Hello all.. Hello jaclaz.. I had a topic regarding the same hard drive, but different issue a few days back, but my drive failed, and it took me a a few days to get a new one and find the website (I mean THIS website, not to make jaclaz upset) My previous topic was about the possibility of resting the reallocation SMART parameter.. but while researching the subject, I found that the drive's firmware update is "urgent" (i believe that is the word the Seagate website used to describe the update) and there goes my sad story.. I have a Maxtor DiamndMax23 (STM31000528AS) hard drive.. I wanted to update its firmware, I tried The Firmware Update Utility that runs within Windows, but when the the system rebooted (and got to the black screen), I had nothing like what the instructions said, but everything went fast, and I ended up with a column of letters between brackets, and it stayed like that for long time. So I restarted.. The hard drive had no problem, but the firmware was not updated. So I tried the Bootable CD for updating, again the software was different than the instructions, but the difference was mere.. I started the download of the firmware and I got a message saying "please wait while files being copied to memory" and a few seconds later another message underneath it saying "Model ***** SN ***** FW **** On generic PCI ATA Bus 0 Device 0" I'm not sure when exactly, but around these two messages (probably after the second one) I heard the drive powering off.. and nothing more.. everything stayed like this for a long time more than 30 minutes.. I thought that it's just like when I tried the windows update utility.. the software is just defected.. so I rested the computer, and I found the drive is not detected.. it powers on, but the PC can't recognize it. Okay.. Any ideas?.. the drive of course is out of warranty, and sending it to the nearest place that can repair it will cost almost like a new drive. I don't expect a full explanation or even something near that.. I just want to be put in the right direction. Thanks in advance