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Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Troubles


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hallo Ist necesary the CA42 cabel or can i with a USB do it

READ the READ-ME-FIRST (which is supposed to be READ FIRST):

ALL OF IT.

AND PARTICULARLY point #10.

THEN, BEFORE asking a question that has been asked ALREADY n times, please review the FGA's (Frequently Given Answers):

ALL OF THEM.

AND PARTICULARLY FGA #6.

ONLY IF the matter is not already covered in the above, THEN please ask a question (a NEW question, I mean, not a "same one" already asked over, and over :ph34r: ).

jaclaz

P.S.: If you have problems with English, this may be of use to you (a Spanish version of the Gradius approach):

Edited by jaclaz
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  • 3 months later...

Hi - Thanks Zenkas for your info I too have a similar problem. See end of reply as I just found seagate firmware updater.

This is my first post and I have 4 of these drives bundled in a CUBE247 Taurus platform. Unfortunately CUBE247 went broke.

I spoke to the lawyers handling the winfd up and I may have some redress with the Credit card co as I purchased a 3 year RTB warranty.

Not sure why - they had pretty good QC the drives were mounted on rubber spring secured by the usual screw so good suspension. I've not seen that since Digital Equipment Corp drives in teh PDP 11's and VAX/Alpha VMS boxes and the layout was so orderly.

So I was surprised at their down fall. It could be due to this drive issue as an OEM is often responsible for teh whole system.

Well I immediately installed Acronis Drive Monitor and backed up the rest of the drives.

The Monitor declares tha tthe drives are SAMSUNG manufactured. Not sure if this is really true. It is possible that SEAGATE obtained its drives from samsung and their contract would prevent this disclosure.

One drive - with most of my data suddenly disappeared - Yes I am guilty of not having proper backup but never found anything that worked like Backup/verify/image/ignore=interlock on the old VMS OS.

In the past I have had one success story by replacing the SATA hardware from another disk to pull the data off.

That was a drive of the order 80GB.

Not sure if this could wreck the data or bring it into life but its a last ditch attempt before giving it to an expensive specialist.

As the problem I experienced was multiple pauses in Windows followed by non -existant drive - I usually use Hibernate on my machine which seems to ignore a lot of the bios POST problems - as soon as I did a normal reboot - BIOS POST blocked the boot and then window 7 BSOD reboot loop.

So if teh firmware is the problem how can we update it and if so will this permit data to be accessed. This seems to be the optimal way forwards if seagate have a software tool to permit this - surely they would on such a complex drive?

If the Firmware update is impossible without a soldering iron or screwe driver then is there a tool to recover data from my Seagate Barracuda LP 1.5 TB details below

Is there a suitable program that can salvage the data - if so which one and what is the cost?

I am hoping its just a firware bug as many links suggest.

I have 4 drives identical - this is the first to go with 121 days of use over about 2 years. The machine has been power cycled 548 times according to Acronis disk monitor on C: drive.

Disk Info:

Seagate Barracuda LP 1.5 TB

Model: ST31500541AS

P/N: 9TN15R-510

Firmware: CC34

S/N: 6XW0559R

I have contacted 2 specialist companies which seem to sugges that there is a fix for this - will update this if I get a response.

Here are some links for the firmware updater I just discovered - not tried yet though:

http://niallbest.com/seagate-2tb-st32000542as-cc35-firmware-upgrade/comment-page-1/#comments

Firmware updater for my drive : http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/213915en/?language=en_US&c=Product_Family%3ADesktop_SATA%2CTopics%3AFirmware%2COperating_System%3AWindows_Vista_7&fs=Search&pn=1

It looks like the firmware can be updated from within windows - seems seemless... But some discussion indicate that they were forced to boot up into a CD OS and issue a DOS like command

Barracuda LP Firmware Update

Back

Subscribe

New firmware version: CC35

Please verify your drive model number, serial number, and firmware revision using the Drive Detect software.

This article applies to the following models.

ST3500412AS

ST31000520AS

ST31500541AS

ST32000542AS

If the firmware upgrade installation instructions are not followed properly, the firmware upgrade could be data destructive and/or render your hard drive inoperable. As Seagate does not warrant the data on your drive, in addition to regular back-ups, your data should be backed up, if possible, before upgrading the drive firmware. Additional information on backing up the contents of your drive can be found at the How To Use section of our website. Though this firmware upgrade to your product is a change to the product, the terms and conditions of your Seagate warranty for the product will remain effective to its normal expiration. For other warranties on your product please consult the warranty documentation provided by your supplier.

The Firmware Update Utility runs within Windows. Click to download and run it.

See Document ID: 210091 for instructions on updating your firmware in Windows using this .exe file.

