Streissand effect hits Seagate! Nicely done.

can you add the picture you used for the guy who fell for the nigerian scam? seriously, that sucks. good luck bro. start up a paypal link.

if theres anything we learned from scams its that getting one person to give $600 is much harder than getting 600 to give $1.

If this turns out to be true it'll be a pretty major black eye to Seagate who, up until now, has been the primary provider of my drives. Even though they tend to be slightly more expensive than their competitors, their 5 year warranty together with their excellent customer service has been keeping me coming back. I really hope this turns out to be a misunderstanding or something.

That being said, for a researcher this guy isn't terribly bright. "I recently purchased this drive in October to safe guard my research material and paper for school." How, exactly, is purchasing one drive to store your data 'safeguarding' anything? The mantra is true as it ever was: back up, back up, back up. Always keep multiple copies of your data on multiple devices, preferably of different types. If your stuff is stored on one drive it's just asking for trouble.

@EmperorOfCanada: I still say Consumerist needs to use that as a tag.

In this digital age, a HDD faliure is worse than any other consumer electronics faliure (other than saftey and life support type devices).

People can lose their work, family photos, all sorts of data they may never be able to recover.

Of course, eveyone has heard they should back up their data...but unfortuantly that is a life lesson you learn after a HDD failure happens to you.

There's always the option of swapping the drive electronics. If it's not showing up in the BIOS, that seems to me that some component on the board is out to lunch. Buying a drive of the EXACT SAME model and swapping out the boards may help. Not free, but a far sight cheaper than data recovery.

From what I've read, the majority of the failures come once the drives are placed into a RAID array.

Buy two of the next size up, and backup, backup, backup. Their something to be said for keeping the setup simple.

@AlteredBeast: Backups are so hard to do now though, because a DVD-R only holds like 5 gigs. That's a lot of DVD burning to back up MP3s, pictures, videos, etc...

It sucks that consumer electronics this day in age are only expected to perform well for a few years then crap out. It's like we expect it.

This is sorta old news . .well, a week anyway! I have already flashed a couple drives with no problems, I have 6 more to do. For ones that are already bricked and won't take the firmware upgrade, you can send them to Seagate for free repair.

Seagate has recognized the problem and are offering solutions. What more do you want?

@concordia: Seems like having a backup hard drive would be a good safeguard. I think having five copies would get redundant...

@downwithmonstercable: So buy another hard drive and do a drive image/mirror them.

Alternatively, invest in a BluRay burner and some blanks. The blanks are down to like $5/disc now.

@Fuzz: Apparently the submitter wants Seagate to travel back in time and teach him backup best practices.

It definitely seems that Seagate has been less than professional about this hard drive issue. They have been censoring posts on their forums, and have removed links to external stories about the problem.

One aspect of your story appears to be incorrect, though:

"While Seagate has issued a firmware upgrade, it doesn't work if your drive has already been affected..."

Looking on the Seagate forums, it seems that quite a few people have managed to flash their busted drives with the new firmware and get all their data back. Have a look at some of the comments in this thread on the Seagate forums.

@downwithmonstercable: You don't necessarily need to back up to removable media. Backing up to a second hard disk is often easier and more cost-effective. At work we back up our 1 TB disk array to...another 1 TB disk array.

Removable media is only necessary if you want to do offsite backups. While offsite backups are a good idea (in case your house burns down, for example) an on-site backup will suffice for most people.

I had a 500GB 7200.11 Barracuda that I bought 9 months ago from Newegg fail in the same manner. I contacted Seagate, who in early January told me "we know of no such problem." I proceeded to send in my drive (the data recovery services both quoted over $1700 to get the data back) and get a replacement, which I promptly sold on Craigslist. Less than 10 days later, I saw the news about Seagate offering free replacement plus free data recovery, so I contacted them to find out if the drive I sent in was still available for this data recovery and their answer was that they trash all drives within 12 hours of receipt. My data is completely lost and I'm devastated over it. The drive was only 9 months old and I was in the process of working out a backup solution to this drive (which was already my backup but contained some original content which is now forever lost).

Because of Seagate's attitude and epic failure on this, they have lost a customer for life. I'm a young guy and buy a lot of hard drives, and will be sure to tell all of my friends about this (of course, at this point, who doesn't already know about this problem?).

I'm now back with Western Digital, this time set up in a RAID format, as well as using Carbonite for a 2nd backup.

Advice: If you are unable to prevent this from happening with an update, and that data is very important, there is something you can try that has worked for me in the past. On the exterior of HDDs there is some control circutry. This is where that nast bad firmware is located. It is possible to purchase another identical drive to the one that has failed, remove its (hopefully still functional) control board, and swap it for the bad one. If that is where the problem really was, chances are that it should work again and you could now update the firmware. As far as the other drive, you can take it back to the store for a replacement one, or send it to Seagate for warrenty repair (without risking your precious data). In the end you have paid for two drives, but you then have two working drives. Depending on the store's policy they might even let you return it for a refund.

However, if you aren't sure you'd be able to attempt this w/o causing further damage I'd advise against it.

@Mr_D: Unless you're talking about component replacement this rarely works these days, for several reasons.

