Author Topic: Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing at alrming rate? (Read 54,373 times)

superboyac · « **Reply #25 on:** January 14, 2009, 05:14 PM »

I met a math geek who rivaled my own math skills (honestly, she was better)...totally turned me on. Didn't work out. BBOD (I'll let you figure out what that stands for).

Daleus · « **Reply #26 on:** January 14, 2009, 07:24 PM »

Interestingly, this came up last week in our office.

Not certain of the model number, but we had a pair of 1TBs and a pair of 1.5TBs. They required an HD firmware upgrade.

Apparently, the firmware download is only available if you talk to one of their tech support wanks, and are able to give them a specific error code which (if I remember correctly) comes from their own specific diag proggie.

Don't run to your bosses with this info, because our departmental meetings are traditionally filled with info my brain rejects as irrelevant, but this might give you further directions to explore.

Ehtyar · « **Reply #27 on:** January 15, 2009, 01:28 AM »

Should this turn out to be legitimate, I hope Seagate get their pants class-actioned right of their legs. Not only can I not find the firmware update itself, but you need to sign-up to Seagate's website to access any of their support services. Not to mention there is not a single reference to this problem whatsoever on Seagate's site, and when you search for firmware update you get discouragement heaped upon you, and *told* that it is unnecessary and/or not possible. Unacceptable Seagate.

Ehtyar.

zridling · « **Reply #28 on:** January 15, 2009, 07:15 AM »

[superboyac]: Do the NS drives come with 5-year warranty?
______________
Yes! Check here.

superboyac · « **Reply #29 on:** January 15, 2009, 01:40 PM »

Quote from: zridling on January 15, 2009, 07:15 AM

[superboyac]: Do the NS drives come with 5-year warranty?
______________
Yes! Check here.

Well that's good to know. Yes, Seagate has apparently left the 5-year warranty in tact for the enterprise drives. But it's too late for me, I just bought (like 3 days ago) three WD 1 TB Caviar Black drives. First time I've not used Seagate in almost 10 years. Besides these enterprise seagate drives are $50 more than the WD's.

techidave · « **Reply #30 on:** January 15, 2009, 02:48 PM »

I almost ordered one of the 7200.11 hard drives last week. I'm glad I didn't.

Lashiec · « **Reply #31 on:** January 15, 2009, 03:08 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on January 14, 2009, 01:27 AM

I'm not sure there's much difference between "consumer" and "server" grade drives these days anyway, except pricetag.

Most servers drives are based on consumer ones, just tuned for server tasks. And longer warranties, of course, perhaps that's why the pricetag.

This can't come in a worse moment for Seagate, with the 7200.12 drives just around the corner (including 2TB units) and the change of CEO. Couple that with the current economical crisis and all the competitors doing better than then, and I think you can say Seagate is going to face a tough year.

It's quite peculiar tough, that the 1 TB models started failing precisely now, after one year or more of being introduced in the market. The news about the 1.5 TB unit failures appeared just weeks after they started selling, and based on what nosh said, it's probably more of a really bad batch than a general problem with all 1 TB drives.

J-Mac · « **Reply #32 on:** January 17, 2009, 08:03 PM »

I have two 7200.10's and one actually DID fail after only 8 months of use - replace free of charge by the builder of my box (Falcon Northwest). But I often see other disk errors in the Event log. I always run Hitachi's, WD's, and Seagate's disk diagnostics to see if it is truly the disk or a conflict within Windows causing the error event ID's. Believe it or not the WD and the Hitachi teasts are the most helpful. THe Seagate diagnostic program rarely runs - it has only completed any testing once. All other times the program freezes up and the process must be ended.

Jim

Edit: BTW, both are 500 GB SATA drives.

a_lunatic · « **Reply #33 on:** January 19, 2009, 08:28 AM »

Firmware update available now. http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/19/seagate-offers-fix-free-data-recovery-for-disks-affected-by-fir/

nosh · « **Reply #34 on:** January 19, 2009, 11:00 AM »

Thanks.

Did you apply it successfully? I had a "specific model not found" error - the firmware recognizes the drive model if I ask it to scan devices but crashes with this error while applying. Apparently, I'm not alone.

Also, their instructions are outdated, they ask you to run flash.bat manually from the DOS prompt - there's no way to get to the DOS prompt or access any specific file.

What a PITA this is turning out to be! I suppose I should be grateful the bad flash didn't brick my drive.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #35 on:** January 19, 2009, 11:21 AM »

If you want to get to a DOS prompt format a system floppy and copy the flash stuff to the floppy and then restart your system with the floppy.

nosh · « **Reply #36 on:** January 19, 2009, 11:40 AM »

There's no way to access the flash utility files directly in Windows, they don't show up on the CD. They get copied to a RAM drive after booting but there's no way to access them there either.

