People with 7200.11 hard drives from Seagate should be aware there's a current issue. The disks get locked into protection mode and then are "dead". There should be a firmware update to care of this issue before it appears.

The faulty firmware is SD15. Until a fix is released, avoid powering up and down the drive, back up elsewhere.

This thread centralize all the data about the working/non working drives.

The related forum at Seagate

A press realease from seagate is expected today.

Gosh, I've got at least two three of them…

Seagate current official anouncement

Right now, this is how it is:

- there's no working patches still, seagate trials were as bad if not worse than the original firmwares.
- remember, the drives are "ok", the data is still here, it's only a software issue so it'll be fixed.
- all 7200.11 and equivalents build until december 08 included are concerned
- there's a way to unbrick the bricked ones rather geeky but for this, I advise to follow the threads on msfn.org (the forum seems down, it'll come back)

Until there's a WORKING firmware… Don't power down the drive if you can and back up!

And there seems to be a few firmware updates up and running at Seagate for ST3500320AS, ST3500620AS, ST3500820AS, ST3640330AS, ST3640530AS, ST3750330AS, ST3750630AS, ST31000340AS.
For other models like ES2, check Seagate website for the procedure (got to write to seagate).
Check carefully the model and firmware version BEFORE applying, as it can brick your drive if applied on the wrong model!

How to burn the ISO CD

If you want to have the geeky inside story about what happened, it's on slashdot

Note that I have not yet gone the full road so this is all the input I can give for now. The Firmware CD will work in intel desktop, provided it's burned the right way, the intel mac is intel and you can set the drive inside the computer on the internal SATA bus. One day, maybe Seagate and others will find out there's enclosures, people not running Windows or people not having a desktop computer but a laptop (I have G3 BW, PWM G5 and macbook here… so screwed)

How to proceed on Mac here for mac pro and intel iMac

And the walkthrough using the freeDOS CD

I have an affected drive (ST31000340NS), but so far there is no problem whatsoever.
I'm on MacPro OS 10.4.11.

Have you verified on Seagate website it is in the ominous series (enter the serial number in the utility at seagate, link "Seagate current official announcement" up here)?

Only some series in the specified models have issues. And it's easier to care of before the bug shows… On my 3 potential disks, only one is really affected, as it's Murphy's all along, it's a system hard drive…

Yes, mine is in that batch. But everything is fine so I'm not going to do anything.
The disk is for VI. samples only which I can always re-install.
I think most of problems are from PC.

The trouble is once it is bricked, either you have to send it to Seagate, which cares of the unbricking for free and send back on a new drive, or you have to unbrick the HD with a rs232 cable modified on a pc and it's a little geeky.

Now, if your disk has been always and/or heavily used (like mine) there's almost no risk the issue appears as it's likely it passed the bug point of the 320th log entry.

I'm still preparing my back ups, as I plan to install new systems on both the MacBook and the G5 (the G5 has the infamous disk as its system HD) as I have to tidy up thing anyway before flashing the disk. I hope to be able to do so net week at a member's wintel pc.

I've managed at last to have a go at moving stuff, formating, installed a new system and imported accounts, I just have to extract the drive and I'll be able to to do the update thanks to a member with a PC. I'll get back once it's done

At last… I've visited a member with a welcoming PC to do the updates. Thanks Berhu N°2!

On the procedure itself, it's rather straightforward. After the boot on the CD, a Red-Me file opens, Windows users know part of the text by heart, there's after this a part if the CD doesn't boot the PC then a licence blahblah. Press Esc and the update utility loads, and there you have to choose in a list the right drive model (there's one or more), press the letter accordingly (A, B or C…) and let things happen. Once it's done, it tells you to press any key to shut down the computer, the firmware will be used at the next powering up. It can be seen on the PC on start up, or after that in some utilities. On the mac, the utility system Information will tell you the firmware version if the drive is installed internally.

So, I had 2 hard drives to update.

- the ST3500320AS, finger in the nose. It has a brand new SD1A now. No loss of data.

- The ST3100033AS just bought: the firmware can't be upgraded, the CD tells something strange:
I'm going to see with Seagate what's the issue, but no data has been lost and the disk turns smoothly.

I've managed to waste enough time in the seagate forum, so…

For my ST31000333AS, bad news… there's no solution for now seemingly. I've emailed and opened a ticket and we'll see. For a failure they are aware of for months I find this very unprofessional.

I NEED this drive! Arrrh!

(note, those who can make the update to SD1A seem happy, it's only when it fails this way…)

Seagate support was quick, I've received 2 answers:

- One asking me to verify if I had downloaded the right firmware updater… (yeah, and the computer was powered up too, thanks)

- The other sending me an updater to SD3B I'll try as soon as possible.

Update to SD3B done thanks to member Berhu N°2 again, the drive is up and running and no data loss.

"lepetitmartien" Please Help with getting Update to SD3B I loose all my data files (