@downwithmonstercable: I should add that, because of firmware bugs and "bad batches" like the ones described in this article, it's a good idea to buy your backup drive from a different manufacturer than your primary drive.

@Mr_D: I came here to suggest the same thing. I successfully did this a few years ago on some drives that weren't even identical, but close enough for the board to work the same.

The fun part is that there was smoke involved when my drive got screwed up. Not much was on it, but I recovered it anyway. It was a computer that I had built out of parts donated to my school.
Lesson: don't try to run a hard drive just sitting on top of a case. It can short out and smoke.

It definitely seems that Seagate has been less than professional about this hard drive issue. They have been censoring posts on their forums, and have removed links to external stories about the problem.

One aspect of your story appears to be incorrect, though:

"While Seagate has issued a firmware upgrade, it doesn't work if your drive has already been affected..."

Looking on the Seagate forums, it seems that quite a few people have managed to flash their busted drives with the new firmware and get all their data back. Have a look at some of the comments in this thread on the Seagate forums.

Dell XPS systems use these drives, we've had both of our computers crap out on us and Dell refuses to ship us a different brand of drive. This really needs class action status.

Why doesn't this guy just take up Seagate's offer on Data Recovery?

Sucks that Danny's drive is dead, but really... when you buy a hard drive, you simply CANNOT expect it to last longer than the warranty covers it for. If it dies on the day after the warranty is up -- regardless of the reason for the failure -- you've gotten what you paid for, and the manufacturer is no longer under any obligation to help you.

From the sound of it though, Seagate is attempting to address the issue. As stated by a previous commenter, Seagate is even offering to repair drives that are already affected by the bug. It's not clear if that extends to drives that are out of warranty, but still.

At any rate, anyone with a computer should know enough to back up their critical data, and the fact that Danny failed to do that really isn't Seagate's problem. Hopefully Danny will learn a lesson here far more valuable than whatever he's been learning in school.

Yeah Seagate pretty much dropped the ball on this one. They put out an initial firmware fix that was supposed to resolve user's potential problems with the drives. Instead, it bricked people's hard drives. It then took them another few days to correct the firmware and actually release one that addressed and resolved the original issue. They are offering free data recovery but it's still pretty amateurish. As someone who had to flash their drive, I can say that I will not be supporting Seagate again in the future.

[www.computerworld.com]

Was Danny using this drive to backup his work? He mentions the reason for the drive was to "safe guard my research material and paper for school". If this was just the backup, isn't the only real problem being without your backup drive while it is being repaired? I'm not counting any shenanigans on Seagates part. Those are a bigger issue and worthy of much scorn.

And if it was the sole storage location for his work, sometimes we have to learn the hard way that redundant backups are the best way to go. In my senior year of school, I lost 2 years worth of animations, models, and digital artwork because of a drive failure. Since then, I've always kept backups burned to either dvd or stored on a raid.

@concordia: I lost 2x Seagate drives in one month... I felt bad cause I liked buying products from a corp who has offices literally 2 miles from me, but I cannot risk certain data with these failure rates.

Fortunately Western Digital is also in my state so I don't feel as bad.

@Fuzz: I'm a long-time Seagate supporter but the number and severity of problems they've been having is disturbing. Their 1.5TB drive drop-out problem bit one of my RAIDs. Not fun, and their support was terrible. "Oh, sorry, but those aren't supported in RAID configurations." (In spite of their product information recommending them for RAIDs.) They were doing forum-shenanigans with that problem, too.

Something besides drives is broken at that company. I hope they get a handle on it. The last thing I want is a WD-only world (for the last few years of spinning platters anyway).

@concordia: What? You mean backup to *another* Seagate?

Personally, I rsync everything to a different drive(s) and sometimes to storage on other systems. Keep backups of your backups, remotely if possible.

@David Brodbeck: Excellent tip!

This is why you stagger your backup strategy across multiple drives from different companies. I use seagate to store all of my important files and I back them on up western digital hard drives.

@downwithmonstercable: DVD R backups are not the only option. A RAID is much more reliable and not nearly as expensive as they used to be. If you're not familiar with a RAID, check out the details here, [www.techwarelabs.com] There is also plenty of info online to DIY a RAID yourself to cut the cost down.

@concordia: i recently got a WD 7200rpm 1TB Caviar Black (5 yr warranty) from Dell for about $100 with tax and shipping... sticknig with WD for now..... hopefully their 2TB drive will drop in price quickly

A drive that is only a few months old shouldn't fail. If seagate were more open about the bug then maybe people wouldn't freak out. Once the drive is hit by the bug it can only be fixed by sending it in to seagate as the drive is locked into busy and NO bios can read it. It can only be fixed by hardware.

[techreport.com]

"Seagate has isolated a potential firmware issue in certain products, including some Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives and related drive families based on this product platform, manufactured through December 2008. In some circumstances, the data on the hard drives may become inaccessible to the user when the host system is powered on*.