I don't have a floppy drive and I doubt if it would help even if I could get my hands on the batch file + flash stuff and run it manually. It's a little irresponsible on their part to have outdated instructions for something as critical as a flash utility.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #37 on:** January 19, 2009, 11:53 AM »

Trouble is most manufacturers work on the principle that the only thing worth working on is what brings in instant cash ...

Few companies seem to have a long term view on retaining customers as a priority.

a_lunatic · « **Reply #38 on:** January 19, 2009, 12:37 PM »

Quote from: nosh on January 19, 2009, 11:00 AM

Did you apply it successfully?

I haven't had the time until now but looks like it doesn't work so now I got to wait & a new coaster.

f0dder · « **Reply #39 on:** January 19, 2009, 04:35 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on January 19, 2009, 11:21 AM

If you want to get to a DOS prompt format a system floppy and copy the flash stuff to the floppy and then restart your system with the floppy.

How do you format a DOS boot floppy from NT and beyond? When I created my bootable USB pendrive, I had to do a lot of trickere involving installing Win98 in vmware and doing the format from there...

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #40 on:** January 19, 2009, 08:12 PM »

If you have WinXP you can format a DOS disk in the same way as Win98.

If you have a Win98 installation CD boot from it and go into DOS then you can use format A: /S to format a DOS floppy.

Alternatively there are DOS floppy images that can be downloaded on the internet.

f0dder · « **Reply #41 on:** January 19, 2009, 08:15 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on January 19, 2009, 08:12 PM

If you have WinXP you can format a DOS disk in the same way as Win98.

Hmmm? I don't think I ever had that option? Is this only available if you did an upgrade from 9x to XP?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #42 on:** January 19, 2009, 10:16 PM »

This is what it looks like on my system (formatting a floppy disc):

Note I only ever had Windows XP installed on this system.

The ability to format system floppies was reinstated after the complaints when MS removed the function in Windows 2000.

Alternatively see: http://www.bootdisk.com/

f0dder · « **Reply #43 on:** January 19, 2009, 10:22 PM »

Hm, either I never had that option, or it's only enabled... floppy discs. Can't remember when I last had a floppy drive in my box, might have been with win2k, and removed once I moved to XP? That was years ago anyway

At any rate, the option wasn't available for my USB pendrive, so I had to "do trickery" ^TM.

a_lunatic · « **Reply #44 on:** January 19, 2009, 11:54 PM »

New firmware released this afternoon works but some are having problems still.
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=5536
I am not sure I want to try it yet till there is more feedback as I can't afford to brick 3 drives.

a_lunatic · « **Reply #45 on:** January 20, 2009, 12:17 AM »

Ok this is crap it seems to brick the 500GB drives which is what I got 3 of.
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board?board.id=ata_drives

nosh · « **Reply #46 on:** January 20, 2009, 06:05 AM »

But this fix of the fix that you're referring to worked fine on 1TBs - and I missed it coz it was night time here. Now it's been pulled and I'll have to take my chances with the fix³ when it's released, not a very comforting thought considering their track record.

oBFusC8r · « **Reply #47 on:** January 21, 2009, 08:03 AM »

Seems there was something wrong with the firmware fix. Seagate have removed it and are working on a new one according to this theinquirer article

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/530/1050530/seagate-bungles-firmware-update

Quote

Adding insult to already injured customers, there are reports streaming in to our inboxes of users who have attempted the firmware flash and have ended up with bricked drives.

Quote

Seagate has hastily removed the doubly-offending firmware before any more customers get their drives killed and is advising that a new firmware will be ready in 24-48 hours time.

nosh · « **Reply #48 on:** January 21, 2009, 11:05 AM »

IIRC, the 500 GBs aren't getting totally bricked by the latest fix. They're still being recognized by the BIOS so they should come to life again if Seagate actually gets it right with the upcoming, and hopefully final, fix.

They've been monitoring the forums and silently updating the KB text to cover up inaccuracies but nobody has had the decency or good business sense to actually talk to & reassure the customers.

40hz · « **Reply #49 on:** January 21, 2009, 09:18 PM »

Quote from: nosh on January 21, 2009, 11:05 AM

They've been monitoring the forums and silently updating the KB text to cover up inaccuracies

That is an unfortunate trend that we're starting to see everywhere, not just on product websites.

See: http://philosecurity.org/2009/01/19/our-revised-news ;

and

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1091056600.php