enrolb

I would like to say thanks to Gradius2 and I know there were others that first decided and then provided a solution to "debrick" our drives. Seagate has been more arragont than anyone on this forum, as they knew about the issue, knew who could have the problem (if one registered), knew how it could be stopped until solution (leave drive running), and been a lot more understanding of those who had a "bricked" drive. In defence of Gradius2 and others who, if they hadn't pursued the simple solution to this problem, we might never have known how really simple the problem is to solve. Instead we all would have had to pay big dollars to data recovery companies for something they could fix in 15 minutes. I for one was quoted a cost of $500 for fixing my drive and I know some probably would have had to pay a lot more. Its interesting how the "data recovery people" are jumping into the forums since a solution has been posted. Why did't they try to help from the start! Anyway I don't want to start a flame war again. Now I do see merit in what Aviko is saying about powering down/up PCB during the fix that issues could occur. I concur with a previous post that Aviko, if you have a better safer solution to fixing these drives then post your solution in full and let the users decide which one they want to use... Then there can be Kudos to both!

I can't believe Seagate.. They closed my case on a BIOS boot issue with a ST31000340AS drive after a week with one email notice stating the following. What I wanted to know was who and where, I send my drive to get the data recovered as I had heard Seagate was offering the service. So I needed prices and guarantees. This is pathetic!! I have spend hours waiting on the phone also.. >>>>> Thank you for contacting Seagate Support. A firmware issue has been identified that affects a small number of Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive models which may result in data becoming inaccessible after a power-off/on operation. The affected products are Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22. Based on the low risk as determined by an analysis of actual field return data, Seagate believes that the affected drives can be used as is. However, as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, Seagate is offering a free firmware upgrade. Please follow this link (http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931) to enter the Knowledge Base article(s) detailing the steps to update your drive. In the unlikely event your drive is affected and you cannot access your data, the data still resides on the drive and there is no data loss associated with this issue. If your drive is no longer accessible, contact us directly for further assistance at http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/. NOTE: If you have contacted Seagate Support regarding a separate issue or about another product, please visit http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/ to submit an email. Thank you. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

103:9QJ20**;ST31000340AS;9BX158-303;SD15;09086;2008-10-08;KRATSG (Not detected in BIOS) Canada, Ontario, Kitchener Oh and they (Seagate) say this is a very random possiblitity of this ..... one in 65,000. I am glad they don't do the lottery probablity analysis else our province would have been broke long time ago!!!

Yesterday I had an amusing day at a big electronics store. When I asked about hard drives the sales person said "Oh you got to see the great sale on Seagate drives we have!" I thought to myself, "I bet", but proceeded to follow him. He showed me a whole stack of Seagate drives. I looked at them and they were the recent 7200.11 models! He said that they had marked them all down by $40. When I asked him why, he said with a big smile "Seagate wants us to clear them out!" I thought to myself, I bet they do.. At the check out the clerk said they were discounted even more to $109 for 1Tbs. Although I won't trust them with key data, Seagate has great hardware and once the firmware is sorted out I will have some really inexpensive drive storage... Course it'll be relegated to non important tasks! Going to be a while before I trust their drives again.

For information sake: I have a bricked ST31000340AS drive with the BSY problem. I have a second Seagate 1Tb drive but its model number is ST31000333AS. I tried the the (bricked) 340AS PCB on the working 333AS HDA but still got the BSY issue and could not flash the firmware because it couldn't recognize it in BIOS.... My thoughts are that some part of the firmware is stored on the harddrive or maybe a key register for the BSY signal... anyway for information sake this doesn't work.... I did put back the 333AS (working drive toether) and it worked as normal. Oh well I thought it worth a try.

I am currently waiting on parts to attempt this procedure as I have a bricked 1Tb drive with the BSY stuck on. I was wondering if by disconnecting the PCB from HDA (or as some have suggested - putting in the card paper between PCB to HDA contacts) and then connect the PCB part of drive connected as usual (SATA, power etc) that the firmware could then be flashed with new SD1A firmware? or does the BSY signal still get stuck on? anyone try this?