Seagate having problems with bricked HDDs.

[Poppa_Meth]

Seagate has evidently had some major issues with certain lines of HDDs bricking lately. I first saw info about this on GameFAQs.

Here is the Seagate KB article:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931#Id109276

Here is the thread on GameFAQs that has links to various news articles on it.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=916373&topic=47554404

[ron spencer]

after all these years of r&d into hdd, this should not be happening anymore....just stupid

[gadgetguy]

after all these years of r&d into hdd, this should not be happening anymore....just stupid

Except for the fact that they have to keep changing the firmware to be compatible with the changes in their hardware and the devices they're connected to. Errors are bound to creep in.

[handyguy]

Just a few:
* Barracuda 7200.11
* DiamondMax 22
* Barracuda ES.2 SATA

[Soopafresh]

So...how do you send your drive back to Seagate if it's full and you don't have another drive? I see pissed people...

[Seeker47]

after all these years of r&d into hdd, this should not be happening anymore....just stupid

Except for the fact that they have to keep changing the firmware to be compatible with the changes in their hardware and the devices they're connected to. Errors are bound to creep in.

I recently got a call about a HDD sold at Costco. It said on the box that min. Mac requirements listed OS X 10.4, whereas he had ver. 10.3 I don't know much about Macs, and so could not be of much help. But WTF ! So now we're down to fractional versions being critical ??

I hope this (Q.C. or design) problem doesn't include the external portables, like FreeAgent To Go. (I'll read through that piece.)

[Soopafresh]

I have a friend with an 8GB raid unit - all of the drives are 7200.11 ST31000333AS drives, affected by the problem.

Here's a post in the message section on Cnet.com

"In some of the techie forums it's been posted that the problems occur when the disk activity log file hits exactly 320 entries at the same time that the disk is booted. Thereafter the drive is not accessible and reports a size of 0kb. This is a firmware issue which Seagate are working to resolve; but as noted in the above report the data on the drive is intact and is not affected. If your drive is working OK now, the best advice is to keep it powered up, for the next few days, until a validated firmware revision is issued by Seagate. On the Seagate website you can register, by email, to receive the firmware revision specific for your drive - you don't need to send the drive back to Seagate." - jaykay_rus

[MJA]

the best advice is to keep it powered up, for the next few days, until a validated firmware revision is issued by Seagate

[poisondeathray]

[offtopic]
$496M net loss, CEO got booted, 5yr warranty reduced to 3yr, now this...

absolutely bad timing for seagate, which once was listed in Forbes top managed companies list...
[/offtopic]

[ranchhand]

Seems like Seagate is offering free data retrieval off failed drives:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&taxonomyName=...&taxonomyId=19

[RabidDog]

I read somewhere (maybe?) that even the First revised firmware was crap. I really have to think that in this market, people aren't going to take the chance are they? I'm sorry to say its bye-bye Seagate.. even a name change wont help.. possibly tata Seagate