Seagate Drives - Failing issue - DO NOT FLASH YOUR DRIVES

Biko

Biko

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500gb and 1TB Seagate drives have been failing in large numbers recently. If you think you have one of the Seagate drives that are stopping working for no reason the register as some more info on it http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/18/barracuda_firmware_upgrade_and_recovery/

Seagates website where you can check if you might have a drive that could fail http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

I have 4 drives that are a potential fail (mirrored) so will be looking to get 2 back up drives before I do anything else.

EDIT 21 Jan

The firmware Seagate issued to fix drives does not work - DO NOT FLASH YOUR DRIVES

More info here: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/seagate_firmware_fix_breaks_barracudas/
 
Thanks for the heads up. Barracuda E drives with the decent warranty used to be my automatic choice but the comments at El Reg are cause for concern.
 
The long warranty and the good name seagate was my choice but this is a cause for concern. I am now backing up the past few months photos on to DVD and then will back up to probably 2 Western Digital drives and then see about the firmware update for the 2 Seagate (mirrored drives) as in Seagates words:

!!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.
Click to expand...

To be fair on Seagate they will now recover data for you, I just would rather not go down that route.

In future when I mirror drives I think I will make sure they are manufactured from two companies.
 
Biko said:
In future when I mirror drives I think I will make sure they are manufactured from two companies.
Click to expand...

Identical matched drives will perform better than drives from different manufacturers.

Even if you use mirrored drives you should still back them up to yet another location. I have seen both drives corrupt in a mirrored pair - a number of times! Raid 5 seems more robust but the hardware costs for good performance are higher.

Nigel
 
I've got one of the dodgy drives, I tried the firmware updater but it crashed :bang:


Seagate :thumbsdown:
 
Morpho said:
Identical matched drives will perform better than drives from different manufacturers.

Even if you use mirrored drives you should still back them up to yet another location. I have seen both drives corrupt in a mirrored pair - a number of times! Raid 5 seems more robust but the hardware costs for good performance are higher.

Nigel
Click to expand...

Nigel thanks, I don't mirror as Raid which is what I think you mean, my drives are external via USB, I mirror manually. I prefer this as I can physically keep the HD's separate in case of fire theft etc.
 
Biko said:
Nigel thanks, I don't mirror as Raid which is what I think you mean, my drives are external via USB, I mirror manually. I prefer this as I can physically keep the HD's separate in case of fire theft etc.
Click to expand...

Ahh... Your way is the best. (y)

Nigel
 
Errr.. maybe a very weird coincidence but I clicked on DetectDrive.exe and my target download drive disappeared. Reboot, still gone... Checked BIOS, drive there. Ran checkdisk, recovered bad sectors and rebuilt MBR. Drive showed up again with all data intact...

I'd steer clear of that link........
 
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