# SEAGATE/MAXTOR hard drives... IMPORTANT NOTICE



## CoriBright

Seagate have identified a critical problem in their hard drives which may cause failure.
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

New firmware is... pending!

Since I own 15 Seagate/Maxtor hard drives, I'm pulling my hair out right now, I have already had one go down at just four months old.

Use the Drive Detect tool to identify the serial numbers of any of these drives you use and contact Seagate Customer Support. Do NOT turn off the PC(s) in question. If you have WD/Hitachi other makes, backup your data on the affected drives ASAP. There is NO SMART warning before they stop working (in fact SMART is not even triggered).


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## houskamp

wonder if this affects DVRs?


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## xIsamuTM

awe man don't tell me this. I just bought a seagate HD... I don't need more computer problems, I really don't.


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## Doug Brott

Nice .. I'm pretty sure I've already been bitten by this bug .. switched to WD last week and lost 3 months of data ..


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## dettxw

I'm not turning off the desktop until I get a firmware fix. 

Of course Windows might decide to lock up in the mean time and give me no choice.


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## Mark Holtz

Oh :ramblinon ! I've just replaced my backup drive where I store my Ghost images from a Maxtor 250GB IDE to a Seagate 1 TB drive, and it is one of the drive models listed. I still have to run a check on my 750GB Seagate that I just placed online last week to see if it is a affected drive as well.

The firmware appears to be posted.


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## HDJulie

Hmm, I made the switch to Seagate drives 2 years ago so every one in my family has at least one but the site says only those drives made last month, so I guess I'm ok. However, my husband's Seagate drive crapped out a few weeks ago. Luckily, the data was still there & we were able to put his files from him once he was up on another hard drive. I won't use Seagate again.


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## BattleZone

Overall, Seagates have been the best hard drives made, and I've been using them since the very famous Seagate ST-251. Anyone remember that bad boy?


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## Grentz

Its just the new drives guys, only the ones made in the last month or so, not really a huge concern overall for most users.

I use a lot of Seagate drives, but none are from the last 2 months or so.


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## Mark Holtz

Right now, I am up to two affected drives. My 1TB drive is a ST31000333AS, and so far, no patch is available. My 750GB ST3750330AS, however, had the SD15 firmware, and needed to be updated to SD1A firmware. Still checking my other drives.

ACKKK! The firmware was just taken offline, just after I flashed the drive. Grrr....


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## Grentz

Mark Holtz said:


> Right now, I am up to two affected drives. My 1TB drive is a ST31000333AS, and so far, no patch is available. My 750GB ST3750330AS, however, had the SD15 firmware, and needed to be updated to SD1A firmware. Still checking my other drives.
> 
> ACKKK! The firmware was just taken offline, just after I flashed the drive. Grrr....


Are they from Dec 08? Seagate says it is just those drives from Dec 08 that have the problem (so I would not worry much and then just update once the files are back online if you have drives manufactured before that).



> Seagate has isolated this issue to a firmware bug affecting drives from these families manufactured in *December 2008.*


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## Mark Holtz

Grentz said:


> Are they from Dec 08? Seagate says it is just those drives from Dec 08 that have the problem (so I would not worry much and then just update once the files are back online if you have drives manufactured before that).


I can't tell with the 1 TB drive since I pulled both power and SATA connection and it's inside the case. However, my 750GB hard drive is in a cartridge and has a date code of 08523.


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## Grentz

Well since Dec. was just last month, I meant more did you just buy them very recently? (even then they could have been from before Dec. as stores usually do not have stock that is BRAND new off the line).

EDIT: Your date code 08523 seems to indicate it was manufactured 2008 June 23rd.

http://www.bugaco.com/calculators/seagate_date_code.php


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## CoriBright

I would consider any drive with the SD15 firmware as suspect. If you check the Seagate forums, December 8th appears to be the date Seagate identified the issue and started work on new firmware. Drives manufactured in Thailand seem to be the worst offenders, other manufacturing sites include Singapore and China, but these drives seem less likely to die. 

Why they pulled the firmware they just released today I have no idea.


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## cmtar

Is this drives some have put in there dvr or drives in the D* boxes?


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## PokerJoker

I have (in a PC) a Maxtor version of the 1TB ST31000340AS, which is listed on their website as an affected model.

So, I downloaded the firmware ISO, burned a CD, did a complete backup, and booted from the CD to try to update the drive.

