[dlethe]

Seagate is now addressing the issue big time. They have online tool to see if your disks are affected, they provide warranty replacements, as well as a fix. Problem is a firmware bug. Specifics on affected model and serial numbers; downloads; and end-user options are at:
Info on Seagate 7200.11 brick problems

(Revised) The link above is a copy of the Seagate site with live links, so you can currently click on it to run their validator, even though the original link from the first article is dead.

Screenshot of Seagate's tool that verifies at least this disk is affected, so at least we know Seagate is reporting *some* affected drives
http://storagesecrets.org/2009/01/seagates...destined-brick/

This post has been edited by dlethe: 18 January 2009 - 05:26 PM

[cdturri]

I am not sure where you got that "big time" idea. All I see it's a company trying to hide the issue and not informing their customers exactly what's going. The Online Checker Tool has been removed from the original KB article:

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/self...sp?DocId=207931

although you can still access it directly if you know the URL. I presume this is because the tool was complete rubbish and a lot of people reported that they bricked drives were shown as "not affected". I think Seagate doesn't even know how big this problem is, if only they read their own forums or asked their users they would see that the KB article is a bunch of lies, there are many more drives affected than they are saying!

[arnd]

gvsyn, on Jan 18 2009, 10:37 PM, said:

Excellent guys, just tried the recovery commands, rebooted, bam! OS straight up, no problems so, ones you've got the RS232 connection sorted, it's about 10mins to fix the disc.

Again MASSIVE thanks to fatlip for the RS232 setup, pichi for the BSY resetting and Gradius2 for digging up the LBA0 fix \o/

Thanks for this feedback! And of course many thanks to fatlip, pichi and the others involved. My 500GB 7200.11 (ST3500320AS, SD15, 5QM2****) has not yet died and according to Seagates serial number check is should not be affected. But I don't have any confidence...

[Flyover]

arnd, on Jan 18 2009, 05:50 PM, said:

gvsyn, on Jan 18 2009, 10:37 PM, said:

Excellent guys, just tried the recovery commands, rebooted, bam! OS straight up, no problems so, ones you've got the RS232 connection sorted, it's about 10mins to fix the disc.

Again MASSIVE thanks to fatlip for the RS232 setup, pichi for the BSY resetting and Gradius2 for digging up the LBA0 fix \o/

Thanks for this feedback! And of course many thanks to fatlip, pichi and the others involved. My 500GB 7200.11 (ST3500320AS, SD15, 5QM2****) has not yet died and according to Seagates serial number check is should not be affected. But I don't have any confidence...

I have the same drive and the serial checker gives me the same result. The problem is the original KB article stated explicitly that model WAS affected and models built THROUGH Dec. 08 were needing an update. Now they changed the models affected in the KB article update and say it was only models made IN December. It's confusing the hell of out people and they haven't said why they changed it or if those of us with models not listed in the update need to worry. I can't even seem to e-mail them through the Seagate website for some reason. I get some weird login error even though I'm already logged in via their forums.

[Gradius2]

Madcoder, on Jan 18 2009, 07:09 PM, said:

You are correct, it SHOULD say something like you suggest, like UNTIL December 2008 at least. So my statement agrees with what you said in response after that, yet you wrote my statement is FALSE.

False for saying (Seagate?) "in December" when the correct is until December.

Gradius

[Gradius2]

cdturri, on Jan 18 2009, 07:42 PM, said:

although you can still access it directly if you know the URL. I presume this is because the tool was complete rubbish and a lot of people reported that they bricked drives were shown as "not affected". I think Seagate doesn't even know how big this problem is, if only they read their own forums or asked their users they would see that the KB article is a bunch of lies, there are many more drives affected than they are saying!

My estimate is 30 millions HDs are affected (no kidding).

