Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing

[Force Flow]

As far as I know, it's always been that the user pays to ship to the company, and the company pays for shipping back to you (depending on the situation and company, they sometimes pay for shipping both ways on an RMA item).

Are you saying they expect the user to pay both ways?

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by Force Flow As far as I know, it's always been that the user pays to ship to the company, and the company pays for shipping back to you (depending on the situation and company, they sometimes pay for shipping both ways on an RMA item). Are you saying they expect the user to pay both ways?

rant()
{

I may sound like an over-expecting consumer, but when a company sells their products under the assumption that it will be a bit more than a paperweight, I would expect the company to provide means of assuring that - that, to me, is the point of warranty. To put a condition to that assurance, the condition being the "processing" fee, or shipping, slightly annoys me. Add to that, their very precise shipping and packing guidelines makes this a slightly more costly transaction than I would have hoped.

Their solution was to have an "option B", where the consumer could pay Seagate to send the end-user a pre-paid box with all the packing materials. Last I checked, I believe it was 20 USD. If this process is annoying enough that they can place a price tag on it, it strikes me as annoying.

}

Anyhow, I haven't had many of these instances before, let alone the perpetual need to return the same products, so I speak not from standard notion in the marketplace, but from what I feel. I actually still like Seagate - my 80GB 7200 RPM drive has been running without a problem for over four years now, and their customer support have been very helpful. I hope they can find a permanent solution soon if the firmware option is deemed insufficient.

kram

[pally01]

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 Looks like my local computer store (memoryexpress) got a large batch of Samsung hard drives which are selling on average $10 less than Seagate (which in turn sells for $10 less than WD). It looks like I'll probably switch over to Samsung for most of my drives since the price is good and there isn't that many problems with them anymore.

I've got two Samsung 1TB drives. I've had the older one since summer and so far it's been excellent.

[daveyp225]

I've had the 400gb drive for a year, no problems.

[Force Flow]

Just to note...the new serial number checker on the seagate FAQ page doesn't seem to actually work (drives that had already failed still returned the "your drive is not affected" message). If your drive's model number appears on the list, contact support anyway.

[shadowpr]

It looks like new firmware is available for several drive models: http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207951

I will be updating my drive shortly, and will report back.


EDIT: It looks like they messed up with their updating program and the drives are supposedly coming up as not supported.

Kep waiting.

I will post back once I read more.

[tomtoon]

Is this one of the models affected?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130826

[shadowpr]

According to the links, based on that model number it is affected.

The biggest thing though is the firmware number.

[glc]

The site is a zoo right now. It looks like they have pulled the updater. Hold off for a couple days.

[pam123]

Seagate has the download ready : http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...207951&Hilite=

A long with the warning that if you, some how, got the earlier download that you should delete it and use this one.



edit : 2 of my drives are affected. One is my media drive and the other is the back up.

[shadowpr]

I would still hold off on updating.

I just read a report of an updated drive that now fails seatools.

Will continue to update.


EDIT: UPDATE: I have heard that the update is successful on the 7200.11 1tb drives. Not sure if it wil pass seatools afterwards though.

And I'm hearing that the update IS BRICKING the 500gb drives.


I will update my drive by noon eastern tomorrow and will update this after that.

[glc]

Maybe I'll wait a couple weeks instead of a couple days.

[mplsmelo]

Originally Posted by glc Maybe I'll wait a couple weeks instead of a couple days.

Ditto. Especially if you have a 500 gig drive.

I accidently left the cd with the iso image/fw update in the cdrom so when I booted up later today it booted to the update. I wasn't aware of all the problems that were occuring with the fw so I went ahead and tried to initiate the update. It didn't take but did say drive invalid--or something to that effect. I rebooted with no problems, checked the fw and it's still, thankfully, SD15. So, no brick here on my 500 gig.

What a mess this is for Seagate and all the users that flashed their drives only to find that the "fix" has totally disabled their drives.

[amdalex]

It says on the site that they SD15 firmware is affected and that's what is on my 500gb HD. But they pulled the update from their site so maybe they will get a better one?? So,
where can I get the update?

[pam123]

Originally Posted by amdalex It says on the site that they SD15 firmware is affected and that's what is on my 500gb HD. But they pulled the update from their site so maybe they will get a better one?? So, where can I get the update?

Wait till they put it back up.
Do not get the firmware from anyone but Seagate.

[shadowpr]

Well as of now, they have officiall pulled the updated firmware off from their site.

There were no reports of the 1tb drives bricking, but there were several of the 500gb and 750gb drives bricking after the update.

I suspect they will release different updates for each drive.

Also, there was one report of someone being able to update their bricked drive and then being able to access the info. In order to do that, they have to move the bricked drive to a different computer and then apply the update.

Will keep everyone posted throughout the day.

[tomtoon]

Originally Posted by shadowpr According to the links, based on that model number it is affected. The biggest thing though is the firmware number.

Going back to what you said, all the reviews on this one are good so far
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130826/

[shadowpr]

Originally Posted by tomtoon Going back to what you said, all the reviews on this one are good so far http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130826/

If you have that already, it's probably affected.

If you don't have that, I wouldn't get it right now.

[tomtoon]

No I don't have it already, luckily.

[pam123]

A quick update on SD1A : If you have the 500 GB drive the rate for having the update brick it is 100 %

Which certainly explains why the update was pulled.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/new...cks_more_disks

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/new...firmware_fixes

[amdalex]

That is insane, I think I'm going it buy a WD next, also Photoshop CS4 had an error and locked up, I sent an error report and Microsoft told me it had something to do with Photoshop not being able to open a file on the hard drive, is my drive about to die?

[shadowpr]

Originally Posted by amdalex That is insane, I think I'm going it buy a WD next, also Photoshop CS4 had an error and locked up, I sent an error report and Microsoft told me it had something to do with Photoshop not being able to open a file on the hard drive, is my drive about to die?

That sounds more like a software problem. If you want to test your drive, run seatools in dos.

[phigdon]

uh, ignorance alert. what is 'bricked'?

this only issue I have ever had with my 500gig is that I could not get XP to install fresh. it just kept creating partitions and stalling. I just cloned my original drive back over.

I have SD15 and sea tools reports no errors in any of the tests.

[pam123]

Turned into a paper weight, will not boot, doorstop, made useless, in short it will no longer work at all.

Seagate not only needs a new firmware update it needs to revive "un-brick" all those 500 GB drives so this should be really interesting otherwise they will be replacing drives and paying for data recovery.

Next up : PR Disaster. See Seagate.

[phigdon]

I see, shinny brick to be used at the owners discretion AKA shotgun target. got it.

well I figured the heck with it and just ordered a new WD 1T drive from the egg. a cloning I will go...

[shadowpr]

Originally Posted by pam123 Next up : PR Disaster. See Seagate.

It also doesn't help that the mods on their forums are deleting peoples posts.

I'm now guessing/hearing that there might be a solution next week.

[amdalex]

So when do you think the new firmware will come out? Speed fan's smart says my drive has a fitness level of 64% it used to be a lot higher.

[tomtoon]

Probably failing.

You might want to replace that HD and copy your data, just to be on the safe side of it failing.

[not important]

Originally Posted by amdalex So when do you think the new firmware will come out? Speed fan's smart says my drive has a fitness level of 64% it used to be a lot higher.

I would certainly run a diagnoses on it.

[amdalex]

I'm running seatools now.