The program found the drive but wouldn't update it - claiming the drive was "not Seagate" even though the web site specifically mentioned the Maxtor drive. :bang

They better get their s#[email protected] together soon. Whatever good name they had is going down the tubes fast.

Keith


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## CopyCat

Sounds like the old sticktion problem is back, heads stick to the platters when spun down and stopped.


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## Deke Rivers

i woudlnt buy an hard drive other than Western Digital..I see more Maxtors and Seagtes fail in the 30 years Ive been in IT than any other brand


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## sorahl

this is the 1.5 TB issue that has been floating around for a couple months now.
and from what i've been able to determine it is centered on using those 1.5 TB barracuda drives in a RAID array. I have not found any reliable reports of failures when using these drives as solo stand alone (not in a RAID setup).

John


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## pbg

Thanks for posting this. I have 3 of the 1TB's ST310000340NS which are on the list.

What I don't understand or see, is after it's been determined that the model is affected, where do lookup the disk's serial number to see if its truly bad?


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## turey22

I cant see the seagate website but is there certain models affected?


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## Grentz

Deke Rivers said:


> i woudlnt buy an hard drive other than Western Digital..I see more Maxtors and Seagtes fail in the 30 years Ive been in IT than any other brand


Honestly, I have seen just as many failures between Seagate and WD, with WD leading the way for most failures in their budget line between the two (company I worked for sold 100,000s of drives a year in machines). Both are about equal, but Seagates tend to be more reliable with their popular middle of the line models..

Maxtor is a little worse
and finally Samsung, Hitachi, Fujitsu are all much worse in my experience as far as failures go.


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## dbstv

Darn it 2 out of my 5 tb drives are affect my this


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## Mark Holtz

pbg said:


> Thanks for posting this. I have 3 of the 1TB's ST310000340NS which are on the list.
> 
> What I don't understand or see, is after it's been determined that the model is affected, where do lookup the disk's serial number to see if its truly bad?


You don't look it up by the serial number, you look it up by the firmware revision, then comparing it with the notes from the Seagate/Maxtor site.

As for hard drive recommendations.... :whatdidid. I've usually purchased drives for their long warranties, and not according to the brand names. I've had Western Digitals, Seagates, Maxtors, and Samsungs in my equipment. During that time, I did have one Samsung develop lost sectors, and was easily swapped. In fact, this is my first time that I had to update the firmware of a hard drive, and I am surprised that Seagate would let this happen. They have a PR disaster in the making. Lets hope it doesn't turn out larger than the DeathStar.

(Hint: with drives so cheap.... makeabackup.....)


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## CoriBright

I just found another drive today, thankfully it's not an SD15 firmware. The only drive I do have that's as dead as they come is.... hahaha a Western Digital! I'm pretty sure I have another couple of Maxtors somewhere, lost in the move. However they are all PATA drives and my SD15's are all SATA ll drives, so just four to be updated.

The firmware was apparently uploaded early this morning while we were mostly all watching the events in D.C. but was pulled shortly afterwards when they found it didn't quite do what it was intended to. Do they not have testers to beta this stuff? Ho hum, so still we wait, whilst keeping fingers and paws crossed for the best!

Only one of the drives is currently in my desktop. The other two are doing nothing and are blank, the fourth is already affected by whatever it was that caused the issue in the first place. It's seen by the BIOS, but Seatools says it has nothing on it. Disk Management can't initialize it.


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## dervari

IIP said:


> Overall, Seagates have been the best hard drives made, and I've been using them since the very famous Seagate ST-251. Anyone remember that bad boy?


I can do you one better. The old ST225 20MB MFM drive with a conroller cable and separate data cable. Interleave was sometimes 2:1 or 3:1 because the drives and controllers weren't fast enough to read one cylinder per rotation. The 225 had a 3:1 inteleave if I remember correctly.

Remember the MFM vs RLL debate?


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## dervari

CopyCat said:


> Sounds like the old sticktion problem is back, heads stick to the platters when spun down and stopped.


I was a poor college student and had this problem with my ST225 or ST138...can't remember which. I would leave my PC on, but on the chance that it would power off long enough to cause it to stick, I'd take a pair of needle nose pliers and move the spindle (which stuck out through the PC board) a little bit and all would be well again.


