TB (ST31000340AS) and 750 GB (ST3750330AS) drives are reporting successful updates. However, while the firmware is not available for download, anyone who wants to update will have to wait. Remember that only drives which have not already locked up can be updated with the new firmware.


Seagate was not available for comment at present time of posting. Stay tuned.

[jdc2000]

Update:

According to Seagate's drive model and serial number identification tools, my two new 1 Terabyte drives are affected. I thought they would be. I am now attempting to download the latest version of their firmware update.