Seagate HD problems get worse

Seagate’s Firmware Woes

Earlier this week, it emerged that Seagate were having some problems with some of their hard drives and faulty firmware being used on them. The drives specifically affected were all made in December, 2008, and are from the following product ranges:

Barracuda 7200.11
DiamondMax 22
Barracuda ES.2 SATA

The faulty firmware had the potential to make the drives inaccessible and undetectable. Seagate were quick on the mark to provide a resolution to this, by offering updated firmware for all drives affected, and to offer free data recovery, should it be required. All sounds good so far, unless you are an owner of the 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 drive (model number ST3500320AS), as the updated firmware for these drives had the unexpected effect of bricking these drives. Seagate have now had to withdraw the firmware update until further notice. The drives are still detected by the host system’s BIOS, so the planned new release of the firmware will be able to be applied.

You can get more information from the Seagate support website. You can also discuss this article in our forums here.