Seagate bungles firmware update

[Boeing 787]

A FEW DAYS after our original article, Seagate had scrambled the techies and produced a new firmware to flash the drives. So far so good.

The new SD1A firmware promised to take away the pain even though it did not solve the problem for people whose drives were already KIA. It would - according to the company - avoid the bricking feature before it happened...

... If it worked.

Adding insult to already injured customers, there are reports streaming in to our inboxes of users who have attempted the firmware flash and have ended up with bricked drives. Yes. That's right... Paperweight city all over the place. Seagate customers are up in arms.

Right about now, a very angry mob is giving phone support a good yell and filling the forums with complaints. If you want to join the festivities and leave a piece of your mind to Seagate's deaf, dumb and blind forums you can visit the forums.

Seagate has hastily removed the doubly-offending firmware before any more customers get their drives killed and is advising that a new firmware will be ready in 24-48 hours time. Naturally, if the drives are already bricked there won't be much you can do in terms of applying new firmware - RMA seems to be the only solution right now.

Oh, and if you want to ask someone at Seagate if it's safe, just forget contacting tech support via chat: the company will not discuss firmware updates on chats. Which brings us to today's mise en sc?ne> of "the devil's advocate": if we found we'd been telling people to apply firmware that bricks their drives we'd want the least amount of incriminating evidence (ie: chat logs) around, wouldn't we? But that's just us... because we're The INQ.

The situation, of course, begs the obvious question: how the heck does such a piece of firmware get launched without passing through thorough testing and certification?

We've tried contacting Seagate again, but it appears they think we're a customer.

Anyway, the dung should hit the fan at the stockholder meeting today... stay tuned. ?

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/5...firmware-update

I know it's the inquirer but still relevant.

Second: http://www.informationweek.com/news/securi...cleID=212901822

Seagate (NYSE: STX) Technology has pulled a firmware fix for its 1-TB Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive after the patch reportedly caused 500-GB versions of the drive to stop working.

Seagate on Wednesday promised to have a second fix within 24 hours, according to tech site Channel Register. Seagate has told its customers that they shouldn't lose any of their data as a result of the problems, but it has also promised to provide recovery services at no charge if necessary.

Consentry's NAC Host Assessment is fairly rudimentary Microsoft on when to go OneCare versus Forefront InformationWeek Editor, John Foley, speaks with Nick Magliato, CEO of startup Trust Digital, which makes SmartPhone Security.

InformationWeek Editor, John Foley, speaks with Nick Magliato, CEO of startup Trust Digital, which makes SmartPhone Security.

Seagate could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Seagate pulled the first fix on Monday for "validation," according to the company's support site. On the same day, Seagate customers started flooding the company's community forum with complaints that the patch apparently caused the 500-GB Barracuda to stop working.

Last week, Seagate said it had isolated the problem that affected the Barracuda drives and other drive lines based on the same platform. The products had been manufactured through December.

The latest firmware troubles occurred about two months after the company had problems with its 1.5-TB Barracuda 7200.11, which randomly froze, according to tech site Tom's Hardware.

Seagate's product headaches are on top of the company's financial troubles. The company last week said it would cut thousands of jobs and slash executive salaries as a result of a drop in sales related to the economic downturn.

Edited January 22, 2009 by hardgiant

[itsnotabigtruck]

Word of advice: never even bother with those online tech support chat things. They're almost always outsourced to companies whose workers also handle dozens of other sites - they usually have next to zero knowledge of the problem at hand (even off a flowchart). Moreover, if you actually need to get an RMA or anything of the sort, they'll typically tell you to call up the phone support.

Of course, there are exceptions. But this is the norm.

[Raa]

Man I am SO glad I only purchase Western Digital hd's. I've had a lot of reports of failing hard drives from Seagate, has been increasing for a while.

[Avi]

Well, they reposted a firmware update for my drive... updating...

[Avi]

Alright... I upgraded the firmware and everything went smoothly. :)

Drive working properly.

[MindTooth]

Maybe should try making it correct the first time, not the third time the need now.

Birger :)