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## sfmartin

Note that the update file was taken offline for validation a year ago.
(January 19, *2008*).


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## dbstv

That i could not agree with more

(Hint: with drives so cheap.... makeabackup.....)[/QUOTE]


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## lpmiller

Deke Rivers said:


> i woudlnt buy an hard drive other than Western Digital..I see more Maxtors and Seagtes fail in the 30 years Ive been in IT than any other brand


that's why anecdotal evidence is pointless. Because I've seen the exact opposite in 20 years time.

Hard drives are very sensitive components all on their own, and failure isn't always due to a manufacturing problem. Personally, having dealt with warranty claims from every single hard drive maker there is....Seagate does warranty the best. But there is no such animal as the "better" hardrive.


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## sorahl

agreed
how many people blast WD and I have 15 WD drives in my house right now. It's why i'm so loathe to buy a seagate 1.5TB but I really want the 1.5TB drive! <grin>


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## gully_foyle

Grentz said:


> Are they from Dec 08? Seagate says it is just those drives from Dec 08 that have the problem (so I would not worry much and then just update once the files are back online if you have drives manufactured before that).


Well their site now says:


> Seagate has isolated this issue to a firmware bug affecting drives from these families manufactured through December 2008.


Note the words "THROUGH December" which means "up to and including December" to me.


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## gully_foyle

lpmiller said:


> that's why anecdotal evidence is pointless. Because I've seen the exact opposite in 20 years time.


The plural of anecdote is _not_ "data."


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## Mark Holtz

sorahl said:


> It's why i'm so loathe to buy a seagate 1.5TB but I really want the 1.5TB drive! <grin>


I will admit that I was severely tempted to get the 1.5GB hard drive, but considering that there is only one supplier of the drive at that capacity....


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## Grentz

kcmurphy88 said:


> Well their site now says:Note the words "THROUGH December" which means "up to and including December" to me.


Glad they changed it if that is the case. Before it just said in.


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## pbg

Mark Holtz said:


> You don't look it up by the serial number, you look it up by the firmware revision, then comparing it with the notes from the Seagate/Maxtor site.
> 
> As for hard drive recommendations.... :whatdidid. I've usually purchased drives for their long warranties, and not according to the brand names. I've had Western Digitals, Seagates, Maxtors, and Samsungs in my equipment. During that time, I did have one Samsung develop lost sectors, and was easily swapped. In fact, this is my first time that I had to update the firmware of a hard drive, and I am surprised that Seagate would let this happen. They have a PR disaster in the making. Lets hope it doesn't turn out larger than the DeathStar.
> 
> (Hint: with drives so cheap.... makeabackup.....)


duh, I guess that makes sense. Sort of a drag. Mine are configured in a RAID in a Linux box. I think I need to take them out and stick them in a PC to run the utility get the firmware version - Agreed on the backup. All my stuff is, (of course on Seagate UBS drives) but the first line of defense is the RAID - guess it doesn't do you a lot of good if all the drives go at the same time :lol:

Maybe the lesson is, don't buy all the same drives....


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## ccr1958

CoriBright said:


> Seagate have identified a critical problem in their hard drives which may cause failure.
> http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931
> 
> New firmware is... pending!
> 
> Since I own 15 Seagate/Maxtor hard drives, I'm pulling my hair out right now, I have already had one go down at just four months old.
> 
> Use the Drive Detect tool to identify the serial numbers of any of these drives you use and contact Seagate Customer Support. Do NOT turn off the PC(s) in question. If you have WD/Hitachi other makes, backup your data on the affected drives ASAP. There is NO SMART warning before they stop working (in fact SMART is not even triggered).


thanks for the info...i have one of the affected model & firmware drives...
it is not my operating drive...it is for data storage...so i await the update...


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## Mark Holtz

Look at this thread from Google News. Either we have a tempest in a teapot, or a very bad situation. I'm also looking at a thread on MSFN, and it has it 46 pages since the beginning of January.

I have looked over the reviews of NewEgg also, and ai yi yi, huge amounts of 1-egg reviews from these drives also.

As stated previously, my 1 TB drive has been completely disconnected from my computer, but still remains in the case. My 750GB hard drive is in a cartridge flashed to the SD1A firmware, but I'm not plugging it in until the firmware is validated and updated and several other people have tested it. I can lose my 750GB hard drive without too many issues. I can NOT lose my 1 TB drive.

