9QM5V5HQ:ST3500320AS:9BX154-303:SD15:09071:KRATSG:(04/Nov/08):(09/Jan/09):BigSilverHotdog:PRODUCT OF THAILAND This is bloody ridiculous guys, it didn't take me long to find my way here, but now that I am here and I've read every post in this thread in addition to about 6 other forums (including the censored official seagate forum and newegg's) I've come to the conclusion that, no matter what actually has happened, fraud or the biggest labeling mistake in recorded human history, seagate is now actively trying to suppress information about this issue. My first inkling my 6 week old 500gb might be dying was when I rebooted my computer into a DISK BOOT FAILURE -- the drive had stopped being detected by bios so I tried multiple sata cables, power supplies, and 5 different motherboards in a vain attempt to save some of my data. I tried the old freezer trick too, but by that time I was pretty sure it was a serious manufacturing defect or failure that had caused the crash. My wife lost a lot of valuable data with this crash, and though we have some backups, some data is gone for good. I had used speedfan to monitor smart performance less than 72 hours before, and the readings were all excellent. Such a rapid failure and lack of apparent hardware damage (no clicks, warbling, et al) leads me to believe the data might still be recoverable with a firmware flash. So where the %*!% (%)#@$ !$^!@$%^*&*!@%^ is Seagate in all of this? Seagate has lost my business FOREVER, and I've been using Seagate since 1998. I've also been recommending them to customers, family, and friends, but man, this is one story that's going to come out at every lan party I ever go to for the rest of my life. And it's not even over yet. I only registered tonight, but I'm gonna be here for the entire long haul. I got this one bookmarked. I really cannot wait to see how it ends. We're not even going to try an RMA. I trust that the community will figure out something here far more than I do that Seagate might actually care about my defective product or data loss. I've already read way too many stories here and elsewhere about that whole farce. Am I allowed to say "f*** you seagate" on this forum? Please? Pretty please with sugar on? I was so nice and careful with the rest of my post!