Seagate 7200.11 drives failing
- Thread starter Handruin
- Start date
Ugh.
Having such a problem can happen to anyone. What is truely destructive to their reputation is not accepting responsibility and not providing the public a fixed firmware, so that they can have an opportunity to mitigate their damages. As bad, to their reputation and bottom line, as supplying a fix is the alternative of an incredibly high return rate is far worse and much more costly to the company.
I am sorely disappointed.
I am sorely disappointed.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I don't think there's a mechanism for getting a firmware fix distributed to all the systems that might need it. A tiny fraction of the installed base of those drives are going to be used by people aware of the problem. OS update services don't to the best of my knowledge ever flash firmware, and knowing Seagate they probably won't make a fix available for any OS but Windows in the first place.
They're not going to want to recall drives or realistically admit to any defect in the first place; not because of the tiny portion of drives that have been sold to end users, but because of the costs associated with OEM contracts.
I suspect we have a new 75GXP on our hands.
They're not going to want to recall drives or realistically admit to any defect in the first place; not because of the tiny portion of drives that have been sold to end users, but because of the costs associated with OEM contracts.
I suspect we have a new 75GXP on our hands.
It looks like there are two (or maybe 3?) of the Seagate drives in there, though the drive names are truncated. What is up with the SCSI - some designation by the add-in controller driver?
What about the 1TB Maxtor drives? I have a couple of those offsite as the main backups.
What about the 1TB Maxtor drives? I have a couple of those offsite as the main backups.
Stereodude
Not really a
There was already one firmware update for the 7200.11 drives.
According to Tech Report Seagate is now offering the public replacement firmware to mitigate the damage to drives with this problem:
Seagate tech support
At the very minimum, Please check your Seagate drives against the list of affected drives so you will know if your drive needs the help, preferably before bricking happens.
Supposedly, if your drive is already bricked then Seagate will offer free data recovery
Seagate tech support
At the very minimum, Please check your Seagate drives against the list of affected drives so you will know if your drive needs the help, preferably before bricking happens.
Supposedly, if your drive is already bricked then Seagate will offer free data recovery
Stereodude
Not really a
I have 5 of the affected drives
I have two ST31000333AS and three ST31500341AS. I've already had to flash the three ST31500341AS drives once due to the freezing issue. I want to wait a little bit before diving headfirst into this fix, so for now I'm keeping them all powered up and spinning.
I have two ST31000333AS and three ST31500341AS. I've already had to flash the three ST31500341AS drives once due to the freezing issue. I want to wait a little bit before diving headfirst into this fix, so for now I'm keeping them all powered up and spinning.
Stereodude
Not really a
For what? Flashing them? There wasn't last time. You had to boot to DOS. I used a bootable USB key.
That's what I was afraid of. How does DOS see any controllers without drivers? It seems that one would have to pull the hard drives and attach them to some other, ancient computer. Then I have to find some ancient version of DOS and a USB memory device that supports FAT16? Seagate is lame.
Stereodude
Not really a
As I recall, their program is very thorough. It will check every controller in the system. You're supposed to turn off RAID and AHCI in the bios though before flashing though people have reported it working regardless.
You can get DOS (from Win98SE or similar) from bootdisk.com or other places online. Any USB key 2GB or smaller can be formatted FAT16. Use the HP USB key utility, or similar to format it and make it bootable, drop the Seagate files on it and away you go. Just use the boot menu when booting and you're all set.
Some other people indicated there was a bootable CD image out there too, but the firmware I used wasn't in that format. And, you ultimately still have to turn off AHCI/RAID to boot from a SATA optical drive, so it's not that much easier.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Apparently the fix for 1.5GB drives might very well kill 500GB Barracuda drives at the same time.
Whoops.
Whoops.
mubs
0
Stereodude
Not really a
It spins up but doesn't show up to the BIOS. I don't think there is any sound.
Stereodude
Not really a
Well, I now have a bricked Seagate 7200.11! 
I will never buy another Seagate drive as long as I live.
This was complete avoidable but Seagate is run by a bunch of completely incompetent boobs. They posted a new firmware for the ST1000333AS. What they didn't tell you is that it only works on the 9FZ136-300 and 9FZ136-300. I have a 9FZ136-568. In the process of power cycling it at few times in a futile attempt to update it with a new firmware (which it doesn't allow because it's not for the -568 drive) it bricked itself and now reports that it only has a capacity of .033GB.
So, proceed with extreme caution!
I will never buy another Seagate drive as long as I live.
This was complete avoidable but Seagate is run by a bunch of completely incompetent boobs. They posted a new firmware for the ST1000333AS. What they didn't tell you is that it only works on the 9FZ136-300 and 9FZ136-300. I have a 9FZ136-568. In the process of power cycling it at few times in a futile attempt to update it with a new firmware (which it doesn't allow because it's not for the -568 drive) it bricked itself and now reports that it only has a capacity of .033GB.
So, proceed with extreme caution!
Stereodude
Not really a
Oh, and the update on my three ST1500341AS did work.