What surprises me is that Seagate has NOT issued a "remove all stock, DO NOT SELL" order to the retailers and recalled all unsold stock back to the manufacturers.


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## Deke Rivers

Grentz said:


> Honestly, I have seen just as many failures between Seagate and WD, with WD leading the way for most failures in their budget line between the two (company I worked for sold 100,000s of drives a year in machines). Both are about equal, but Seagates tend to be more reliable with their popular middle of the line models..
> 
> Maxtor is a little worse
> and finally Samsung, Hitachi, Fujitsu are all much worse in my experience as far as failures go.


just going by what ive seen...others mileage may vary


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## Deke Rivers

lpmiller said:


> that's why anecdotal evidence is pointless. Because I've seen the exact opposite in 20 years time.
> 
> Hard drives are very sensitive components all on their own, and failure isn't always due to a manufacturing problem. Personally, having dealt with warranty claims from every single hard drive maker there is....Seagate does warranty the best. But there is no such animal as the "better" hardrive.


I dont think i used the word "better" in my post..again im just stating my preference and why and what brands ive seen fail more..."pointless" as it may be to you.
I never said WD NEVER fails but in my experience they are more reliable than others in my experience & opinion..no one drive is fail safe and i never stated that..

the best part is you say anecdotal evidence is pointless then in the same breath do the same by stating "Seagate does warranty the best. ":scratch:


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## AlbertZeroK

sorahl said:


> this is the 1.5 TB issue that has been floating around for a couple months now.
> and from what i've been able to determine it is centered on using those 1.5 TB barracuda drives in a RAID array. I have not found any reliable reports of failures when using these drives as solo stand alone (not in a RAID setup).
> 
> John


I've been using 1.5TB drives for some time. I have 22 in the office. two software RAID 5 Arrays (under vista ultimate) of 8 drives, 3 in my HP home server and 3 in a machine for raw space for working with large files. Now the RAID takes about 10 to 15 seconds to come up if it's been asleep as compared to my old RAID 5 Array which has 8 750G ES.2 drives and came up in about 6 seconds, but for the space, I think it's worth the trade off.

For the record, all my 1.5TB drives run the latest firmware and are not effected by this bug.


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## xIsamuTM

I hope mine lasts long enough to get a new dvd burner so i back up what little i managed to salvage from the old HD and barely readable discs. please, digital gods, let my hard drive not die...


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## smiddy

Thanks, I'm near certain I have one of those drives and I could no get to the data. Mrs. Smiddy will be happy to get her data back, if her drive was one of these. I need to checkk it when I get back from business travel.


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## Mark Holtz

According to this article, we can expect new firmware within 24 hours.

Also, a very unauthenticated story of what is happening at Seagate. Go figure.


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## Mark Holtz

We have firmware for the following:
ST3500320AS, ST3500620AS, ST3500820AS (500GB)
ST3750330AS, ST3750630AS (750GB)
ST31000340AS (1 TB)
The firmware is available to download from Seagate. Please follow the instructions closely, and unplug any other drives.

If you have either ST3640330AS or ST3640530AS (640GB), you will need to contact Seagate disk support.

Also, the master article has a few more models listed.

Since the firmware update is only available for one of my drives, I will wait until the upgrade is availalbe for my other drive, then add 10 days for the shakeout.


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## ccr1958

Mark Holtz said:


> We have firmware for the following:
> ST3500320AS, ST3500620AS, ST3500820AS (500GB)
> ST3750330AS, ST3750630AS (750GB)
> ST31000340AS (1 TB)
> The firmware is available to download from Seagate. Please follow the instructions closely, and unplug any other drives.
> 
> If you have either ST3640330AS or ST3640530AS (640GB), you will need to contact Seagate disk support.
> 
> Also, the master article has a few more models listed.
> 
> Since the firmware update is only available for one of my drives, I will wait until the upgrade is availalbe for my other drive, then add 10 days for the shakeout.


ok...thanks...FWIW..the iso needs a blank CD...won't burn to a blank DVD..
naturally i can't find a blank CD in the house...


