busybee

I think I too am a victim. I have a seagate 7200.11 750GB mfg date Aug 11, 2008 in a Dell system but my Firmware is DE12. Seagate told me , by serial number I am not affected by their firmware problem. From Dell's site I'm also told I not affected. My HDD shows same symptoms and is "Bricked up" as the others I'm reading about. BIOS does not recognize HDD. After Best Buy replaced the hard drive in Warr. (5 months old) I connected the HDD to my system with a USB Universal adapter and it just runs. No clicking or anyother indications. It doesn't look like I'm going to get any help from Dell or Seagate in retrieving my data. Does this situation sound like I should go through the flashing process to release the brick or are there other conditions that would produce the exact problem? Any info will be a help.I have read the majority of these postings and thought my situation was the same . Read posting #1 from Gradius and I think I can do. I would like to use the USB connection. Will that work just as well? I dont have Hyperterminal (Vista) so I am going to have to download a terminal emulator program. Any suggestions? Thanks again for any info. Busybee