Hard drive firmware

[AMmayhem]

My hard drive has apparently crapped out on me. Though after talking to someone, they mentioned that Seagate had some faulty hard drives a few years ago, which they solved with a firmware update. Well I have a Seagate 7200 which is a couple years old so while checking for firmware, the updates depend on the serial number. My serial number is a ST3500630AS, but the closest firmware I can find is for a ST3500620AS. Would it be wise decision to use this firmware even though it's not the exact same serial number? Or is that going to mess things up?

[IronMonkey]

Originally Posted by AMmayhem

My hard drive has apparently crapped out on me. Though after talking to someone, they mentioned that Seagate had some faulty hard drives a few years ago, which they solved with a firmware update. Well I have a Seagate 7200 which is a couple years old so while checking for firmware, the updates depend on the serial number. My serial number is a ST3500630AS, but the closest firmware I can find is for a ST3500620AS. Would it be wise decision to use this firmware even though it's not the exact same serial number? Or is that going to mess things up?

If you mean the SD15 firmware issue then there is a checker referenced on this page. Follow its advice:

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931

[NRG]

Their "Drive Detect" software doesn't seem very good, it doesn't even find my Seagate Drive. I can't find ST3500630AS on their website either. But, if the drive is bricked or is close to it, what is there to lose?

[Benfica]

Originally Posted by AMmayhem

My hard drive has apparently crapped out on me.

I have exactly the same drive as you, a 500GB 7200.10 series. What is happening with your drive? Does it power up, is detected by the BIOS and so on?

Though after talking to someone, they mentioned that Seagate had some faulty hard drives a few years ago, which they solved with a firmware update. Well I have a Seagate 7200 which is a couple years old so while checking for firmware, the updates depend on the serial number. My serial number is a ST3500630AS, but the closest firmware I can find is for a ST3500620AS. Would it be wise decision to use this firmware even though it's not the exact same serial number? Or is that going to mess things up?

The faulty ones are from the 7200.11, which has a pretty different firmware not appropriate for our drives. A firmware update was never a typical recommendation to fix problems of the 7200.10

[IronMonkey]

Originally Posted by AMmayhem

My serial number is a ST3500630AS

And in one of life's little coincidences, I've just had to rebuild my main desktop PC because of a ST3500630AS failing under load. Grrrrrr.

The thing is - I don't want it fixed. I don't want to have to trust my data to a drive in which I have lost all confidence. In the bin it goes (post-hammer).

[AMmayhem]

Originally Posted by Benfica

I have exactly the same drive as you, a 500GB 7200.10 series. What is happening with your drive? Does it power up, is detected by the BIOS and so on?

My computer would start up fine. Windows would load, and I'd start doing whatever, browsing internet, moving files, anything really. Then the hard drive would go into a constant running state. Bogging everything you tried to do because it was doing whatever. Shutting down the computer would take forever, so I had to kill the power. Upon restart, before Windows loaded, I got the message "Disk read error press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart."

That's about all there was to it. Sometimes after setting off for a while it would start up fine, passed that message. But soon it would go back to the constant running state. It wasn't a RAM issue as that's the first thing I replaced to no fix. Nor do I think it was disk thrashing, though it might be, as I don't fully understand what thrashing is.

Didn't try the firmware, went ahead and bought a new hard drive (Western Digital 1 TB). Installed Windows and everything is going good since. In some good news, I was able to hook up the Seagate as a "slave" drive and pull everything I needed off it. Didn't have any problems with it constant running then, though I'm not going to trust it for just storage.

[Benfica]

Originally Posted by AMmayhem

My computer would start up fine. Windows would load, and I'd start doing whatever, browsing internet, moving files, anything really. Then the hard drive would go into a constant running state. Bogging everything you tried to do because it was doing whatever.

Probably trying to recover bad sectors or hard to read (doing multiple passes). You should check it for filesystem errors and bad sectors.

In some good news, I was able to hook up the Seagate as a "slave" drive and pull everything I needed off it. Didn't have any problems with it constant running then, though I'm not going to trust it for just storage.

Yeah, it's unreliable. Use it for temp folder, swap file, a 2nd installation of Windows, ISOs of your games and whatever else that you don't mind to lose.