I finally figured out what was crashing the servers here at dvorak.org. Bad firmware on the new Seagate 1.5T Barracuda drives. Everyone makes mistakes but in this case there is no firmware to download. You have to email them and then wait till they reply. And to email them you have to fill out a long form to create an account and agree to their terms, and when you do it creates an account – but the account doesn’t work. Seagate used to be a good company but I am not as impressed as I used to be. In the mean time the drive has been moved to a less critical server.
Also – updates need to run under either DOS or LINUX. Not running WINDOWS on this server.
I’m having the same problem Marc! I have a few 500GB drives and I’m still waiting for their response to my contact request on friday. Not sure why they’re not just releasing the new firmware. This is an EPIC FAIL for Seagate.
Here’s a newsclip to the same issue:
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15863
As they say on other tech blogs: BUY WESTERN DIGITAL.
do you really need to be running new and unproven 1.5 terrabyte drives to run this crappy blog? I would think that a couple of proven smaller ones would be all that is needed for this…. why change??? you brought it on yourself, dude. I hope you spent hours and hours and hours on this. You are the fail.
Someone on slashdot posted a link to the firmware image on bittorrent:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4627627/Seagate_1.5TB_ST31500341AS_Firmware_Update [
I have had a lot of Seagate drive failures over the past month, which is unusual. Looks like WD might be getting some more business from me.
The main drives are 750g drives. The 1.5T was a backup drive. Excuse me but I thought if a drive company was as big as Seagate they would have shipped drives that work.
Wow… You actually need firmware updates for hard drives now?
Marc…
I have the same 1.5TB drive. I haven’t had any problems over the several months that I’ve been using it (non-RAID), but I became aware of the problem reports and happened to snag the firmware update when NewEgg had it available for download (it has since been pulled, probably at Seagate’s insistence). I’ll be glad to send it to you if you post an email address, or you can send me a private email at the address I post on this comment form.
Drives with with part number: 9JU138-300, 366 and with firmware revision SD17 and SD15 or SD18 can be upgraded to the FW fix SD1A. Firmware updates are inherently risky, so the choice is yours whether to bypass Seagate tech support.
There have been a lot of unhappy campers on computer forums lately over issues with these Seagate 1TB and 1.5TB drives. I’m with Hugh Ripper on this one… time to look at WD again.
Here is Seagate’s official word on the matter. It’s a mind bender.
http://tinyurl.com/87lsdr
Get this, Seagate says “We will respond, promptly, to your e-mail request with appropriate instructions.”
One man’s “promptly” is another man’s eternity.
Perkel, at least you’re not alone…
If Seagate are a bit slow in responding, well, they did lay off staff last week, some with immediate effect, and others are getting pay cuts. Management are getting pay cuts too.
Aw fooey! I was hoping to be in the market for a new hard drive soon, and the last two HDs that have died on me were both Western Digital drives. Of course, they were both used, and one came from a cursed computer. (The power supply was bad, the motherboard was toast; the ONLY things that were usable were the CD-ROM drive and the case, though the hard drive lasted a couple of months before crapping out.) So I was looking forward to getting a Seagate. Maybe I’ll go to eBay and look at some used drives, made before this problem started…
Seagate BOUGHT WD…
I have the 1.5TB, and they are saying that the only reason to Firmware UPDATE is for ANYTHING BESIDES MS. Im only 1 version off(CC1G to CC1H)(?)
i will KEEP MY oLD drive as a BACKUP, and wont do anything until THIS DRIVE is proven…(I just got it).
my problem, comes with 2 drives and 18 partitions…
the SOFTWARE wants to reformat WHAT I SETUP.. and WONT let you change the C:\ DRIVE SIZE.. I want it BIGGER then 28gig..
THATS the kicker…the REST of the partitions can be copied STRAIGHT across…ITS THE BOOT drive that needs special attention.
#16 what are you kidding? Stop making up stories. Seagate has not bought Western Digital. The only Seagate news I’ve seen recently is bad. They were recently downgraded by Moody’s and this firmware issue with the 1.5TB drives.
