Heads up - Seagate Barracuda HDD SATA drive

Public Technical problems / FAQ
1

Just a heads up for those who have Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives in their systems. Its well worth checking to see if your HDD firmware version is SD15.

I’ve just spent the weekend sorting out my Dad’s PC after his drive “bricked”. It seems the SD15 firmware has a problem whereby the disk can get stuck in a busy state. There’s nothing wrong with the disk itself but it stops it from being recognised in the BIOS or OS and is completely unresponsive.

Anyone who has bought a pre-constructed rig from Overclockers around 18 months - 2 years ago, may want to check as these were the drives they put in.

I wont go in to how I sorted it, the drive is recoverable with some basic electronics knowledge, as there’s plenty of links on tinterweb.

If you upgrade the firmware on the drive before it gets in to this state you’re ok.

So, how to check. Download and run this: Drive Detect which will tell you if your Seagate HDD has the firmware.

If you have, download and run the firmware upgrade utility from here: http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207951

Suck eggs caveat: Backup first - though the update isn’t data destructive.

2

Sounds like Maxtor have been firmly integrated into Seagate now then. :rolleyes:

3

Thanks for the heads up mate,

I have x2 1.5TB in my system, I’ve done the check and the answer on both drives is No action required. My firmware is as stated below CC1H :banana:

Seagate Note: If your drive has CC firmware, your drive is not affected and no further action is required. Attempting to flash the firmware of a drive with CC firmware will result in rendering your drive inoperable.

:eek: Good job I read the small print… :smiley:

Splash