Gradius

This post has been edited by Gradius2: 18 January 2009 - 05:22 PM

[cdturri]

Gradius2, on Jan 18 2009, 11:15 PM, said:

False for saying (Seagate?) "in December" when the correct is until December.
Gradius

I doubt it's even "until" December. Think about it, if it was "until December" it would certainly mean they have discovered the FW fault and they have fixed it, hence they started to fit new drives with the new FW. As there is no new FW I can imply they haven't fixed it yet. They probably said December because that's probably the latest batch of drives available in retail stores, but I bet all the ones they got in the factories are also going to have to get the new FW too.

This post has been edited by cdturri: 18 January 2009 - 05:21 PM

[Madcoder]

cdturri, on Jan 18 2009, 05:20 PM, said:

Gradius2, on Jan 18 2009, 11:15 PM, said:

False for saying (Seagate?) "in December" when the correct is until December.
Gradius

I doubt it's even "until" December. Think about it, if it was "until December" it would certainly mean they have discovered the FW fault and they have fixed it, hence they started to fit new drives with the new FW. As there is no new FW I can imply they haven't fixed it yet. They probably said December because that's probably the latest batch of drives available in retail stores, but I bet all the ones they got in the factories are also going to have to get the new FW too.

I believe you are correct. The point here is that they need to update the KB article because the current statement written there tries to say that the problem is only with December drives, which we all know is not true!

This post has been edited by Madcoder: 18 January 2009 - 05:38 PM

[cdturri]

Madcoder, on Jan 18 2009, 11:37 PM, said:

I believe you are correct. The point here is that they need to update the KB article because the current statement written there tries to say that the problem is only with December drives, which we all know is not true!

That will require Seagate being honest and come clean on these issues, which is unlikely to happen. They don't seem to care about their customers and I don't think that's going to change.

[Gradius2]

cdturri, on Jan 18 2009, 08:20 PM, said:

I doubt it's even "until" December. Think about it, if it was "until December" it would certainly mean they have discovered the FW fault and they have fixed it, hence they started to fit new drives with the new FW. As there is no new FW I can imply they haven't fixed it yet. They probably said December because that's probably the latest batch of drives available in retail stores, but I bet all the ones they got in the factories are also going to have to get the new FW too.

It might be until around 15th january, when the thing exploded.

Seagate will be in deep problem for sure if they won't fix this for good. Is amazing the news still didn't come up with this BOMBASTIC case.

Gradius

[cdturri]

It's getting traction. 3 very popular sites I know they recently covered the story:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3...7200-11-failing
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/seagate-7200...l#xtor=RSS-1415
http://www.computerworld.com/action/articl...ticleId=9126280

And I think they will be more very soon, hopefully a mass media site will cover it and Seagate will have to stop treating us like nothing is going on!

[Fuzzy_3D]

Gradius2, on Jan 18 2009, 05:46 PM, said:

Seagate will be in deep problem for sure if they won't fix this for good.

Seagate are already in deep trouble. It will become very apparent when they realize that no one trusts them enough to buy their drives. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing they can do now to amend this screwup

[cdturri]

BTW, there is a 2 TB WD drive coming out soon! http://en.expreview.com/2009/01/13/western...-this-week.html

So everyone should sell their 1 TB/1.5 TB Seagates in eBay and buy WDs. I know I will, even with a firmware fix I can't sleep quietly knowing that the drive might die anytime. And when it does I won't be able to contact Seagate as they will be a line of customers with the same problem...

[poolcarpet]

For those interested in lawsuits....

http://www.kbklawfir...agate/index.php

I just submited my details (not real details of course) to see what they are offering.

[Gradius2]

poolcarpet, on Jan 18 2009, 11:14 PM, said:

For those interested in lawsuits....

http://www.kbklawfir...agate/index.php

I just submited my details (not real details of course) to see what they are offering.

I did already, and got answer.

They say is only valid to those who lives in U.S., no need to be American, just need to reside there.