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## dbstv

Thank you so much I burnt it to a cd and updated my 2 ST31000340AS the new firmware is now SD1A



Mark Holtz said:


> We have firmware for the following:
> ST3500320AS, ST3500620AS, ST3500820AS (500GB)
> ST3750330AS, ST3750630AS (750GB)
> ST31000340AS (1 TB)
> The firmware is available to download from Seagate. Please follow the instructions closely, and unplug any other drives.
> 
> If you have either ST3640330AS or ST3640530AS (640GB), you will need to contact Seagate disk support.
> 
> Also, the master article has a few more models listed.
> 
> Since the firmware update is only available for one of my drives, I will wait until the upgrade is availalbe for my other drive, then add 10 days for the shakeout.


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## jefbal99

Damn I got scared reading this, but my model is ST35006*3*0AS.

I should be good


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## lpmiller

Deke Rivers said:


> I dont think i used the word "better" in my post..again im just stating my preference and why and what brands ive seen fail more..."pointless" as it may be to you.
> I never said WD NEVER fails but in my experience they are more reliable than others in my experience & opinion..no one drive is fail safe and i never stated that..
> 
> the best part is you say anecdotal evidence is pointless then in the same breath do the same by stating "Seagate does warranty the best. ":scratch:


true, what i said is just as anecdotal. I will say I've warrantied oh, a billion drives (over exaggeration) and I have the least problem with Seagate. Western Digital isn't terrible, but for some models requires a bit more hoop jumping.

As far as durability goes, they've all been about the same. I've seen bad drives from everyone from Hitachi, Fujitsu, Samsung, Seagate, WD, Maxtor.


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## lpmiller

kcmurphy88 said:


> The plural of anecdote is _not_ "data."


It's a good thing, then, that I didn't' say that.


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## alancurry

dervari said:


> I can do you one better. The old ST225 20MB MFM drive with a conroller cable and separate data cable. Interleave was sometimes 2:1 or 3:1 because the drives and controllers weren't fast enough to read one cylinder per rotation. The 225 had a 3:1 inteleave if I remember correctly.
> 
> Remember the MFM vs RLL debate?


My first was a ST-506. My second was a ST-238R.

Alan


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## afulkerson

Hard drive died in my wife's computer and I just replaced it with a 

STM31000340AS drive. 

Just my luck I have one of the bad ones, however it is still working so will keep my fingers crossed. !danger:


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## TBoneit

IIP said:


> Overall, Seagates have been the best hard drives made, and I've been using them since the very famous Seagate ST-251. Anyone remember that bad boy?


My first two hard drives were ST225s, MFM & a whopping 20 Megabytes each. They never seemed to fill up even running the BBS on them. So yes I remember the ST251. I seem to remember they were 30 Meg?

Cheers


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## RedChef

It looks like Seagate has re-released the firmware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-hard-drive-firmware-bricked,6889.html


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## rcbridge

Already had one die on me lost a lot of programming but they were pretty good about replacing it quickly.


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## CJTE

Oh gheez.

Atleast now they're making a public statement.
For those of you who didn't know, I apologize in advance for any stress this may cause you.


FWIW, Anyone using a Seagate/Maxtor (Especially if its Maxtor branded!), back up your data IMMEDIATLY. Data backup is pertinent but even more so (imo) with Maxtor drives, and since Seagate owns Maxtor... Ive lost trust in any products they make either.

I recommend Western Digital. Personal loss comparison is 3 WD's within 45 Maxtors over a period of 5 years.


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## Mark Holtz

Thumpet sound..... more firmware updates released!

Firmware update is now available for the following Barracuda 7200.11 drives:
ST31500341AS (1.5TB)
ST31000333AS (1.0 TB)
ST3640323AS, ST3640623AS (640 GB)
ST3320613AS, ST3320613AS (320 GB)
ST3160813AS (160 GB)
Download the updated firmware here.

If you have one of the following Barracuda ES.2 SATA drives:
ST3250310NS (250 GB)
ST3500320NS (500 GB)
ST3750330NS (750 GB)
ST31000340NS (1.0 TB)
SN06 is the latest firmware according to this article, and you will need to e-mail Seagate for a update.


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## CoriBright

Even after a week, I'm still waiting for the update to the ES.2 drive, but the others are done... one is still a brick and has gone back to Seagate. I somehow doubt they'll recover the data from it but one can only hope.


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## RandCfilm

Doug Brott said:


> Nice .. I'm pretty sure I've already been bitten by this bug .. switched to WD last week and lost 3 months of data ..


