Warning, Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, DiamondMax 22, Barracuda ES.2 SATA hard drive onwers
22 Jan
Posted by Jayce as Hardware
Warning, Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, DiamondMax 22, Barracuda ES.2 SATA hard drive owners. Yes, this is a very serious warning coming out from Seagate itself. Because your hard drive might become inaccessible when you power up your PC system. I got an error comment from an anonymous on January 11th, 2009. At first, I thought just an anti-Seagate wondering around and doing some damages to Seagate branding. However, I changed my mind after seeing this announcement.
Oh no… My hard drive is on the list!
You need to be extra careful if you hard drive is one of them below.
| Barracuda 7200.11ST31000340AS | Barracuda ES.2 SATAST31000340NS | DiamondMax 22STM31000340AS |
Haha… I am the lucky one. I have Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 3Gb/s 500GB hard drive. And so lucky that the hard drive model and firmware are also matches as the affected units. However, by the time I writing this post, the solution file was taken offline for validation. Therefore, I cannot patch the firmware yet. HELP!!!
Firmware Update for ST3500320AS, ST3640330AS, ST3750330AS, ST31000340AS [207951]
!!WARNING!!
The software and information in this article could be data destructive and/or render your hard drive inoperable if not followed carefully. It is always recommended to keep a backup of critical data.This article applies to the following models:
Drive Family
Models Affected
Firmware Affected
Recommended Firmware Update
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11
ST3500320AS
ST3640330AS
ST3750330AS
ST31000340AS
SD15, SD16, SD17, SD18, SD19, AD14
SD1A
Please verify your drive model number, serial number, and firmware revision using the Drive Detect software.
Note: This file has been temporarily taken offline as of Jan 19, 2008 8PM CST for validation.
If your drive matches one of the models listed in this article and does not match any of these versions of firmware, your drive is not affected.
If you are still unsure if this applies to your drive, please submit an email to disksupport@seagate.com. Please enter the model number, serial number, and firmware revision into the subject line of the email.
The current solution for these hard drive owners ~ don’t reboot or shutdown your system. Cheer. 
... Have you noticed
Hmm… and why is it that you hard drive is still working? I mean, what will trigger the bug? Surely you’ve powered down your PC before right?
Lucky for me, I tend to buy WD drives (from an old habit where they offered substantially longer warranties compared to the then separate Maxtor/Seagate hard drives).
My new 1TB external drive is from Maxtor though. Those aren’t affected right?
I have got 2 bad experiences with Seagate HDD. Will only support Quantum and Maxtor.
Marco, if you notice, DiamondMax (a Maxtor sub-brand) is listed along with the Seagate drives. That’s cause Maxtor has been bought over by Seagate a couple of years ago.
Looks like the new 500GB firmware bricked a few drives already – http://www.techspot.com/news/33286-Seagates-SD1A-firmware-bricking-500GB-Barracudas.html
@Bernie: I prefer WD too. But Seagate offers 3 years warranty while WD only 2 years if not mistaken.
Anyway, my PC is on 24/7. Just do some reboots during software installation.
…hmm, luckily my Seagate notebook hard disk is not listed here.
@Wing Loon: Yeah… Lucky you. I just updated the firmware without any issue.