Seagate 1TB drives Failing

[Midknyte]

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...200-11-failing

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.

[Sterling_Aug]

I hate Seagate drives with a passion.

[Midknyte]

I just bought a velociraptor, so I'm not shopping for storage ATM. Merry Xmas to me.

If anyone is looking for alternatives, the WD 2TB drives should be coming out soon.

[Midknyte]

The problem seems to be related to Thailand SD15 firmware 1TB and 1.5TB drives.

SD1A firmware for the 1TB and 1.5TB drives
http://files.hddguru.com/download/Fi...dates/Seagate/

[Midknyte]

If you have one of these drives, please check out the seagate KB article below:

Barracuda 7200.11
DiamondMax 22
Barracuda ES.2 SATA
SV35

Seagate has isolated a potential firmware issue in certain products, including some Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives and related drive families based on this product platform, manufactured through December 2008. In some circumstances, the data on the hard drives may become inaccessible to the user when the host system is powered on*.

As part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, we are offering a free firmware upgrade to those with affected products. To determine whether your product is affected, please visit the Seagate Support web site at http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931.

Support is also available through Seagate's call center: 1-800-SEAGATE (1 800 732-4283)

Customers can expedite assistance by sending an email to Seagate (discsupport@seagate.com). Please include the following disk drive information: model number, serial number and current firmware revision. We will respond, promptly, to your email request with appropriate instructions. There is no data loss associated with this issue, and the data still resides on the drive. 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.

For a list of international telephone numbers to Seagate Support and alternative methods of contact, please access http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/

*There is no safety issue with these products.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Sometimes it is just good not to be on the bleeding edge (though I might make an exception for a Velociraptor).
Good info Midknyte.

[Midknyte]

I just bought a velociraptor, so I'm not shopping for storage ATM. Merry Xmas to me.

The Velo is pretty sweet. Almost silent compared to my old Raptor 74. I think my case fans are louder.

Back to the topic at hand. You may also want to check out your Seagate, Maxtor and other external drives. I've heard a couple reports about FreeAgent drives failing. I haven't seen confirmation if that's due to firmware or not yet.

[willyb21]

I wish I had waited 1 more day to RMA my ST3500320AS, sent it in on the 12th. I would have used their Data recovery service. I had just purchased this in Nov. and Partitioned it into 3 drives. I was able to recover everything off the 2 Data Drives and the only thing I really lost was the Database for my Movie collection. Seagate received my Drive on Friday so hopefully I get a "good" replacement soon.

[Midknyte]

For those of you still following, beware of flashing your 500GB drives with the SD1A firmware. There are reports that the new firmware is bricking drives.

Seagate's Update Bricking Working HDDs

Does the SD1A break 500GB cudas?

[Ol'Tunzafun]

I notice that the warranty on these new Barracuda 7200 drives has dropped from 5 years to 3 years, effective Jan 3, 2009.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/sup...rranty_matrix/

[docusk]

Wow. I just popped in to see if anyone else had had the blasted fault on the Seagate 500 Gigabyte SATA II HDs.
Huh. even the new style ones seem to be failing. Heaven knows when the replacement drives will get through. Mine spent 3 weeks at the Mender factory (my friend's office/workshop)but came up trumps with every last byte on an external USB HDD. all better now (on a Western Digital same spec) and I haven't decided what to do with the replacement when it gets here.

docusk