icefloe01

I just found this: Seagate date code calculator. You have to create a login to get it. Once you extract the files from the zip file, you have to drill down to this point: SeagateDateCode\SeagateDateCode\SeagateDateCode\bin\Debug to find the executeable. Nevermind, I just did a megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HS5ZEL4O

Looks like that would be on 9 Oct 2008. July 4-10 is the first week, so Sat October 4th is the start of the 14th week. Yeah, that's fast but as far as my 1TB drives are concerned, they were selling out about as fast as suppliers could get them in. So Seagate was probably packing them onto pallets as fast as possible....

I found an explanation of the date codes. It's slightly confusing because they use a fiscal year instead of a calendar year. That's why you see an 09 on drives bought in '08. Text of the site where I found it: ================mail from Seagate=========================== Dear Mr. Vidonne, Your interpretation of the Date Code is absolutely correct. We have also mentioned a few examples for your reference. Please find the same mentioned below :- Examples: 0051 means manufactured on the 1st day of the 5th week of the fiscal year 1999-2000 05131 means manufactured on the 1st day of the 13th week of the fiscal year 2004-05 (on the 25th of September 2004) Please Note: The Fiscal Year begins on the 1st Saturday of July and the week runs from Saturday to Friday. Paul Vidonne Where I found it on nabble.com.

I purchased mine from ZZF on Sep 15th. Can't remember what day I got and installed them, but right now they are working and I'm trying to come up with the money to get just enough storage to create backups of the data on the drives. 3TB worth of space but probably only 500 to 600GB total used. Ugh. I finally got more info from Seagate last night. SD15 is the most recent firmware for these drives and there is no knowledge of anyone working on a new firmware for any reason at all. The guy I talked to even works in the same office with AllenM (Seagate forum mod.) and said he hasn't mentioned anything about any unusual drive problems that need to be addressed. In other words, Seagate has been made aware of the problem, yet they are unaware of the problem. ***scratches head trying to figure out to justify to the wife spending more money on the computer*** P.S. Oh yeah, he had to put me on hold when I mentioned that Salvation Data already has a fix....

That's partially correct. While RAID is external to the drive, it still has to do with how it communicates with the drive. I seem to remember that were some drives out there that because of their own firmware, they could not be RAID'ed. I'll look up the specific cases later, I'm at work right now and can't use too much internet time for it...

Well I finally received a (misinformed) reply from Seagate. For some reason they think I already have the most recent SN05 firmware. I emailed them back to let them know this is not correct. According to the label AND SeaTools for DOS (I can't run the Win version thanks to Seagate's shortsightedness on compiling a 64bit version). Now I'll have to wait again to see if they'll send me the SN05 firmware. Something that came to mind, how many people with the BSY problem are running a RAID array and how many are using the drive as stand-alone storage / single main drive? I ask because most of the posts I've seen indicate the problems are cropping up with RAID'ed drives and that was the first thing Seagate said to do, disable RAID. Interesting...

Good point, I forgot about that. I'm going to have to tentatively say Yes, it is real. I just got off the phone with Seagate support. I got in under slightly false pretenses. I called to ask about the difference between the 333AS series and the 340AS series. I already knew the answer but I used that as a way to segue into questions about the ST31000340AS problems. I was transferred to tech support and after several times on hold I was informed I needed the firmware. I am "supposed" to be receiving an email within 24 hours about how to update the SD15 firmware to I believe he said SN05.. But I can not quite remember... Here's hoping. If I actually get information on this from them, I WILL be posting here to let everyone know what's up.

It needs a different firmware since it is a six head three platter drive instead of an eight head four platter drive.

Has anyone considered the fact that we most likely have enough people in the U.S. alone, not to mention worldwide, for a class-action suit on this...?

Here is the link to the NewEgg page that has the firmware update for the ST31500341AS drive. You have to click on the product tour tab on the right side of the page above the product description and scroll down to get to it. I believe this might only apply to the 1.5TB drives though. One review says the firmware did not not help, but he got the click of death, not the problem we are facing: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148337

The level 5 and 6 descriptions came through in what looks like Russian and the level 5 commands were not actually in the documument. Okay, Ijust put it through babel.altavista.com and the translation says the level 5 commands are used only under "plant conditions". So these might the commands we need!! Here is the translation from babel (it threw in the word "of" a few extra times...): Level 5. is used only under the plant conditions Level 6 of command of batch of the files Batch files for testing of starting- stoppages, switching of heads, CSS, tests 1,2, 3 corrections of burts, files to of test of start-stop, head of switch, CSS, 1,2, or 3 burst of correction of test, the assigned tests, the tests of the comparison of data, the possibility to introduce different of batch files in RAM. Hope this helps in some way...