Hi,
Seagate has finally released an article concerning hard drive failure encountered by many people around the world.
The article can be found here Firmware Recommendations for Seagate Drives [207931]

In order to verify if your drive are affected, you need to provide:

• Model Number
• Serial Number
• Firmware Version

Seagate provides 2 tools to get these information (SeaTools & DriveDetect) but:

• SeaTool does not work on WHS
• DriveDetect only detects the drives connected on eSATA and does not display the Serial Number

WHS Add-in "Disk Management" provides the Serial Number, so the only information missing is the firmware version.
I have checked in the drive property in windows device manager, the firmware is listed as "1.0" which is not a standard Seagate's version number.

Does anybody know how to get the firmware version?

Thanks

It's listed on the label on the drive. If the drive is in your MSS, just turn off the MSS, pull the drive and look at the label. Put the drive back in and turn the MSS back on.

Thanks for your answer cavediver, but I don't want to power off my system since Seagate firmware issue starts when you power on the system.

I think you're being a little overly concerned about your Seagate drive(s). Your system is going to get powered down and restarted many times. If you have automatic updates enabled, it will restart each time an update comes through. If you suspect your drive is bad, I would think you would want to get it out of the MSS and either replace it or update the firmware on it ASAP.

FYI, the drive information is available via the Disk Management Add-In. Double-Click on the drive and you can even get the serial number. You will not need to shut down until you apply the fix.

Also FYI, as of this moment this is the list of impacted Barracuda 7200.11 drives. Neither of the 500GB drives in my MSS is listed here (ST350063):

ST31000340AS
ST31000640AS
ST3750330AS
ST3750630AS
ST3640330AS
ST3640630AS
ST3500320AS
ST3500620AS
ST3500820AS
ST31500341AS
ST31000333AS
ST3640323AS
ST3640623AS
ST3320613AS
ST3320813AS
ST3160813AS

Other models are also impacted; I have not listed them here as I don't think I have seen any mention of them being used in MSS systems.

If anyone notices a change to this list please post updates ASAP!

For what it's worth, I called Seagate today to enquire about my single 1.5 TB drive to determine if it has issues. After about an hour wait (I just left it on speakerphone until a support person picked up the phone), the support person told me that my drive was in the "risk" group and that they were readying a new firmware update for my model drive which is expected to be released next week. They will email me the firmware update when it's ready (apparently).

I can only wait I suppose. In the meantime, if I didn't know better, my drive is working just fine in the Sans Digital enclosure attached to my MSS with a few reboots in between. I'll address the issue if/when the firmware update arrives but I'm not immediately concerned to be honest (plus I have duplication turned on and backups).

P/N: ST3750330AS
Firmware: SD15

I already updated all 11 of my 1.5 TB drives with firmware SD1A and CC1H. I'm wondering if this is something new and whether I'll have to go through the update process again. I also have 5 or 6 - 1 TB drives which it looks like will be needing the new firmware. All of my Seagate drives are working fine now, and I'm not too worried about it. Over the last several years, I have purchased a lot of 300 GB & 500 GB Acomdata external drives for backups and everyone of them has failed just after the warranty expired. Recently I started taking them apart to see just what brand drives they had in them. They all had WD drives in them.

I say this somewhat tongue in cheek but I wonder if Seagate is experiencing the same hysteria that took place when WHS had the data corruption bug. Serious, yes, but affects only a small portion of users.

Just a humble thought...

EDIT: Come to think of it, has anyone in these forums experienced one of these Seagate drives fail on them? I haven't bumped into such a post yet. Just food for thought...

Hi,
Seagate has released a tool to check if your disk is infected based on the serial number: Seagate Serial Checker
Note that some people in Seagate Forum say that the tool is buggy.

Thanks for the link. I ran all of my Seagate drives (1.5 TB; 1 TB & 500 GB) serial numbers through the serial number checker and all indicated they were not affected.

For WHS users the drive information is available via the Disk Management Add-In. Double-Click on the drive and you can even get the serial number. You will not need to shut down until you apply the fix.

The post six above this one also includes a list ov impacted 7200.11 drives.

For those who don't have the Disk Management add-in, the drive serial number is listed on a sticker on the front end of the drive. You can see it through the grill on the front of the drive tray.

Hmmm... I have a drive with one of the product numbers in JohnBick's list. The serial number checker is no longer available, though, and Seagate's site is rejecting my login. I guess I will have to call them tomorrow. On the Seagate knowledgebase it says:


Does anyone think 2008 could be a typo? That would only apply to drives purchased very recently. Mine was purchased in January 2008.

Me. It was a ST3100340AS purchased 8 mounth ago and installed as the first drive of a 4 bay enclosure.
When I've reboot my MSS, WHS won't start until I unplug the enclosure.
Even when I've connected it in a PC : no noise... dead !

I think the official post indicates its drives manufactured "through" December 2008, not "in" December 2008. Which basically means all of them.