[poolcarpet]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to post the BSY fix out here, so those who wants the exact steps, please send me a message and I'll reply directly with the info I have found - all via google I'll send a message to Fatlip as he is our hope now!

[Zenskas]

poolcarpet, on Jan 4 2009, 12:51 PM, said:

Hi all,

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to post the BSY fix out here, so those who wants the exact steps, please send me a message and I'll reply directly with the info I have found - all via google I'll send a message to Fatlip as he is our hope now!

Great but once you have removed the bsy stuff will the HDD work as normal?

[CoffeeFiend]

seahateHDD, on Jan 3 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

I always use WD in selfbuilds and always have. Not many have died before time (often going strong past expected life) but some WD are unacceptably short lived due to design.

As far as anecdotal evidence goes, I've seen plenty of dead WDs (and not just in computers either). I stopped buying them in 2001 (for a few years anyhow), after having 4 of them (big & expensive ones) die on me within 2 weeks... I have some now, no problems with them yet.

seahateHDD, on Jan 3 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

All manufacturers have some issue though.

That's pretty much it. Quality goes up and down, different bugs appear, manufacturing problems, QA problems and what not. No manufacturer is perfect, and it's always a bit of a gamble.

[poolcarpet]

Won't know for sure, but the steps are in a manual that came with a data recovery solution. I would presume that it should work. Anyway, I have sent you a message on where to get this doc. See for yourself and decide

RiderZen, on Jan 4 2009, 09:54 AM, said:

poolcarpet, on Jan 4 2009, 12:51 PM, said:

Hi all,

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to post the BSY fix out here, so those who wants the exact steps, please send me a message and I'll reply directly with the info I have found - all via google I'll send a message to Fatlip as he is our hope now!

Great but once you have removed the bsy stuff will the HDD work as normal?

[poolcarpet]

After this horrifying experience, I'm planning to do this:

1. Get a cheap RAID card such as the Promise TX2300
2. Get another 500GB hard disk, non-Seagate, probably WD
3. Make a RAID 1 out of the 500GB Seagate + WD and store my data in there
4. At the same time, use Mozy or some form of online backups (I have Mozy backups of some of my data in the Seagate 7200.11 but not all, e.g. huge video files)
5. Backup certain key data into 2-3 DVDs (high quality DVDs)

Now if the Seagate shows this same problem again, at least I will have the WD. Can't be that bad luck that both the Seagate+WD kaputs at the same time... or if the Promise TX2300 dies then I guess my data might be compromised too.

But more important than all, this experience has taught me what faceless huge corporations might do (or rather might not do) to help their individual customers when hit with such 'firmware' defects. I personally have worked for 2 huge corporations much larger than Seagate, and I cannot imagine myself/us doing this to our customers....

crahak, on Jan 4 2009, 09:54 AM, said:

seahateHDD, on Jan 3 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

I always use WD in selfbuilds and always have. Not many have died before time (often going strong past expected life) but some WD are unacceptably short lived due to design.

As far as anecdotal evidence goes, I've seen plenty of dead WDs (and not just in computers either). I stopped buying them in 2001 (for a few years anyhow), after having 4 of them (big & expensive ones) die on me within 2 weeks... I have some now, no problems with them yet.

seahateHDD, on Jan 3 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

All manufacturers have some issue though.

That's pretty much it. Quality goes up and down, different bugs appear, manufacturing problems, QA problems and what not. No manufacturer is perfect, and it's always a bit of a gamble.

[CoffeeFiend]

poolcarpet, on Jan 3 2009, 09:06 PM, said:

3. Make a RAID 1 out of the 500GB Seagate + WD and store my data in there

Unfortunately, RAID works best with identical drives, and with 2 different drives (not identical size), some RAID cards will outright refuse to create an array (besides JBOD).

And RAID 1 is still not a replacement for proper backups... Filesystem corruption or malware (although very uncommon) could easily destroy all the data on both drives. Just sayin'

Also, if the [insert RAID controller name here] dies, you might have a hard time getting data off of your old array. Often, you need to have the exact same controller, with the very same firmware on it to get it bak (been there, done that, got the t-shirt too)

poolcarpet, on Jan 3 2009, 09:06 PM, said:

5. Backup certain key data into 2-3 DVDs (high quality DVDs)

That's the key. If you go with optical media, disc using metallic dye is the way to go (e.g. taiyo yuden). I find it's too much work to burn dozens of discs all the time, so I reuse older HDs as backups for the most important data (1 kept at home, 1 elsewhere). eSATA will make this even more practical in the future.

