Owners of SEAGATE or MAXTOR hard drives- READ THIS!

Updated mine, no troubles.

I'd like to be an apologist for Seagate. Its pretty easy for an intermittent problem like this to go undiagnosed - especially with thousands of configurations they could never predict or test for. Fixing this is not like just flipping a switch. Given their track record up to this point I give them the benefit of the doubt in the future.

Likewise, outside the 75GXP line from IBM/Hitachi - they have been reliable over the years. Note that IBM never owned up to the problem.

Additionally, Western Digital never owned up to intermittent RAID failures for several years a few years back.

dew.
 
The process of upgrading the drives is not too difficult IF you have the correct file from Seagate for your drive AND IF you have a SATA equipped computer available AND IF you have the instructions about how to do it properly. Many members of another site that I participate on that have different drive models than I have, report that Seagate support denies the problem at first and only offers the update after the customer demands to escalate the complaint. They are still denying that there is a problem with some models to some people but then turn around and offer an update to someone else that has the same model. It appears that they are trying to keep a lid on the extent of the problem across their model line. After several hours of searching I was able to gather enough information to do it successfully.

My frustration with the whole mess is the way that Seagate has handled the situation from the start - over a year ago! Even now that they have admitted that the problem exists, their documentation and instructions are terrible - especially for those of us that are not IT professionals. The instructions on the Read-me file on the download are pretty close but not entirely accurate.

They need to consider their audience and provide thorough instructions for all of their customers, neophytes as well as professionals, if they expect to have end users of their products perform the repair work for them to fix their defective products. It certainly would not be difficult to create a document with the required information to prepare for the procedure followed by step-by-step instructions that anyone could follow. They could also provide a Readers Digest version for professionals and/or people that have had experience with performing the procedure previously. Considering that they sell their products at retail to the general public I don't think I am asking too much.
 
This is worth a bump.
A few weeks ago I bought a new 500GB drive to update my old computer.
I ran over to check it. Phew. It is a Western Digital so I am safe from this particular problem.
Thanks for the heads up.
 
If you look back, every HD manufacturer has faced some sort of challenge with product quality and support at some point.

Fujitsu had a rash of problems with faulty IDE drives several years ago... it basically drove them out of the storage business for a while.

In my book, Seagate has long been best-of-breed, and I expect them to recover from this mis-step.
 
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