Stereodude
Not really a
I spoke way too soon. The two I updated on my ICH9R in this PC now show up as 500GB empty drives and I just didn't notice it before because I was distracted with the bricked drive.
I am beyond pissed with Seagate right now!
udaman
0
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2006
- Messages
- 1,209
So it's official? The 5yr warranty is of little value?
Will this mean the 3yr warranty new drives will fail 2x as much
?There's always the SSD option...for only a little less than the price of a 1DsMkIII you can have a 512GB SSD now, that has higher performance than the Intel SSD's dd likes.
Stereodude
Not really a
Ok, so apparently, somehow the LBA value on the drives got set to some non native value on several of my drives. That includes the 1.0TB and two 1.5B Seagate drives. I was able to set them all back to the default using the Seagate Seatools boot disk.
Somehow the process of fixing the Seagate drives caused one of my Samsung drives to get it's LBA value all screwed up and my RAID-1 array with it puked. So, I had to get Samsung ES Tool and set the LBA value back for it. Of course Samsung makes a bootable CD that doesn't work with SATA optical drives, or even IDE optical drives on a secondary IDE controller (which is all modern motherboards have) so that made things considerably more challenging.
Somehow the process of fixing the Seagate drives caused one of my Samsung drives to get it's LBA value all screwed up and my RAID-1 array with it puked. So, I had to get Samsung ES Tool and set the LBA value back for it. Of course Samsung makes a bootable CD that doesn't work with SATA optical drives, or even IDE optical drives on a secondary IDE controller (which is all modern motherboards have) so that made things considerably more challenging.
Stereodude
Not really a
If you have the data on them well backed up that may be a viable option. It took me a lot of hours to get my PCs back working correctly again after this fiasco.
That sucks. I have backup data on some affected drives that are offsite and not easily accessible.
I still feel strongly that Seagate should write an easy-to-use Windos/Mac tool for the fix that includes USB/FW external drives as well. If you and others are having problems with the current firmware update, what chance do ordinary users have? Has anyone started a class-action suit yet (not that the consumer gets much in the end)?
I still feel strongly that Seagate should write an easy-to-use Windos/Mac tool for the fix that includes USB/FW external drives as well. If you and others are having problems with the current firmware update, what chance do ordinary users have? Has anyone started a class-action suit yet (not that the consumer gets much in the end)?
Stereodude
Not really a
I'm not sure that is possible, or even a good idea. How do you stop Windows from accessing the drive while you're flashing it?
Well, I think the ordinary users will never know about the firmware updates and will just lose their data when the bug strikes.
I'm sure the shark have started circling since they smell blood in the water.
sechs
0
A drive that I have is in the list of affected models. When I go to the serial number checker, it says that my model is not affected. WTF?
People thought that the "Deathstar" thing was bad....
People thought that the "Deathstar" thing was bad....
Stereodude
Not really a
All five of my 7200.11 that are on the list of affected models come back as "not affected" from the serial number checker. I was able to flash 3 of them (ST31500341AS), but the firmware update for the ST31000333AS won't apply to mine because it only works on the 9FZ136-300 and 9FZ136-336 and I have two 9FZ136-586's.
Stereodude
Not really a
Here's the Reader's Digest version of my saga:
I attempted to flash 4 of my drives. The Seagate flashing tool wouldn't even work on one of my systems regardless of which of the two SATA controllers (ICH10R & Gigabyte/Jmicron) I put the drives on, and I put the controllers in IDE mode. It would reboot the system when it attempted to scan for drives (I tried multiple times). On another system I was able to flash my three ST31500341AS drives. I flashed one drive on the Gigabyte/Jmicron and it was successful. I then did two drives on the ICH9R and they also flashed successfully.
I attempted to flash a ST31000333AS on from the ICH9R and it would generate an error about opening the file. I can only assume this was because the drive P/N ends with a -568 instead of the -300 and -336 the firmware update said it was for. I skipped drive #5 since it's the same as #4.
Ok, so you're saying right now, "No big deal, what's the problem?" Well, keep reading...
Somehow via the flashing process the LBA on the two ST31500341AS drives (1.5TB) flashed on the ICH9R got changed to a smaller value so they only appeared to be 500GB drives and showed up as empty. The LBA on the ST31000333AS I attempted to flash was also changed. On this drive it appeared to be only 0.033GB.
After my head exploded in anger at Seagate I finally calmed down and started to breath again I was able to use Seagate's Seatools for DOS to reset the LBA back to the native / max value on three drives to get them operational again (thankfully with no data loss). I left my two Samsung HD753LJ drives (in RAID-1) connected to the ICH9R when I reset the LBA values on the two ST31500341AS drives. After rebooting one of the two HD753LJ's dropped from my RAID-1 array and wouldn't rebuild saying it was too small. After some investigating it turned out that somehow the Seagate Seatools utility managed to change the LBA from it's max value on one of the two Samsung HD753LJ's to a slightly smaller value.
I then had to use Samsung's ES Tools to reset the LBA on the Samsung drive. Of course the Samsung tool is on a bootable ISO that doesn't work in a SATA optical drive, or in IDE drives on secondary controllers (it tries to load a driver for the optical drive that fails), so that was fun too.
