RSSFirmware upgrade may be required for Seagate half-terabyte drives
By Tim Conneally | Published August 11, 2009, 4:04 PM
At the beginning of 2009, Seagate had to deal with a firmware bug affecting 21 different hard drive models which caused widespread failure. For the second time this year, a Seagate internal HDD is causing problems that may necessitate a firmware upgrade.
The model in question is the 500 GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4 hard drive (model# ST9500420ASG), which causes the system to pause for as much as 10 seconds as the drive audibly hiccups.
While the main body of users complaining of the problem are Macbook Pro owners, the drive was also made available as an upgrade to certain Dell notebooks.
Apple yesterday said it is working on a software update to address the problem, but has not said when it will be ready.
We're waiting to hear back from Seagate about whether it plans to issue a firmware upgrade for users on non-Mac platforms who experience the same issue.
It's not a bug. It's a feature.
Score: 1
|but honestly, who cares, if its mostly effecting macbook owners, well its not like they bought a macbook expecting steler performance and features, they bought it for its stylish looks and the image owning an apple gives you, oh and possibly the os, since OSX is good at looking pretty and holding the users hand :P
Score: 1
|Seagate's always been very good, but this recent rash of problems on their 500GB drives is just insane.
Wasn't there an issue recently where they released a firmware update that didn't install...an then released another to fix that issue which bricked the drives?
Nice track-record you guys got going here. Suddenly realize you had too many Enterprise customers and needed to do something to thin the numbers?
I'd be pretty hesitant to install *any* firmware from Seagate for the foreseeable future.
Score: 0
|Hate to have to say this but 9/10 of the drives that got bricked where USER ERROR, I flashed a STACK of drives for people (even ones who where having no problems, and none of them bricked(from 320gb to 1tb in size)
What I can tell from reading ALOT of forums, alot of these people probably either flashed with an unstable overclock(bad move) or didnt properly read he flash instructions and flashed a bad firmware, the 3rd and even more likely cause would be people not waiting till the flash was finished thinking the flasher stalled out when it just takes time(to flash 4 500gb drives in 1 shot it took around 10min for the flash to Finnish for me)
seagate still was nice and offered data recovery and drive repair free(even covered shipping) for those who bricked their drives.
WD and other hdd makers have had issues like this in the past, just rarely with retail products in such numbers, normaly I have seen it happen with OEM drives and the OEM pushed out a "bios update" or "system firmware update" that fixed it without explaining what it fixed.
Score: 0
|The issue I was referring to was limited to their 500GB drives. It seems they've had a bad run with this size in general. ;)
Score: 0
|I don't trust any of their 1TB drives. At least these Mac users haven't lost the drive or any data. I got the NEW batch of 1TB with the updated fw, ie: I checked the website and it didn't need to be flashed and low and behold, 24 days of owning and it was dead. Made those exact clicking noises and couldnt be detected by the bios or OS. I returned it and got the 'free' in warranty replacement for $19 (it was that or pay $13 to ship it out of my pocket vs. $19 and they send me the replacement in a box in advance AND pay the shipping back). In the end, I'm not very happy at all. Now I have a recertified TB drive that I'm paranoid to even put data on, and the deal of $90 was no longer a deal since in essence I've ended up paying ~$110 for it. I could have simply gotten the 1.5TB for $129 and be done with it.
Score: 0
|Yet one more reason why I love Western Digital Drives. The only drives who have turned to bricks for me have been Seagate drives.
Score: 1
|they all have decent warrantys, bricked? replace
Score: 1
|Yea, because it's that simple.
Score: 2
|sure is, i keep 2x local data backups on unhooked external drives available to me at any time long with images of my OS, somethin dies (which is to be expected sadly) it gets replaced, warranty extended because the new drive is brand new again
what exactly is so difficult about replacing bad drives?
Score: 1
|The six week delay locally. Might be fine in the US, but it's not here.
No end of problems with the Seagates lately. Why would you risk it?
Score: 0
|"The six week delay locally. Might be fine in the US, but it's not here. "
Well, perhaps you might lobby your local government to do something about that? It's not like the delay is Seagate's doing....
Score: 0
|My Samsung from 2001 is still going strong. Good for once in a while external backup.
Score: 0
|I didn't get a new drive :(. And as I mentioned, you end up paying more for the drive because in the event that you don't have a box to ship it in, you need to buy one....and there is also the shipping cost.
If you buy a 1.5TB for 120 or so, that's not too bad...because the next one up is 199 for the 2TB, but in my case...I could have just gotten a 1.5TB in the first place for the total amount of money I spent on my 1TB. Luckily, I'm comfortable so it's not a HUGE deal, just inconvenient and a little wasteful. I'm only glad I never lost any data since like yours, my system is redundant.
Score: 0
|Well I have the 500 GB 5400 model and I haven't had any problems. It is very quite and works great on my MacBook.
Score: -3
|this would be an issue happening to ALL users with this specific model drive with a specific firmware version one would assume, especially if its a Mac, configs should be identical ... how you managed to avoid it is well... magic? or a lie ... oh wait, it is in fact stupidity, i figured, because said drive is a 7200.4 model
Score: 1
|actually grabbing one of those 500gb momentus 7200 drives soon
the hdd clicking a 'hand full' times per day is normal correct? parking... not so much the beep though
Score: 1
|