Seagate Hard Drives

[xaaronx]

What's the deal with Seagate these days? All I've ever used in the past was Seagate and I dodged the 7200.11 bullet, but it's been pretty smooth sailing.

 

A few days ago I went and purchased a ST3000DM001 and it's been working great, runs a little hot. But I'm aware that in the past they've had very high failure rates. Mine was manufactured in late 2015 so I'm hoping it's going to last. Still, I decided to update the firmware.

 

Trying to do so was a pain in the ass. The executable couldn't do it so I had to download the ISO. It's some ancient DOS tool. It only runs off CD-ROM so I had to Google around and find out that I can extract a file inside the ISO and write that to USB to boot it. That worked, finally, but then I can't seem to run my drive in PATA mode on my z170 board? So the tool didn't detect the drive. Anyway so I ended up getting the tool running and detecting the drive on an older computer, thanks Seagate.

 

But it said wrong drive/mismatch or something. It only stayed on the display for a second or so. Turns out I have a ST3000DM001 1ER166. Running CC25. I can't find any hints of where I can get firmware for this drive? Does anyone have any clue? Why is it different if it's still a ST3000DM001? The latest firmware for ST3000DM001 is stated to be CC4H which doesn't seem to follow the naming convention of what the drive is running (CC25).

 

Anyway, any ideas? Thanks!

[Enderman]

?!?!?

why the heck did you update the firmware on a hard drive???

[xaaronx]

Why are you acting like it's a shocking thing to do? People have had to upgrade/flash firmware on disk drives many times in the past. For example if you were one of the early adopters of a 7200.11 drive from Seagate and the thing was still recognizable by Windows, you were highly encouraged to flash it to prevent it bricking itself.

 

There's nothing wrong with flashing firmware on hardware? I mean, if there's NO reason to, sure, don't. However ST3000DM001 has high failure rates and I want to have the latest firmware running on the drive.

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, xaaronx said:

Why are you acting like it's a shocking thing to do? People have had to upgrade/flash firmware on disk drives many times in the past. For example if you were one of the early adopters of a 7200.11 drive from Seagate and the thing was still recognizable by Windows, you were highly encouraged to flash it to prevent it bricking itself.

 

There's nothing wrong with flashing firmware on hardware? I mean, if there's NO reason to, sure, don't. However ST3000DM001 has high failure rates and I want to have the latest firmware running on the drive.

uh, hard drive failures are not caused by firmware...

they are caused by the drive physically failing because its a moving disk and arm

 

i have never seen anyone update the firmware of a storage drive except when samsung had a performance issue on their SSDs

 

and its a good thing that people dont because otherwise we would see tons of posts like yours on the forum

this seems like a problem you have brought upon yourself by your own actions...

and this is why you never update the firmware on anything unless it is having problems or is broken and firmware is the last resort

 

tlrd, if it aint broke, dont fix it

 

and you did the opposite, and broke it

[2FA]

3 hours ago, Enderman said:

uh, hard drive failures are not caused by firmware...

they are caused by the drive physically failing because its a moving disk and arm

 

i have never seen anyone update the firmware of a storage drive except when samsung had a performance issue on their SSDs

 

and its a good thing that people dont because otherwise we would see tons of posts like yours on the forum

this seems like a problem you have brought upon yourself by your own actions...

and this is why you never update the firmware on anything unless it is having problems or is broken and firmware is the last resort

 

tlrd, if it aint broke, dont fix it

 

and you did the opposite, and broke it

I didn't see him say that it is broke, all I see is that he couldn't update the firmware.

[xaaronx]

6 minutes ago, Enderman said:

uh, hard drive failures are not caused by firmware...

they are caused by the drive physically failing because its a moving disk and arm

 

i have never seen anyone update the firmware of a storage drive except when samsung had a performance issue on their SSDs

 

and its a good thing that people dont because otherwise we would see tons of posts like yours on the forum

this seems like a problem you have brought upon yourself by your own actions...

and this is why you never update the firmware on anything unless it is having problems or is broken and firmware is the last resort

 

tlrd, if it aint broke, dont fix it

 

and you did the opposite, and broke it

 

RIght, first off. You obviously didn't read my post. My drive works fine, the firmware mismatch prevented my drive being flashed. I'm trying to find out where I can find firmware for my drive.