As part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, we are offering a free firmware upgrade to those with affected products. To determine whether your product is affected, please visit the Seagate Support web site at [seagate.custkb.com]

Support is also available through Seagate's call center: 1-800-SEAGATE (1 800 732-4283)

Customers can expedite assistance by sending an email to Seagate (discsupport@seagate.com). Please include the following disk drive information: model number, serial number and current firmware revision. We will respond, promptly, to your email request with appropriate instructions. There is no data loss associated with this issue, and the data still resides on the drive. But if you are unable to access your data due to this issue, Seagate will provide free data recovery services. Seagate will work with you to expedite a remedy to minimize any disruption to you or your business."

If they honor the above then I think they have made ammends, but the fact that this information isn't readily available on there own forums is unjust to costumers.

Glad the only Seagates I deal with are at work. At least I don't have to re-purchase and re-image everything.

@ThickSkinned:

Repeat after me: RAID != backup

RAID can save you from a HDD dying; however, it doesn't protect you from corrupted files, restores files after a virus attack, or getting back a file you just mistakenly deleted.

@warf0x0r: WD is the best brand IMO. I never really trusted Seagate. Maxtor is the suck. Other brands are questionable. Never had any issues with a WD.

@everyone who replied to me: Thanks for the tips. I know a little about raid but not enough to go out and do it. I'd be wary of using a second HD to back stuff up, because HD failures seem so common. I know personally I've had two fail on me in the last four years, both drives were less than three years old. Both were Maxtor, which I didn't buy - they came with the computer. That's why I stick with removable media to back up. Unless you scratch it, it'll still be ok. But when you have gigs and gigs of stuff, it gets pretty difficult.

I have a Western Digital backup hard drive and it's on a computer that isn't currently connected to the Internet. That said, I've been meaning to burn a lot of the stuff on it to a DVD. Guess I should get on that!

@downwithmonstercable:
Seems like having a backup hard drive would be a good safeguard. I think having five copies would get redundant...

As an IT Professional, I find that statement to be quite funny. I have 4 backup points - Internal Drive (RAID Mirror), Local eSTATA HD, Server @ Branch office, Tape Backup. And you know what that's called - redundant backup

@valarmorghulis: I'll second this! I had a drive fail from a similar issue where the board failed. I took the board off a good drive I got used on ebay, and replaced it. Worked good as new.

I was about to buy a Seagate 1.5tb hard drive, but luckily I saw some articles about the 7200.11 Seagate drives failing before I made my purchase. I ended up buying a WD 1tb hard drive. I don't think I will ever make a Seagate purchase again. Seagate silencing users who are trying to make their trouble known and evading the issue is bad publicity for them. I think that while we are waiting for the class action, we should try to spread the news as much as possible, by posting on other forums, spamming Seagate's own forum, and giving all of Seagate products bad scores on online stores where ratings are accepted.

On another note, did anyone else notice Seagate hard drives dropping in price drastically these past few weeks?

Okay I'm not defending Seagate's censorship here, that is reprehensible (other than to eliminate hyperbole) to do.

People, back up your freaking data. If you lose data in the age of cheap flash drives, DVD burners, online backup's, et al, you've pretty much got only yourself to blame 99.999999999% of the time. Always keep your data in multiple places. You know that old adage about putting all your eggs in one basket? Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) fails, and in electronics the first 90 days is when it's most likely to.

Buck up and learn your backup options. He's in school? Research paper? I could fit 1000 research papers with notes on my flash drive (8gb) and still have space left over. Heck, I could do iteration saves so if the professor were to ever accuse me of plagarism, I could give him / her the iterations and go "take a look."

@concordia: Thumbdrives FTW.

@SScorpio: Indeed. The ideal setup in my mind would be this:
-One drive for the system
-Two drives in RAID 1 for data
-One internal backup drive
-One external backup drive

@Jameson Jendreas: I think I implied something different than what I meant. I was mainly referring to concordia calling the OP not terribly bright because he had an HD backup. As a retort to that, I meant that it seems like that IS a good idea, to have an HD backup. Then when I referred to the five backups, I meant that is overkill in the grand scheme of things, and that it's stupid we even need that many backups. I think maybe my post was politically motivated. Like a call to manufacturers for improvement. If we needed spare motherboards and CPUs because they failed as much as HDs do, I don't think people would stand for it.

@downwithmonstercable:

I used to back up my music and other files to CD-Rs, then DVD-Rs (I have "MP3 Disc" volume 1 - 15 or something like that).

The problem I have discovered is that DVD-Rs start to become unreadable after a few years. So if I backed up vacation photos from 2003, I may not be able to view them anymore. :(

@Dan Grossberg: It's much easier to get 600 from one person than it is to get 1 dollar from 600 people. That is why scams exist. All you got to do is find the right person and BAM you get a lump sum.

Every hard drive ever manufactured will someday fail. No one knows exactly when or how for any of them.

If you aren't backing up daily, you have no one to blame but yourself if you lose data, regardless of whether there's a preexisting fault in the drive or not.

I heard about this right after buying a Seagate 7200.11 500GB SATA drive. I entered in the part # and serial # on their site, and they claim that my drive is not affected.

Does anyone know how accurate SG is being w/r/t which drives are affected? I really don't want to have to wipe this drive and return it -- but I also really don't want it to crash in a couple months.