[Aerozo]

seahateHDD, on Jan 4 2009, 01:07 AM, said:

http://www.active-robots.com/products/acce...s/act-sib.shtml

is this the same board? Only place in UK that I found so far.

Hey there,
Yeah, as far as I can understand, any RS232 TTL Controller will do, just make sure it has a TX, RX, 5V and GND.
Personally I'm considering going for a USB version that does serial port emulation but that's because motherboard doesn't have a serial port.

I think I'll have to buy one soon too, seeing as my friend has given me his broken 7200.11 and I'm running on one right now and expecting it to burst into flames any second!

P.S. I'm in the UK too and the cheapest (USB one) I've found so far is around £10ish on eBay, although I don't really fancy waiting 2 weeks for it to ship from China
Let me know if you find any cheaper ones

[fatlip]

seahateHDD, on Jan 3 2009, 06:07 PM, said:

http://www.active-robots.com/products/acce...s/act-sib.shtml

is this the same board? Only place in UK that I found so far.

On second look, yes, this will work..

This post has been edited by fatlip: 04 January 2009 - 01:27 PM

[Fuzzy_3D]

poolcarpet, on Jan 3 2009, 06:06 PM, said:

After this horrifying experience, I'm planning to do this:

3. Make a RAID 1 out of the 500GB Seagate + WD and store my data in there

You will be better off just getting an external hard drive, and do weekly backups / syncs.

Raid is the lowest form of data backup. I stopped using raid storage years ago, since I've had quality Raid controllers fail and take all the data with them. A virus will do the same thing to both sets of your precious data. As will a bad power surge or more commonly, a PSU malfunction.

I worked with a guy who kept a separate machine for his backups, and lost all his data anyway due to a leaky toilet while he was out on vacation. Yet another customer lost everything in a house fire. He now keeps his backup server in a fridge in his shed, 15 meters from his house with a gigabit line.

I've been using external drives since my 2 last Raid failures, and it works. In this case I didn't have anywhere to backup a 1TB drive to, so now I'm screwed.

If you have any money, buy whatever external drive you can comfortably afford (You can get good ones for about $100), and backup whatever important data you can fit on it. It may not be an emergency right now, but you'll be glad you did when your drive inevitably fails.

[seahateHDD]

Aerozo, on Jan 4 2009, 02:22 AM, said:

P.S. I'm in the UK too and the cheapest (USB one) I've found so far is around £10ish on eBay, although I don't really fancy waiting 2 weeks for it to ship from China
Let me know if you find any cheaper ones

will do, I will check at my local electronics store too as they have tons of stuff dirt cheap, near or same internet prices so minus p&p often cheaper for me. If they have one or similar I buy there and ask where they got it so as to recommend to none local friend. I don't know how they manage it since they are old small independant store and stock all kinds of stuff, a real ecclectic mix. Each time I go in and ask for something from usual components to lighting gel or unusual converter they have it, and often at a quarter of maplins price.

NOTE: For benefit of none UKers maplin is our main chain store for electronics that replaced most the smaller and independant ones. Their prices are very high and the staff often clueless, trained in sales and marketing as opposed to tech side. This is awkward since I'm self taught in electronics on need to know basis, I learn quick enough and can turn my hand to most stuff with effort but need instruction so if I have a rough idea but need details or need advice on method they just stare at me blankly or recommend something unrelated I don't need. At least they are not my nemesis PCworld, I believe our transatlantic cousins have even heard news of how bad they are .

This post has been edited by seahateHDD: 03 January 2009 - 08:45 PM

[Zenskas]

Well here is what my mum agreed I can do: buy a WD green power 500 or 640gb drive and use it as the main HDD and use the replacement seagate as a backup drive as my mobo has esata. Works for me and my mum is willing to pay just so it will all go ok. I will also from now on backup family photos to my new 16gb kingston usb stick.

[poolcarpet]

Hi all,

Thanks for the comments on RAID. Agree with some of the points raised. I might use something to sync between the hard disks on a weekly basis rather than RAID 1 itself.