 

Second, here's an example of failed drives caused by firmware bugs. Since you don't know how to Google around. This is the Seagate 7200.11.

 

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Description

An issue exists that may cause some Seagate hard drives to become inoperable immediately after a power-on operation. Once this condition has occurred, the drive cannot be restored to normal operation without intervention from Seagate. Data on the drive will be unaffected and can be accessed once normal drive operation has been restored. This is caused by a firmware issue coupled with a specific manufacturing test process.

Root Cause

This condition was introduced by a firmware issue that sets the drive event log to an invalid location causing the drive to become inaccessible.

The firmware issue is that the end boundary of the event log circular buffer (320) was set incorrectly. During Event Log initialization, the boundary condition that defines the end of the Event Log is off by one. During power up, if the Event Log counter is at entry 320, or a multiple of (320 + x*256), and if a particular data pattern (dependent on the type of tester used during the drive manufacturing test process) had been present in the reserved-area system tracks when the drive's reserved-area file system was created during manufacturing, firmware will increment the Event Log pointer past the end of the event log data structure. This error is detected and results in an "Assert Failure", which causes the drive to hang as a failsafe measure. When the drive enters failsafe further update s to the counter become impossible and the condition will remain through subsequent power cycles. The problem only arises if a power cycle initialization occurs when the Event Log is at 320 or some multiple of 256 thereafter. Once a drive is in this state, there is no path to resolve/recover existing failed drives without Seagate technical intervention. For a drive to be susceptible to this issue, it must have both the firmware that contains the issue and have been tested through the specific manufacturing process.

Corrective Action

 

Now I'm not saying my drive is going to suddenly die from a firmware bug. The ST3000DM001 has no critical bugs afaik. However if the drives are failing due to mechanical stress, a firmware fix could lessen the chances of it failing by, I don't know, slightly lowering the speeds of the disks, or the acceleration of the arm. I don't know, I'm not a Hard Drive engineer. 

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, xaaronx said:

 

RIght, first off. You obviously didn't read my post. My drive works fine, the firmware mismatch prevented my drive being flashed. I'm trying to find out where I can find firmware for my drive.

 

Second, here's an example of failed drives caused by firmware bugs. Since you don't know how to Google around. This is the Seagate 7200.11.

 

 

Quote

Corrective Action

Seagate has implemented a containment action to ensure that all manufacturing test processes write the same "benign" fill pattern. This change is a permanent part of the test process. All drives with a date of manufacture January 12, 2009 and later are not affected by this issue as they have been through the corrected test process.

And you think that "a few days ago" is still in 2009 or something?

[xaaronx]

6 minutes ago, Enderman said:

 

And you think that "a few days ago" is still in 2009 or something?

You stated drives will never fail due to firmware bugs, and that they're all mechanical failures. Firmware bugs can cause failures, and firmware changes can impact mechanical stress since certain properties of the drive are directly controlled by the firmware, such as spin speeds, arm acceleration, whatever. Because of this, and the high failure rates of the ST3000DM001, I wish to have the latest firmware. What does a date have to do with my argument? Clearly drives can fail as a result of firmware problems. Please quit replying in this thread. You have no idea what you're going on about.

 

The fact that you've never heard of someone updating the firmware on an HDD is reason enough for you to not bother replying. 

[Enderman]

1 hour ago, xaaronx said:

You stated drives will never fail due to firmware bugs, and that they're all mechanical failures. Firmware bugs can cause failures, and firmware changes can impact mechanical stress since certain properties of the drive are directly controlled by the firmware, such as spin speeds, arm acceleration, whatever. Because of this, and the high failure rates of the ST3000DM001, I wish to have the latest firmware. What does a date have to do with my argument? Clearly drives can fail as a result of firmware problems. Please quit replying in this thread. You have no idea what you're going on about.

 

The fact that you've never heard of someone updating the firmware on an HDD is reason enough for you to not bother replying. 

