blinkdt

OK, I just ran into my second Seagate drive suffering this issue. In the first instance, the owner contacted a "seller" on eBay who unbricked the drive for a mere $80. Uh-huh. Little did we know . . . . In this case, I went to Seagate's site, wrote down the toll free support number (1-800-732-4283) and gave them a call. I spoke briefly with customer service and they sent me to tech support where 'Karen' explained the issue to me (they sent out a batch of drives with test firmware) before offering to have me ship the drive to them at their expense. They would perform a force firmware update that would unbrick the drive and make the data accessible, or replace the drive outright. I told them I did not need the data and opted for choice three, the advance replacement at $20. I should receive my new drive in three days and will return the old drive using a pre-paid shipper. I could have done the whole thing for free, but life is short and then you die. Bottom line: sounds to me like Seagate has their act together at this point and could not have been more accommodating, at least in my case. Give them a call. Edit: by the way, Karen and her colleagues are based in Oklahoma and sound real purdy .