Two of my units got bitten early November. My unit had well over 200 hours of recordings, the wifes not nearly as much. Most of her shows were available on the HR10-250 so I didn't get :bonk1: too much, even though I did not cause it. If it had to happen, I wish it would have been now, just would have had to wait for them to retrieve the data and send it back.


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## Mark Holtz

Here's a nice little chart showing hard drive prices. It's nice to know that once upon a time, a drive cost $233 per MB.


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## Gone2Maui

I updated the firmware on my ST31500341AS (1.5TB). All the data was lost. Luckily this wasn't a drive in my DVR but rather my PC.


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## hdtvfan0001

I just picked up a Seagate 1TB ST310005N1A1AS-RK at Best Buy for the $99 sale price this week - its not on the list....

I have been using Seagates now on 6 different PCs and 3 HD DVRs over the past 10 years, with not one single problem...so I'm sticking with em'.


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## gnahc79

Going back any more than 10 yrs to examine quality of a particular HDD manufacturer is pointless IMO. The HDD market has changed lots in the past 10 yrs or so, both technology and business. Hitachi bought IBM HDD (10 min from where I live/work), I thought I heard a company was going to buy Hitachi's HDD business unit. Crap, a few years ago I could barely keep up with which company was buying out which other company .

The major brands are all the same IMO for basic usage. I had a Seagate, Maxtor and WD die on me in the past 15 yrs or so. Right now I have a WD in our PC with a HDD fan, which hopefully will keep it running solid. So far so good.


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## Mark Holtz

Here is the leaked memo regarding the Seagate "Boot Of Death".


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## hdtvfan0001

gnahc79 said:


> Going back any more than 10 yrs to examine quality of a particular HDD manufacturer is pointless IMO.


Not when you're talking about 6 concurrent PCs running them overlapping within that span of time, and ranging from 1 to 6 years of age....proven technology is only proven over time.


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## gnahc79

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Not when you're talking about 6 concurrent PCs running them overlapping within that span of time, and ranging from 1 to 6 years of age....proven technology is only proven over time.


I agree, the problem is the technology has been changing a lot as well as the business. The problem is assuming a brand's quality is the same now as it was 10 years ago. If a particular build of a hard drive from a specific manufacturer has been running great for 6 years, then go get the SAME type now. Just because a particular hard drive lasted 6 yrs doesn't mean the latest hard drive from that manufacturer will last just as long. Technology for disk storage has been changing so fast that for me each significant advance 'resets' my trust in a particular HDD's reliability. Add to that buyouts, moving of manufacturing, cost-cutting, etc. from the business end. A new HDD likely has zero similarities (both tech and QA) compared to a previous HDD from 2 yrs ago.


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## hdtvfan0001

gnahc79 said:


> I agree, the problem is the technology has been changing a lot as well as the business. ....A new HDD likely has zero similarities (both tech and QA) compared to a previous HDD from 2 yrs ago.


Agree with your views....but I also think that having some faith in products based on a proven history of innovation, delivery, and reliability of products improves the probablilty of future satisfaction - not a guarantee by any means - just better odds.

At the end of it all - a hard disk is a mechanical device, certainly a candidate for mechanical failure.

For that reason, once I learned the work Computer...the very next word I learned was "backup".


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## Mark Holtz

Ah, but how many people listen to you when you use the "B" word?

I used to be the sole IT person at a small machine shop. Even when we had a backup drive and a procedure in place, I ended up being the ONLY person making backups. Since the amount of data that had to be backed up exceeded one tape, it had to be babysat. The boss thought it was a grand waste of time. No matter how many "human hours" to recreate the data, or how much it cost to do a data recovery. At least the accounting person understood (Partially) why she carried an accounting disk home at night.

I have even installed SyncToy on my computer to back up my USB drive because they're so easily to lose.

At work, yes, I did lose a hard drive on my primary box. Do you know how much crying I did about lost data? NONE! I followed the procedures and had saved the data on a shared network drive per IT policy. Did I have to reinstall and reconfigure my programs? Yes.

What just annoys me is that my 1 TB drive IS my backup drive. Now, what I have to do is delete some non-essential stuff off it, Ghost the contents of my Leisure drive to the 1 TB drive as Ghost files, then turn around and Ghost the contents of the 1 TB drive onto the 750 GB hard drive, then apply the firmware patch. Royal PITA.

