Friday February 10, 2012 12:23 PM AEST

Seagate fixes failing drives

By David Hollingworth
11:37 Jan 20, 2009 | 6 Comments
Tags: Seagate | fixes | failing | drives
Seagate fixes failing drives

Firmware found to be at fault, hard drive fix posted.

Following on from last week's story on drives turning into very fancy bricks, Seagate has made a statement and issued a fix to the 'potential' problem.

According to Seagate:

"A number of Seagate hard drives from the following families may become inaccessible when the host system is powered on:

Barracuda 7200.11
DiamondMax 22
Barracuda ES.2 SATA

Once a drive has become affected the data becomes inaccessible to users but the data is not deleted. Seagate has isolated this issue to a firmware bug affecting drives from these families manufactured in December 2008."


Well, that must be a relief to affected owners! There is a guide to fixing the issue, and the software necessary for the process, here.

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

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/133025,seagate-barracuda-720011-drives-failing.aspx
 
 
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6 Comments
Jeruselem
Jan 20, 2009 12:28 PM
A few of the fixes are still "In Validation" mode.
bnew
Jan 20, 2009 2:45 PM
If you have the 500GB model (ST3500320AS) DO NOT update your firmware to SD1A or you will likely brick your drive:

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=5625&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
philo-sofa
Jan 20, 2009 11:29 PM
Yeah they've taken down the fix as it broke 500GB drives and lord knows what else :S
SceptreCore
Jan 21, 2009 7:05 PM
And certainly don't update it, if it wasn't manufactured in December.
praytella
Jan 21, 2009 9:02 PM
And certainly don't update it, if it was manufactured by Western Digital!!
jack101
Apr 18, 2009 11:28 PM
Well i bout a drive on January 09 and didnt update still drive failed -_- Completely useless too thank god for returns
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