Needless to say the whole process was completely ridiculous and leaves me with a very bad impression of Seagate.
I attempted to flash 4 of my drives. The Seagate flashing tool wouldn't even work on one of my systems regardless of which of the two SATA controllers (ICH10R & Gigabyte/Jmicron) I put the drives on, and I put the controllers in IDE mode. It would reboot the system when it attempted to scan for drives (I tried multiple times). On another system I was able to flash my three ST31500341AS drives. I flashed one drive on the Gigabyte/Jmicron and it was successful. I then did two drives on the ICH9R and they also flashed successfully.
I attempted to flash a ST31000333AS on from the ICH9R and it would generate an error about opening the file. I can only assume this was because the drive P/N ends with a -568 instead of the -300 and -336 the firmware update said it was for. I skipped drive #5 since it's the same as #4.
Ok, so you're saying right now, "No big deal, what's the problem?" Well, keep reading...
Somehow via the flashing process the LBA on the two ST31500341AS drives (1.5TB) flashed on the ICH9R got changed to a smaller value so they only appeared to be 500GB drives and showed up as empty. The LBA on the ST31000333AS I attempted to flash was also changed. On this drive it appeared to be only 0.033GB.
After my head exploded in anger at Seagate I finally calmed down and started to breath again I was able to use Seagate's Seatools for DOS to reset the LBA back to the native / max value on three drives to get them operational again (thankfully with no data loss). I left my two Samsung HD753LJ drives (in RAID-1) connected to the ICH9R when I reset the LBA values on the two ST31500341AS drives. After rebooting one of the two HD753LJ's dropped from my RAID-1 array and wouldn't rebuild saying it was too small. After some investigating it turned out that somehow the Seagate Seatools utility managed to change the LBA from it's max value on one of the two Samsung HD753LJ's to a slightly smaller value.
I then had to use Samsung's ES Tools to reset the LBA on the Samsung drive. Of course the Samsung tool is on a bootable ISO that doesn't work in a SATA optical drive, or in IDE drives on secondary controllers (it tries to load a driver for the optical drive that fails), so that was fun too.
Needless to say the whole process was completely ridiculous and leaves me with a very bad impression of Seagate.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I rather suspect they released that tool without much testing, particularly not of systems configured with multiple brands of drives in anything but default configurations.
I have not found a DOS boot floppy that will work properly with SATA optical drives, either. I keep a few LiteOn IDE drives handy for the occasion when I need to access a CD in DOS (which comes up a lot more than I had hoped it would, given that it's 2009). I'm not sure why so many hardware vendors haven't yet figured out how to make computers reboot to textmode windows for BIOS stuff; Dell, Intel and Lenovo can manage it, but not Asus or Gigabyte.
I just got two Seagate 1.5TB drives for a customer. I ordered them last Thursday, knowing full well that bricking might be an issue. Supposedly they aren't impacted by the bricking issue, but I warned my customer before I turned over his new system that it might be a problem.
I have not found a DOS boot floppy that will work properly with SATA optical drives, either. I keep a few LiteOn IDE drives handy for the occasion when I need to access a CD in DOS (which comes up a lot more than I had hoped it would, given that it's 2009). I'm not sure why so many hardware vendors haven't yet figured out how to make computers reboot to textmode windows for BIOS stuff; Dell, Intel and Lenovo can manage it, but not Asus or Gigabyte.
I just got two Seagate 1.5TB drives for a customer. I ordered them last Thursday, knowing full well that bricking might be an issue. Supposedly they aren't impacted by the bricking issue, but I warned my customer before I turned over his new system that it might be a problem.
Stereodude
Not really a
If the optical drives are on the IDE controller in these new systems they still don't work because even the IDE controller is a secondary controller that the standard boot CDs don't support. I wonder if a USB optical drive works...
I have a USB optical here if there is something you want to test...
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
If you're dealing with a Jmicron controller the problem isn't that the controller is on the secondary interface, it's that the Jmicron chip routes IDE connectivity through USB rather than directly to the southbridge as traditional IDE controllers do.
Stereodude
Not really a
What the Gigabyte SATA2/Jmicron controller uses USB?
Brilliant!
Brilliant!
If it were USB 1.1, that would be brilliant. This is merely humorous.
Oh crap, one of my 1TB -340AS drives started bricking late Friday. At some intervals, usually within minutes of powerup, the drive is clicking as if spinning up and down. The drive letter is inacccesible for some time until it recovers.
Therefore I made a quick purchase of a replacement hard drive at the local store. Options were limited so I chose an old 1TB WD Black and am copying the data now. I hope there is no more bricking until the data finishes copying and I can wipe the Seagate.
Therefore I made a quick purchase of a replacement hard drive at the local store. Options were limited so I chose an old 1TB WD Black and am copying the data now. I hope there is no more bricking until the data finishes copying and I can wipe the Seagate.
Fushigi
0
I finally got around to checking my drives, a 750 and a 1.5. Neither falls within the range of affected serial numbers. I hadn't worried much about it since the problem mostly occurs at startup and the machines in question are never powered down.