Seagate admits 7200.11 firmware bug and offers FREE Data Recovery:)

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After a ground-swell of angry Barracuda owners voiced concern over their failing disk drives, Seagate has fessed-to the issue. According to Seagate, a firmware bug in Barracuda 7200.11, DiamondMax 22, and Barracuda ES.2 SATA drives could make the disks "inaccessible when the host system is powered on." Right, inaccessible -- Seagate assures owners that data is not lost (it's still on the disk). However, should data loss occur, it's providing a free data recovery service. Hit the read link to find out if your drive is affected. If so, a link is provided to contact Seagate to expedite resolution on a case-by-case issue. Good on ya Seagate, way to flip a public relations fiasco into a customer support victory.

source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/18/barracuda_firmware_upgrade_and_recovery/
 
Yay.. I was a bit worried for a while.

I got one of the early 1TB ones with revision SD01 which is apparently not affected.

Think I might get one of those new WD 2tb drives just as a backup ;-)
 
I ahve just checked my 2 Seagate drives (ST3500320AS Revision SD15) and they are both have this dodgy firmware!

As I type this up I am backing up my PC data files to an external Maxtor USB hard drive. Is the plan then to sit and wait or should I attempt to update the Firmware from the Seagate web site?
 
I have one of these drives bought about a week ago from OCUK and apart from formatting and partitioning it I haven't used it, It's not even in the machine.

Until I read about the fix being used and working I see little point in even trying to use it.

Shouldn't these drives be withdrawn from sale until the fix actually is proved to be working.
 
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F2kSel said:
I have one of these drives bought about a week ago from OCUK and apart from formatting and partitioning it I haven't used it, It's not even in the machine.

Until I read about the fix being used and working I see little point in even trying to use it.

Shouldn't these drives be withdrawn from sale until the fix actually is proved to be working.
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Well you should plug it in to check the revision number (unless it says on the hdd itself) for a start. Only some of the revision numbers for each model of hdd are affected. Unfortunately, one of my 1500gb is and one isn't, so I might have to find out which is which! Any ideas on the chronological order of revisions?

By the way, Shaddow.. what 2tb drives? Are they actually 2tb, or just an external box with two 1tb drives raided together?
 
Anyone else tried the (revised) DiamondMax 22 firmware?

Only 784KB vs the 1.6MB of the 7200.11 and Nero gives a error indicating the image length doesn't match the block size.
 
ChrisLX200 said:
Good question. I don't know, but I wouldn't try for such a one-off thing as updating firmware. It's not like you do it every day.
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I'd rather not try it either, but I'm somewhat concerned that the minute I power it down, and move it onto the PC (wellllll....hang some wires out of the PC and hang it off them)......it will be on THAT powerup that the failure occurs. That and rumours of bricking are worrying me. Maybe the best thing to do is buy an F1, copy everything off the Seagate, then put it into a "mule" PC chassis set to reboot endlessly, until it fails, then RMA it.


Odd that someone mentioned installing Maxtor Diamondmax firmware on it....are these drives "son of diamondmax"? If so I'm not surprised by this problem, I trusted those maxtors for years, but from 80GB upwards we have had loads of failures, rescued by moving the controller card from a good drive to the offending one. I'd always assumed it was hardware, not so sure now.
 
If the data is important then you definitely need a backup asap. Do that, and you're free to experiment as you like. I think these drives are basically OK, they're mechanically well built so if you can get the firmware fixed it will be good as new (well, better - seeing as they were broke when new...). If you RMA it you'll just get another one with fixed firmware.
 
thegoonden said:
Odd that someone mentioned installing Maxtor Diamondmax firmware on it....are these drives "son of diamondmax"? If so I'm not surprised by this problem, I trusted those maxtors for years, but from 80GB upwards we have had loads of failures, rescued by moving the controller card from a good drive to the offending one. I'd always assumed it was hardware, not so sure now.
Click to expand...

Nah, Seagate bought Maxtor. The DiamondMax 22 is in effect a rebadged 7200.11 with less warranty.
 
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