The reason I replied is because from the hundreds of thousands of posts here yours is literally the first I have seen about updating HDD firmware

there are millions of people in the world right now who are using their HDD just fine without updating firmware

and the fact that you're trying to fix something that isnt broken, and causing issues for yourself, was funny, so I wanted to know why you thought updating firmware was a good idea

 

 

Second, your claim that "firmware impacts mechanical stress" is BS because it clearly states in the bug report that

Quote

There are two common errors on Seagate 7200.11 HDDs (caused by bugs on firmware):

- 0 LBA error: it happens when your BIOS can recognize your HDD at POST moment, but as an 0MB drive.

- BSY error: it happens when your HDD enter on a halt state, or BuSY state. In this condition, your HDD will not be recognized by BIOS at POST moment.

and this has literally nothing to do with "mechanical stress"

it has to do with misplaced event logs, which you would know if you bothered to read the post here http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807-the-solution-for-seagate-720011-hdds/

very nice of you to say that I "dont know how to google around" when you cant seem to even read what you just googled yourself

 

 

Third, this is an issue from 7 years ago. It is no longer present. There is nothing wrong with the seagate firmware.

As you said so yourself, 

Quote

Trying to do so was a pain in the ass.

I mean, its not like a firmware update will magically make your hard drive last twice as long...

Instead of trying to update firmware that will pretty much do nothing, you should be doing regular backups of your data and maybe system images

 

 

This is a public forum btw, you cant tell people to "quit replying to this thread"

If you have a problem, then report it to a moderator

 

[xaaronx]

You keep saying things that aren't relevant at all.

 

Quote

The reason I replied is because from the hundreds of thousands of posts here yours is literally the first I have seen about updating HDD firmware

there are millions of people in the world right now who are using their HDD just fine without updating firmware

and the fact that you're trying to fix something that isnt broken, and causing issues for yourself, was funny, so I wanted to know why you thought updating firmware was a good idea

Once again, if you bothered to read my posts you would have discovered that the ST3000DM001 series of hard drives have an extremely high failure rate. Now, I'll say it again for you: these disks aren't failing due to a firmware bug, they're failing due to mechanical stress. It's that simple. Now, these drives are controlled by firmware. Engineers might have discovered that reducing the platter speed by 5% increases the hours before failure by a huge amount. So what do they do? They release a firmware update. This then prolongs the life of the drive. Now, I've just made all that up. But hopefully now you understand why a firmware update may be pushed to a drive, and why the drives firmware can directly impact the mechanical-side of a drive. That's just one of many reasons. And obviously a company isn't going to come out and say that if you don't install the update, your drive will die. They'll just silently push the update.

 

So, no, I'm not trying to fix something that isn't broken. I'm trying to take a preventative measure. Updating the firmware is much more likely to solve long-term issues rather than cause short-term issues. Isn't it obvious? If I purchased a Western Digital drive that has no known widespread issues, I wouldn't bother to even check if never firmware was available. And I didn't know it was funny to try and prevent problems.

 

Now can you please stop referencing the failure of 7200.11 drives? It has nothing to do with anything here, apart from disproving your idea that no drive will ever fail due to a firmware bug. Once again, the 7200.11 series of disks did not fail due to mechanical stress, yes, you're right, but you're completely missing the point. Take some time to read please.

 

Quote

Third, this is an issue from 7 years ago. It is no longer present. There is nothing wrong with the seagate firmware.

It's still relevant. A drive manufacturer could release a drive tomorrow that fails for millions of people in the near future. Hard Drives existed for a long time prior to 2009.

 

Quote

I mean, its not like a firmware update will magically make your hard drive last twice as long...

Instead of trying to update firmware that will pretty much do nothing, you should be doing regular backups of your data and maybe system images

 Yeah, well you're kind of wrong. Read above.

 

Anyway, this entire thread has turned to waste. But hopefully you'll learn that trying to update the firmware of a hard drive isn't entirely pointless. If it was, why would a company release the newer revisions in the first place?

 

Also, although it could be irrelevant, it's interesting to know that a Seagate ST3000VN000 doesn't seem to have any firmware updates available online (And I'll admit I didn't give it a thorough search so I may be incorrect) yet the ST3000DM001 has a history of 6 firmware revisions. I wonder why.