Seagate HD Failing - Check Yours

MacUser · Postby **MacUser** » January 21st, 2009, 4:13 am

You might want to check your HD..

SEAGATE HD FAILING...
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/s ... cId=207931

The big manufacturer of hard disks reports that a 'small' number of Barracuda 7200.11 drives are failing. Once they fail, the data on them is supposedly still intact but can't be accessed without expert recovery procedures. Seagate has promised to expedite data recovery for affected users, which is nice enough but cold comfort if you're among the unlucky.

Seagate offers a software utility that will tell you if your drive is at risk, but that only works on Windows PCs. The firm is providing some firmware updates for the affected, but at this point they do not appear to have an updater that will run under OS X.

(On A MAC.. use the 'more info' button when you select 'About this Mac' from the Apple menu (or just run the Apple System Profiler utility from your Utilities folder -- same result), and click on the Serial-ATA label in the left column. You'll get all your drive model numbers, and the firmware revisions.)

The problem drives also extend to the Barracuda ES.2 SATA units and the DiamondMax22. The flaky drives could be internal models, or drives installed in external cases.

( Click the Knowledge Base for PC checker and/or SN's of HD effected )

Pastor Bill · Postby **Pastor Bill** » January 21st, 2009, 4:36 am

be careful, the firmware they released to fix this originally caused more problems. This is mainly newer drives.

EagerBeaver · Postby **EagerBeaver** » January 21st, 2009, 5:45 am

Don't know if this applies, but Seagate Barracudas are the hard drives used in LaCie externals. I just had one puke on me two weeks ago and it contained my entire video archive from work for 2008.

Fortunately we got it back up and running...but I don't trust Seagate ANYTHING.

beckrl · Postby **beckrl** » January 22nd, 2009, 10:54 am

Just replaced one for a client :roll:

Jude 2