Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 / ES.2 / DiamondMax 22 drive issue – Company issues major firmware updates

Seagate

Alarming news for all Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 / ES.2 / DiamondMax 22, hard drive users as a company statement confirms the potential flaw in the firmware of their brand new Barracuda 7200.11 / ES.2 / DiamondMax 22 drives.

In last few weeks there were lots of web reports from around the world suggesting that the new 7200.11 drives are failing at a alarming rate, which is now confirmed in the company web bulletin released yesterday.

Which seagate drives are faulty and effected in this firmware problem ?

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11

ST31000340AS
ST3750330AS
ST3640330AS
ST3500320AS
ST31500341AS
ST31000333AS
ST3640323AS
ST3640623AS
ST3320613AS
ST3320813AS
ST3160813AS

Seagate Barracuda ES.2 SATA DiamondMax 22

ST31000340NS
ST3750330NS
ST3500320NS
ST3250310NS

Seagate DiamondMax 22

STM31000340AS
STM3750330AS
STM3500320AS
STM31000334AS
STM3320614AS
STM3160813AS
STM31000333AS

What is wrong with these drives ?

Well here the official version,

Welcome, Seagate hard drive owners.  A number of Seagate hard drives from the following families may become inaccessible when the host system is powered on:

Barracuda 7200.11
DiamondMax 22
Barracuda ES.2 SATA

Once a drive has become affected the data becomes inaccessible to users but the data is not deleted.  Seagate has isolated this issue to a firmware bug affecting drives from these families manufactured in December 2008.

Now to explain, please note there is nothing wrong in the hardware of these products. The software in side it (which is called firmware) is what locking the drives some time. It is not causing any bad sector or disk damage, all it is doing is simply locking the disk as a fail safe process.

How do you fix these effected Seagate drives ?

By simply replacing the firmware with a working one. Please follow the links given above to download the correct firmware for your drive.

How do you find your hard disk drives model number ?

Download DriveDetect

Download the Seagate software, drive detect and run it. It should show you the model number.

Once you know your model number, you can obtain the right firmware for your self.

How do I upgrade firmware for my Seagate drive ?

The firmware comes as an ISO file. ISO is a CD image hence you would need a blank CD and a software which can burn a bootable ISO in a CD.

Ref -> Seagate KB

In other-words you can use NERO to burn the image to a blank CD.

Once you are done with burning, please boot using the CD by configuring your system to boot from CD / DVD room (which can be done from BIOS) and follow the on screen information to flash the firmware.

Note ->

  • It is very imp that you backup your data from the drive, in which you are about to perform the firmware upgrade.
  • Do not turn off the power while you are flashing the firmware of the device.

Choto Cheeta on January 19, 2009 | Filed Under Computer, Hardware

8 Comments

Bjarne Nygaard  on January 19th, 2009

The firmware update did not repair the dead drive
I have downloaded the fix and did get the remedy.

bjarne

saurabh  on January 19th, 2009

mine reports 7200.11 ST3500620AS firmware SD15 so is it safe or do i need to upgrade the firmware

Choto Cheeta  on January 19th, 2009

Hi saurabh,

Your model do not seems to be in the effected list.

@Bjarne Nygaard

Can you please mention which fix you are talking about ?

Thanks

Choto Cheeta  on January 21st, 2009

Well Well well,

Problem continues for the seagete users are it seems firmware version SD1A released for the 7200.11 drives are taken off line after reports the those who upgraded are still facing issue.

Punnyabrata Chakraborty  on February 12th, 2009

I have a 500GB 7200.11 ST3500620AS Hard drive with firmware SD15 on it. The hard drive has failed “Seatools” test and is no longer working. I have very important data on it. Can you tell me what should I be doing?

Amitava  on April 15th, 2009

Guys,
I already have suffered from the problem.My 1st Hdd had bad firmware.I got a replacement yesterday.This new drive has Model No:ST3500820AS,Firmware SD81.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW DO I NEED TO UPDATE THE FIRMWARE FOR THIS?IF SO,HOW?

Punnyabrata Chakraborty  on April 15th, 2009

bro it would be helpful if you could let us know if there has been any new updates in this matter or has Seagate forgotten it. Did they come up with a new and improved version of “Seatools” with a fix for this issue?

Mindfree  on April 17th, 2009

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11
500 Gbytes
ST3500820AS
P/N: 9BX134-100
FIRMWARE : LC11

Stop Detecting .

Is this is a Firmware Problem.

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