Warning: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11

Latest news is supposedly new firmware out next Tuesday (unless that's more BS from their support people) and ... Oops, the lawyers are beginning to gather...

 

Looks like the power of the internet has finally kicked Seagate in the nuts and got them to do something.

To keep everyone updated, Seagate have finally owned up to the issue here. Various news reports are also saying that Seagate will retrieve people's data for free (which is likely to be resetting the BUSY status and loading the new firmware, so not an actual full restoration is not necessary).

However, people (myself included) that have tried to get the firmware from Seagate Technical Support are being told that there is no firmware available until the next few days. I was told to try back again next Tuesday.

 

It's a bit disingenuous to say there's no data loss. For the customer there's little difference between the data being there and inaccessible, and not being there at all. The only advantage is that you can spend a lot of money to get your data back if you really are desperate. It's kind of like saying "well, your data is still on the platters, just the motors are burnt out. If you pay someone a thousand bucks, you can get your data back."

This is why Seagate offering a recovery is a big deal, but when you think about it, it's just a reset of a busy state, so it's actually pretty easy for them to do in comparison to a full restore. There are guys who have made a little serial terminal for a few dollars and could do this if they had all the right commands from Seagate. I'm sure Seagate with all the right connectors can reset a drive in a couple of seconds.

What's really annoying is it's taken the affected customers going to war to get Seagate to sort it out. Seagate kept insisting there was no problems, ignored customers, deleted their messages, and even now won't tell you that you need this upgrade to prevent bricking, just that "it's good to have the latest firmware" (in direct contravention to what they say on their support site about not upgrading drives for the sake of it).

It doesn't help people like myself who have already lost drives and data, and until I get the new firmware I'll still be worried despite backing up onto a second drive (and yes there have been a few reports of dual drives bricking at the same time). More fool me for trusting a big industry name to test their products properly, and respond promptly to major issues.

 

Yeah, that was from last week. If you've ever read any interviews with Watkins, he's basically a self-publicist ass, and he's been failing to ensure the company executes. The massive failure of the current 7200.11 line and corresponding stock price drop was probably the final push over the edge. This last month as the 7200.11 screwups have come to light will hurt Seagate for years. Not just costs for replacements and repair, but lost business for years to come.

That's what happens when you put out products with 40-50 percent failure rate and then spend months covering it up while you continue to sell your broken junk to your (soon to be ex-) customers.

 

Don't bother yet, as there is currently no new firmware available. It's possibly going to be available on Tuesday (national holiday in the US on Monday), but I've also heard "towards the end of next the week".

I spoke to US support on Friday night, and they told me my drives needed updating, but to try back first thing next week to see if they had the new firmware.

 

You either won't get the email, or you'll get a link to the KB article that tells you to "contact support". That's what I got from email, along with another email telling me to reset the drive size and zero the drive - the usual not-actually-read-your-email response from support staff that are asleep at the wheel.

Seagate are basically still a mess. They have a new serial checker on line that tells me my drives are safe, but a couple of days ago their US support told me that my drives needed updating. Other people are finding the serial checker tells them their drives are unaffected by the problem - even though the drives are already bricked.

Keep us up to date on how you get on with your email.

 

A lot of people are saying the updater won't run because it won't detect certain hardware revisions of these drives, even though Seagate says they need updating. Looks like another Seagate screwup. The headers on the updater say it's for all revisions of the drive, but some of the notes say it's only for the earlier revisions, so it's looks like it's been hacked together badly. It's just one screwup after another from Seagate.

I know I had a 303 drive die, and people are saying they can't update 303 drives with this firmware.

 

Probably if you extract the files from the ISO, but I wouldn't recommend it with something like drive firmware. It might just not work unless the OS used to boot the ISO can talk to USB and read the filesystem.