I think you will see all forms of support go out the window because in a recession companies feel support is just a expense.
I feel your pain I bought a Lenovo Y430 and cannot even get a response from customer service in email and am on hold too long with phone in support. My conclusion a long time ago was companies would rather warranty a product with a exchange or refund then support you with their product. Maybe with technology they think users are too stupid to bother helping them fix their product.
#11 – ‘dro
>>Has WD gotten better? Cause they sucked
>>quality wise
Don’t know how the ones WD ships to Kuzconia are, ‘dro, but the ones in the Free World are just fine.
If Kuzco hasn’t blocked The Google, try using it on “Seagate 1.5T Barracuda”, and you’ve got complaints up the wazoo (that’s “culo” in Kuzconian. Do the same with WD, and you see far fewer.
I won’t tell you to STFU again, but you might want to seriously consider it.
Newegg’s link still works:
http://promotions.newegg.com/files/8h_SD1A.zip
instructions (from [H] forums)
1 – Unzip the files into a DOS Bootable directory or media. (DO NOT use a CMD Window or command prompt in Windows).
2 – Attach a Single ST31500341AS 1.5TB unit to a compatible system used previously for Seagate HDD interface firmware loads.
3 – Boot the system into DOS and connect to the directory with the firmware files. Then execute the batch file 8HSD1A.BAT
Comment deleted – please do not impersonate other bloggers.
Ed.
#21
Yeah, and I’m a bender robot!
For me this is just another example of how M$’s stanglehold on this industry is screwing anybody who isn’t buying what they’re selling.
sorry about that last post – I took my meds, I feel better now…
#16 – Seagate did not buy WD. Seagate did, however, buy Maxtor, who previously bought Quantum.
Guys, I had the EXACT same issue with my 4 Seagate 1.5 TB drives. All arrived with FW level SD17, and they all had the same issue. I submitted my request to them on their website, and within the same day, I had the link to the SD1A firmware update. My guess is that Seagate wants to verify that you have an affected drive before you start upgrading any firmware.
Once I got the SD1A firmware installed onto the drives, I haven’t had any issues since. It’s been a month and a half, and the drives are operating as they should.
I was a little dismayed over the fact that you MUST have a PC in order to do the firmware update. If you’re running a Power-PC based Mac (such as a Power Mac G5 or iMac G5), you’re SOL.
Oh, and for those who say they’re switching back to WD…
I bought a 160GB WD drive in July of ’07 (18 months ago). Last week, I discovered the SMART status was failing. I spoke with a consultant friend of mine, and he has a similar distaste for WD. Apparently, their quality has gone downhill. A shame, because I used to consider them to be the top of the game.
Oh, and by the way. The Seagate drives I mentioned are currently being used in our Drobo. The Drobo handles our backups at our company, so the drives are being used in a production environment without issue.
I hope that gives a little reassurance. We were just as pissed once we got bitten by this issue, but we’re over it now.
How many operating systems and servers are there? Not that many, really.
It’s pathetic that you have to research firmware before selecting a hard drive for a well known OS.
Guess I’ve been lucky, I haven’t purchased any HDDs but Fujitsu in 2 years. May the force be with me (crossing fingers).
Marc:
Thank you SO much for the warning.
I’m in the process of scouting drives to expand the capacity of the RAID array on my main server. We run freeBSD so that prolly makes it eve worse. Sad when a once-reliable company crashes as fast as their drives.
NO SEAGATE. NO SEAGATE.NO SEAGATE.
[Eds.]:
#21 is posting falsely under my screen name. Please blacklist whoever it is from dvorak dot org slash blog.
This sort of juvenile online dishonesty is a disgrace.
[Ed. Let us know if this continues]
I’ve had 2 250g Seagates fail in the last six months. They fail as un-readable/bootable. They have sent me refurbished drives but I hate to use them now….Pay the bucks and start using Flash?