For non-Windows systems with Intel compatible processors we also offer a bootable CD ISO image, which will create a bootable CD.

For instructions on updating your firmware using the bootable CD ISO image, please see the bootable CD firmware update procedure.

For instructions on how to create a bootable CD please see: How to burn an .iso image onto a CD.

If the upgrade instructions are not followed properly, the upgrade could be data-destructive and/or render your hard drive inoperable. Seagate does not warranty the data on your drive, so in addition to regular backups, your data should be backed up to a separate secure location/media before upgrading the drive firmware.

Other Firmware updater links: http://knowledge.seagate.com/pkb_Home?language=en_US&c=Product_Family%3ADesktop_SATA%2CTopics%3AFirmware%2COperating_System%3AWindows_Vista_7

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=9877.0

I also noted this in one of the comments which may be good background info and help us become sensitive to issues which could effect drive lifetime integrity:

44. sigpaw says: From: http://niallbest.com/seagate-2tb-st32000542as-cc35-firmware-upgrade/comment-page-1/#comments

January 6, 2011 at 12:41 am

Hi Niall,

I currently own 14 of the Seagate 2TB 5900 RPM drives and 24 of their 1TB 7200 RPM drives. I have struggled “a bit” with the clicking on all of my 2TB drives. The clicking appears to be caused by more than one source.

Problem 1

One of my computers has a pair of 2TB drives stacked on top of one other in a removable aluminum tray. The drives are mounted flat in the tray and the tray has an adjustable speed cooling fan bolted to one end. If I crank the fan speed up past about 3500 RPM *BOTH* of the drives chatter and click incessantly. I returned the original drives for replacements TWICE with no change. I flipped the drives end for end in the tray thinking there might be some sort of electrical interference with no improvement. I finally realized it was the VIBRATION from the fan being transferred through the aluminum frame (into the drive frame) causing the problem. Excessive vibration causes a “dithering effect” on the head arm. The actuator on the drive head arm assy simply can’t overcome the effects of strong vibration, which causes head alignment to be off enough to cause the drive to re-seek in an attempt to regain proper alignment.

Problem 2:

ALL of my 12 drives plus several others I returned for exchange (because of clicking and slow data xfer while clicking) have a hard time operating properly if they are mounted on their edge, or mounted vertically on one end. HOWEVER the moment they are laid down FLAT they settle down, become quite and xfer data at 90mb/sec or better (while clicking they often transfer data as slowly as 20mb/sec). I own an Antec Fusion Black media center case that has a spot up front for mounting two SATA drives up on edge side by side. I found that if I lay my new drives down flat and perform a full LONG format prior to mounting them up on edge they will function properly mounted up on edge for about 2 months of continuous use. Then they each (within minutes of one another) will begin to click and chatter. The clicking continues until I open the case, remove the drives, lay them flat and access each sector once while it is laying flat. They will then work quietly for another 2 months or so. Each time this has happened (3 times so far) the clicking stops IMMEDIATELY after they are laid flat.

I finally purchased a pair of WD 2TB drives to use in my Antec case (they seem to be quite happy mounted on their edge).

Conclusion:

These drives are squeezing 500GB of data on each 3 ½ platter surface! Most folk have no comprehension of the incredible tolerances these drives must be capable of maintaining; in spite of changing temperature, vibration, and drift due to repeated erase/write operations, etc. Fact is, these little drives are very “intelligent” with more smarts than any of the original micro computers of a couple decades ago.

They monitor a number of factors and automatically recalibrate themselves to remain reliable over time. I suspect that “nasty Mister Gravity” (in the case of edge mounting) or “nasty Mister Momentum” (in the case of vibration) is causing 90% of these clicking problems we are seeing. Fact is these are very sensitive precision devices.

BTW in spite of all these “anomalies” I remain an AVID Seagate fan and still continue to purchase (and plan to continue to purchase) their products (2TB drives included). These Seagate drives never fail to xfer data (when they are mounted and “treated properly”) in excess of 85mb/sec. Some even peak above 110mb/sec on the inner tracks. The fastest I have ever seen a WD drive xfer is somewhere in the 65mb/sec range. The Seagates ARE reliable over time and have a 5 year warranty to boot. Their biggest shortcoming has been in NOT educating their customer base about some of these issues. Super high density storage DOES come with a few caveats it seems…

Regards,

‘Sig

So I'm going to have to consider an alternative automated backup solution possibly to the cloud if it is secure enough. Any suggestions for a small 2 PC setup?

Many thanks for any further advice and suggestions.

Hope this helps - Will let you know if the drive springs back into life - although I just realised that Windows wont boof with the failed drive - so maybe I will have to use the ISO CD... Can obviously upgrade the currently working ones...

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