Gradius

[pichi]

I hadn't BSY problem, only 0 GB problem.
I have followed these steps:

G-List Erase:
---------------
Ctrl+z
F3 T>i4,1,22
F3 T>
(Power off and power on)

Translator regeneration:
----------------------------
Ctrl+z
F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22
Max Wr Retries = 00, Max Rd Retries = 00, Max ECC T-Level = 00, Max Certify Rewr
ite Retries = 0000
User Partition Format Successful - Elapsed Time 0 mins 00 secs
F3 T>/2
F3 2>Z
Spin Down Complete
Elapsed Time 0.147 msecs
F3 2>
(Power off)

I have connected the hdd to SATA port and after reboot:
ALL ARE OK
THE HDD WORKS

Thanks you, thanks Gradius2, fatlip and all the people that have collaborated.

[icefloe01]

cdturri, on Jan 18 2009, 05:42 PM, said:

I presume this is because the tool was complete rubbish and a lot of people reported that they bricked drives were shown as "not affected".

Affected drives were being reported as NOT affected because people were not putting in all capital letters. Seagate probably took the tool offline to rewrite it so it would not matter if the letters were capital or not. I'll bet it will be back up before too long. It was just a careless programming error I'd bet.

[quattro150]

Excellent!!! I'll try it once I get home from work today....
*keeping fingers crossed*

pichi, on Jan 19 2009, 11:11 AM, said:

I hadn't BSY problem, only 0 GB problem.
I have followed these steps:

G-List Erase:
---------------
Ctrl+z
F3 T>i4,1,22
F3 T>
(Power off and power on)

Translator regeneration:
----------------------------
Ctrl+z
F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22
Max Wr Retries = 00, Max Rd Retries = 00, Max ECC T-Level = 00, Max Certify Rewr
ite Retries = 0000
User Partition Format Successful - Elapsed Time 0 mins 00 secs
F3 T>/2
F3 2>Z
Spin Down Complete
Elapsed Time 0.147 msecs
F3 2>
(Power off)

I have connected the hdd to SATA port and after reboot:
ALL ARE OK
THE HDD WORKS

Thanks you, thanks Gradius2, fatlip and all the people that have collaborated.

[killerB]

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/self...sp?DocId=207969

$eagate release new firmware "SD1A" for ST3500320AS, ST3640330AS, ST3750330AS, ST31000340AS. (SD15, SD16, SD17, SD18, SD19, AD14 Firmware)

Quote

!!WARNING!!
The software and information in this article could be data destructive and/or render your hard drive inoperable if not followed carefully. It is always recommended to keep a backup of critical data.

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

If your drive has one of the following firmware revisions: SD15, SD16, SD17, SD18, SD19, or AD14, click here to download the SD1A update.

Please see How do I use a bootable ISO image downloaded from your site? for assistance burning a CD using an ISO image.

If your drive matches one of the models listed in this article and does not match any of these versions of firmware, your drive is not affected.
If you are still unsure if this applies to your drive, please submit an email to disksupport@seagate.com. Please enter the model number, serial number, and firmware revision into the subject line of the email.

I'm curious... Ready but size is 0GB. => Update firmware to SD1A => will Harddisk repair?

This post has been edited by killerB: 19 January 2009 - 12:51 AM

[Jackie78]

icefloe01, on Jan 19 2009, 04:30 AM, said:

cdturri, on Jan 18 2009, 05:42 PM, said:

I presume this is because the tool was complete rubbish and a lot of people reported that they bricked drives were shown as "not affected".

Affected drives were being reported as NOT affected because people were not putting in all capital letters. Seagate probably took the tool offline to rewrite it so it would not matter if the letters were capital or not. I'll bet it will be back up before too long. It was just a careless programming error I'd bet.

This is definitely not true. I have entered several serial numbers from the failed-drives Thread in Caps into the Seagate tool, most of them were reported as being not affected. So the tool was definitely not covering all drives. Besides, there was no plausibility check, if you entered any string that the tool could not identify, it always reportet "Not affected" too, which lead to even more confusion.

I really hope that Seagate have indeed found out what is causing all the trouble, and provide a solution soon. Their information policy up to now really is a catastrophy I think