Germany
Dear Community,
I would tell you a short story about my Segate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB HDD. Some days ago, my HTPC stops at a systemrestart and I observed that my harddisk wasn't detected during the Bios startup.
Some "google" clicks later, the problem was clear. Several Disks from Seagate, especially the Barracuda family which were produced in the last month of 2008, has a buggy firmware on board. Two of the bugs are very critical.
The first one creates a problem with the partition detection and the disk will be detected as 0 Byte disk.
The second one holds the HDD controller in a busy state which will stops any communication to the system
Both can happen random on each systemstart (My HDD was running since 4 month without problems) and will be permanent (at least official) once they happened.
To prevent this bugs, Seagate offers a firmware update for the affected HDD's which can be applied as long the bugs were not already occured.
Here two quick guides:
I have a Seagate Harddisk which could be affected, but it is still running
=> follow the link below (official seagate support site) and check if you need a firmware upgrade and upgrade it asap if needed
Seagate Knowledge Base
Even if Seagate says your serialnumber is not affected you should do a quick doublecheck with google. It seems some HDD were buggy which aren't in the official list.
If someone needs help to perform this upgrade, just ask.
I have a Seagate Harddisk which is already in 0 Byte or Busy State
If the disk is already in the 0 Byte or Busy State mode there are only two options: Send it back to Seagate and get an replacement (I think the offers also a data restore) or talk to the HDD controller over a terminal program (and some special hardware) to reset the controller.
Option 1: Warranty
=> follow the link below for Returns Assistence
Community Relations Contacts | Seagate
=> to get some informations the first link is also interesting
Seagate Knowledge Base
Option 2: Fix it by yourself
There is a way to fix the HDD controller with an RS232 or USB to TTL converter and an terminal program like Hyperterminal (this program is integrated in Win XP and can be found under Start).
I found two good explanations how to do it.
Description 1:
The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs - MSFN Forums
Description 2 (Caution: there is a HDD power down/up missing before the last command (m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22)):
Fixing a Seagate 7200.11 Hard Drive ?(Fixing a Seagate 7200.11 Hard Drive)?
After the fix, the first thing you should do is to upgrade the firmware of the fixed HDD.
It needed around 2 hours to setup the boards,wires and to fix my HDD. My HDD has 5 partitions with 4 different OS. All OS working fine again and also all data seems to be okay.
I've used the following RS232 to TTL adaptor for my fix (Caution: 5V is needed for the IC in difference to the descriptions above): www.pollin.de
My terminal program: PuTTY Download Page
Overall hardware costs ~5€
If someone needs a reference, I can some pictures from my "hardware" solution and screenshots from my terminal program settings.
I hope this threat prevent someone from the same trouble as I had.
Best regards,
Kaldred
I would tell you a short story about my Segate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB HDD. Some days ago, my HTPC stops at a systemrestart and I observed that my harddisk wasn't detected during the Bios startup.
Some "google" clicks later, the problem was clear. Several Disks from Seagate, especially the Barracuda family which were produced in the last month of 2008, has a buggy firmware on board. Two of the bugs are very critical.
The first one creates a problem with the partition detection and the disk will be detected as 0 Byte disk.
The second one holds the HDD controller in a busy state which will stops any communication to the system
Both can happen random on each systemstart (My HDD was running since 4 month without problems) and will be permanent (at least official) once they happened.
To prevent this bugs, Seagate offers a firmware update for the affected HDD's which can be applied as long the bugs were not already occured.
Here two quick guides:
I have a Seagate Harddisk which could be affected, but it is still running
=> follow the link below (official seagate support site) and check if you need a firmware upgrade and upgrade it asap if needed
Seagate Knowledge Base
Even if Seagate says your serialnumber is not affected you should do a quick doublecheck with google. It seems some HDD were buggy which aren't in the official list.
If someone needs help to perform this upgrade, just ask.
I have a Seagate Harddisk which is already in 0 Byte or Busy State
If the disk is already in the 0 Byte or Busy State mode there are only two options: Send it back to Seagate and get an replacement (I think the offers also a data restore) or talk to the HDD controller over a terminal program (and some special hardware) to reset the controller.
Option 1: Warranty
=> follow the link below for Returns Assistence
Community Relations Contacts | Seagate
=> to get some informations the first link is also interesting
Seagate Knowledge Base
Option 2: Fix it by yourself
There is a way to fix the HDD controller with an RS232 or USB to TTL converter and an terminal program like Hyperterminal (this program is integrated in Win XP and can be found under Start).
I found two good explanations how to do it.
Description 1:
The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs - MSFN Forums
Description 2 (Caution: there is a HDD power down/up missing before the last command (m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22)):
Fixing a Seagate 7200.11 Hard Drive ?(Fixing a Seagate 7200.11 Hard Drive)?
After the fix, the first thing you should do is to upgrade the firmware of the fixed HDD.
It needed around 2 hours to setup the boards,wires and to fix my HDD. My HDD has 5 partitions with 4 different OS. All OS working fine again and also all data seems to be okay.
I've used the following RS232 to TTL adaptor for my fix (Caution: 5V is needed for the IC in difference to the descriptions above): www.pollin.de
My terminal program: PuTTY Download Page
Overall hardware costs ~5€
If someone needs a reference, I can some pictures from my "hardware" solution and screenshots from my terminal program settings.
I hope this threat prevent someone from the same trouble as I had.
Best regards,
Kaldred