Riderzen,

Just my thought - what if your WD main HD fails and when you try to use the Seagate to restore, it gets into that stupid BSY state again? Then it's double whammy Maybe it might be better to use the Seagate as main HD and WD as backup?

RiderZen, on Jan 4 2009, 10:43 AM, said:

Well here is what my mum agreed I can do: buy a WD green power 500 or 640gb drive and use it as the main HDD and use the replacement seagate as a backup drive as my mobo has esata. Works for me and my mum is willing to pay just so it will all go ok. I will also from now on backup family photos to my new 16gb kingston usb stick.

[Fuzzy_3D]

RiderZen, on Jan 3 2009, 06:43 PM, said:

I will also from now on backup family photos to my new 16gb kingston usb stick.

Do NOT backup anything onto flash media. It's the most volatile of all storage methods. Unless its a micro drive.

[seahateHDD]

looking around this seems to be becoming common. SD17 and SD18 seem to have same issues. Tech support at HP admitted they already knew about this so I presume they are working on it. I put a few things in other posts on seagate forums that got deleted that might be helpful. The identical 2nd drive is on HP24 (so I assume both are), I got a temp OS install running on this now. I presume it's just SD15 renamed or minor changes since they tend to just rebrand/rename manufacturers stuff (drivers too I've noticed their renamed drivers are identical to original like the sound drivers). This could be good news since if seagate don't address it but HP or some other big prebuild company who use them do then it could be a potential upgrade candidate for others.

I got email back saying I've been upgraded to UK personal support (presume not in sat/sun), hopefully they will address it. If they do finding exact dfference between their fw and official seagates and what changes they made will mean it could be possible to use without modifying or at least request seagate to make same modifications. Failing that using hp version but stripping hp specific mods away for an unofficial fw might be good way to go. Any info I get concerning this once support get back to me that may be of use I can post here.

[labraticmp3]

Using the information from poolcarpet and the Frys interface board I successfully removed the busy state from my drive. But this has left the drive with the LBA detected with 0 problem. I hope we can find a complete fix.

[poolcarpet]

So it looks like we can resolve the BSY status now.

The next step would be to fix the LBA 0 problem, I believe fatlip is working on that.

Once we figure this out, we should post this up in public. I really hate it that Seagate is not taking ownership of this clear 'firmware defect' and hate it even more when those data recovery companies want to charge us an arm and a leg for this. I wouldn't mind paying $$ to recover data from hardware failures, but absolutely cannot accept it to pay $$ for some firmware defect.

[Aerozo]

seahateHDD, on Jan 4 2009, 02:40 AM, said:

...will do, I will check at my local electronics store too as they have tons of stuff dirt cheap, near or same internet prices...

Awesome :
Let me know if you find anything useful, I've already got a list of commands and a good idea on which ones to use, but without an actual terminal I can't be certain.

seahateHDD, on Jan 4 2009, 02:40 AM, said:

...NOTE: For benefit of none UKers maplin is our main chain store for electronics that replaced most the smaller and independant ones...

Tell me about it! I looked up the RS232 on there and their search showed me a serial cable... FOR £13!!
They're con-men I tell you!
Haha

[Aerozo]

poolcarpet, on Jan 4 2009, 01:59 AM, said:

Won't know for sure, but the steps are in a manual that came with a data recovery solution. I would presume that it should work...

Any chance I could get my hands on said manual please?

[avinnc]

Looking forward to a solution on this.... thanks fatlip and others who are working on it!!! I just ordered my parts from Frys and got a DB9 cable from Monoprice here - http://www.monoprice.com/products/product....=1&format=2

For those looking for a good backup program.... I've been using SyncBack for a long time now. It allows you to schedule backups and even emails you if there is an issue - tons of advanced features! I also use it to sync selected data between 2 desktops and a laptop. Here's the free download - http://www.2brightsp...s.html#freeware

[Zenskas]

Fuzzy_3D, on Jan 4 2009, 02:11 PM, said:

RiderZen, on Jan 3 2009, 06:43 PM, said:

I will also from now on backup family photos to my new 16gb kingston usb stick.

Do NOT backup anything onto flash media. It's the most volatile of all storage methods. Unless its a micro drive.

If I have my photos backed up to the WD, seagate and flash what is the chance I will loose something??? I have used usb memory sticks for years and chucked them around alot and have never lost anything.
Oh yeah and I don't want to use the seagate as my main drive because then I would have to reinstall everything...