Next stop (grumble grumble), get a WD 1 TB drive and a cartridge and backup the contents from the primary backup drive to the secondary backup drive. Right now, reliability for Seagate for my backup drive just dropped several notches.


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## dlethe

Seagate just let their big OEMs know specifics of the problem under NDA, and this is the real story. Bottom line, it is not a huge problem because the disks had to have been tested on certain hardware that left junk in reserved areas .. .AND the disk has to be powered down with a certain value in a counter. Long story, but details at 

storagesecrets.org/2009/01/seagate-boot-death-analysis-overhyped-fud/


There is also link to seagate's 24x7 disk tech support center


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## Mark Holtz

hdtvfan0001 said:


> I just picked up a Seagate 1TB ST310005N1A1AS-RK at Best Buy for the $99 sale price this week - its not on the list....


Are you *SURE* about that? My box also said "ST310005N1A1AS", but the DriveDetect utility said it was a ST31000333AS. The -RK is short for "Retail Kit". I've attached scans of the package.

And, mind you, both the 1TB and 750GB drive were purchased during the month of January.


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## hdtvfan0001

Mark Holtz said:


> Are you *SURE* about that? My box also said "ST310005N1A1AS", but the DriveDetect utility said it was a ST31000333AS. The -RK is short for "Retail Kit". I've attached scans of the package.
> 
> And, mind you, both the 1TB and 750GB drive were purchased during the month of January.


Thanks for adding that excellent point...yes...the number on the drive tag label on the drive itself *is *on the list, but in doing the serial number check on my particular drive, it indicates the update is *not* needed.

The serial check is the final determining information....*so everyone with drive numbers on the list should make sure and run the serial number check utility as well, before doing any firmware update*....


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## Mark Holtz

Slight problem.... the serial number utility has been inaccurate. There are folks who had problems drives, but the serial number lookup says "No problem". You are best to look at the firmware version.


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## hdtvfan0001

Mark Holtz said:


> Slight problem.... the serial number utility has been inaccurate. There are folks who had problems drives, but the serial number lookup says "No problem". You are best to look at the firmware version.


Good suggestion....pays to be safe/certain...


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## quarky42

I was able to update my 1TB drive's firmware without any problems.

I wish Seagate would have provided firmware flashing support via USB/SATA adapter as that would have been much more convenient than having to use my mini server's external sata connection, but c'est la vi.

Thankfully I was not bitten by the bug before being able to apply the latest firmware update.


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## Mark Holtz

Annoyed now...

Right now, I am waiting for NewEgg to get the 1TB WD Black Drives back in stock so that I can have a secondary backup drive. However, it has been Out Of Stock since Monday.  And no mention of the 1.5 TB or 2 TB drives that were just announced.


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## Mark Holtz

Mark Holtz said:


> I can't tell with the 1 TB drive since I pulled both power and SATA connection and it's inside the case. However, my 750GB hard drive is in a cartridge and has a date code of 08523.


Since the case is now open, I can get the date code of the 1 TB drive which is 09117. That happens to correspond 2008 September 19th... hey, that's two days after my real birthday.

The backup will be commencing later on this evening. AND, I now have 8 GB of RAM, and the floppy has been removed.


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## Mark Holtz

Sigh.... I did the backup, but somehow, the firmware upgrade did NOT take on the 1 TB. I'm still at SD35. (great) 

Oh well, I have a backup.


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## psweig

Deke Rivers said:


> i woudlnt buy an hard drive other than Western Digital..I see more Maxtors and Seagtes fail in the 30 years Ive been in IT than any other brand


+1. 25 years of hard drives.


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## Maui

My TB seems to be working fine.


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## djrobx

IIP said:


> Overall, Seagates have been the best hard drives made, and I've been using them since the very famous Seagate ST-251. Anyone remember that bad boy?


I had a ST238R - RLL certified baby! 30 whopping megabytes of storage. It's scary to think that my currrent hard drive can move that much information in less than a second.

All hard drive manufacturers go through some ups and downs. The Seagate 400GB IDE drives are god awful. I've been through countless replacements (they're probably hating on the 5 year warranty they came with).

I'm amused that Seagate stopped asking for a failure code on an RMA.

I never had good luck with Maxtor drives. Quantum drives were good but the bearings always seemed to wear out and they'd become screamers.

Western Digital drives have been good to me lately but I remember some crap periods for those too.


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