Windows 7 Seagate Barracuda SATA drives 7200.10 - looking for firmware update

[brandonM3]

I had a SG Barracuda 500gb SATA drive I just picked up about two months ago. About a month ago, I started getting SMART notices that the drive may soon fail. It finally did yesterday and kinda screwed up my RAID array as well. Seagate's support totally sucks with this issue, look at their support pages and see if you can navigate through them... RIDICULOUS for as many people having the same problems as I am. Right now, the drive is bricked.... I tried to format it and reinstall OS by itself, in new RAID array, partitioned it hoping I could just use the good parts- none of it worked. I'm trying to find the firmware update for this drive because some people it sounds like, have updated the firmware and miraculously got the drive up again. I'd at least like to try..... go figure that SG has about 30 different firmware versions out for drives that are for all intensive purposes.... identical but depending on the f/w your drive has, it requires a specific update which may be or may not be hard to find.... i'm the latter. any help on this if possible is greatly appreciated!!!

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500gb SATA internal HDD
S/N: 9qg3pz8s
ST3500630as
P/N: 9bj146-622
Firmware: 3.CHL

Date Code 08067 Site Code TK

 

[cmn]

I had a SG Barracuda 500gb SATA drive I just picked up about two months ago. About a month ago, I started getting SMART notices that the drive may soon fail. It finally did yesterday and kinda screwed up my RAID array as well. Seagate's support totally sucks with this issue, look at their support pages and see if you can navigate through them... RIDICULOUS for as many people having the same problems as I am. Right now, the drive is bricked.... I tried to format it and reinstall OS by itself, in new RAID array, partitioned it hoping I could just use the good parts- none of it worked. I'm trying to find the firmware update for this drive because some people it sounds like, have updated the firmware and miraculously got the drive up again. I'd at least like to try..... go figure that SG has about 30 different firmware versions out for drives that are for all intensive purposes.... identical but depending on the f/w your drive has, it requires a specific update which may be or may not be hard to find.... i'm the latter. any help on this if possible is greatly appreciated!!!

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500gb SATA internal HDD
S/N: 9qg3pz8s
ST3500630as
P/N: 9bj146-622
Firmware: 3.CHL


Date Code 08067 Site Code TK

I don't think my answer will be helpful to get you out of current HDD problem but might help to understand what might have happened to the disk. To that end I have a few questions to expand and clarify some points in your post.

You posted

I had a SG Barracuda 500gb SATA drive I just picked up about two months ago.

Does that mean you bought this drive in a Retail Boxed version [often more expensive, comes with Cables, a warranty card to register and packed inside the Manufacturer's box where the Drive is enclosed in a relatively shock-proof palstic clamp during shipment ]or was that the so called "OEM" drive [cheaper, not boxed, bare drive without any cables, no warranty card , and no legal recourse if damaged within the usual "warranty period"]. I have a collection of WD OEM drives and a few MaxBlast OEMs(now Seagate ) that had sudden deaths without any S.M.A.R.T warnings of impeding failure, a price I had to pay for saving a few bucks off of the purchase price.

I tried to format it and reinstall OS by itself, in new RAID array, partitioned it hoping I could just use the good parts- none of it worked

1. That means the drive is not "dead" yet, Right? You can see the drive with a drive letter in "Computer" ( Windows Explorer ) and or Windows Disk Managemet Snap- in tool, is that correct?
2. How did you try to Format the drive and what happened when you tried to Format the drive?

If the answers to question #1 is Yes, I may have some suggestions if you have not used it in your Formatting method.

Since you had a RAID luckily you have not lost your System and data

 

[brandonM3]

yes, it was a retail drive

You posted Does that mean you bought this drive in a Retail Boxed version [often more expensive, comes with Cables, a warranty card to register and packed inside the Manufacturer's box where the Drive is enclosed in a relatively shock-proof palstic clamp during shipment ]or was that the so called "OEM" drive [cheaper, not boxed, bare drive without any cables, no warranty card , and no legal recourse if damaged within the usual "warranty period"]. I have a collection of WD OEM drives and a few MaxBlast OEMs(now Seagate ) that had sudden deaths without any S.M.A.R.T warnings of impeding failure, a price I had to pay for saving a few bucks off of the purchase price.

YES, it was a retail boxed version. funny thing about it is- after it started acting up, a lot of the forums said to check the label on my box and the drive itself because a lot of people were getting a different drive than what was listed on the box. So... don't you know it???? they don't match up!

here's pics of the box and the drive - sorry.. pics were taken with my phone- but they are in fact completely different:

Link Removed due to 404 Error

Link Removed due to 404 Error

1. That means the drive is not "dead" yet, Right? You can see the drive with a drive letter in "Computer" ( Windows Explorer ) and or Windows Disk Managemet Snap- in tool, is that correct?
   
   YES, I can see the drive in WDM. It shows up, just progressively gets worse and worse -
   
2. How did you try to Format the drive and what happened when you tried to Format the drive?
   
   I initially tried to format through the WDM, which took like 5 hours - the first 3/4 was done in about 15 mins and then it just slowed to a crawl after that. Typically takes about 20 mins for me to format a 500gb hdd - my other drives are WD and Hitachi's (never had issues with then at all) -
   

If the answers to question #1 is Yes, I may have some suggestions if you have not used it in your Formatting method.

Any suggestions for formatting would be appreciated. I'll try whatever. I'm pissed though because I actually had a copy of the updated firmware after literally hours of searching. It was on this drive before it failed!! I can't find it now- and couldn't pull info off of the drive afterwards. Oh... I'm running RAID 0 - so it actually crashed my OS. I was actually planning to upgrade from 7048 to 7077 anyway so not a huge deal. the crash forced me to install it.

Since you had a RAID luckily you have not lost your System and data

- LOL!!!

Thanks!

 

[cmn]

- LOL!!!

Thanks!

Under the present circumstance the best option is Low-level formatting. There are many tools a lot of them paid versions and some freeware. You may Google and look for or try one of my favorites UBCD4Win 3.50 that has many tools for windows troubleshoot. You may download it easily from |MG| UBCD4Win 3.50

UBCD has many tools for HDD diagnosis and treatment. You need to select the tools to perform Low Level Formatting which converts the disk to its original factory level by writing zeros This works only if the Disk is recognized in the BIOS. That is why I asked the clarification questions. If it is seen in Windows , it has to be seen in BIOS setup.

I hope this solves your problem. For more help with any tools, please ask specific questions but always giving me the context so that we both can be in the same "wave length of communication" . In troubleshoots, I don't like "connecting the dots" and go wrong with somebody else's Computers! . The more explicit the details the better they are going to be for me. Please don't assume I might know and withhold what might appear very "obvious" or "logical" to you. I might not know about it- Call me Retarded .My answers may sound too elementary but through this Forum I am trying to reach others who might not be very computer savvy and might be facing similar problems but reluctant to post questions in a Forum for any number of reasons.

 

[brandonM3]

no, i appreciate it. (no worries or need for the disclaimer!) i hear you with the 'giving advice' thing. don't know exactly what someone else's technical skill set is and how far they're willing to go. For me, at this point- the drive is already a brick... can't do anything worse and i might as well try something since its only a couple of months old. so... what the hell! i'll give it a shot.

 

[cmn]

no, i appreciate it. (no worries or need for the disclaimer!) i hear you with the 'giving advice' thing. don't know exactly what someone else's technical skill set is and how far they're willing to go. For me, at this point- the drive is already a brick... can't do anything worse and i might as well try something since its only a couple of months old. so... what the hell! i'll give it a shot.

I hope it fixes the problem . If you don't want to download and spend time to learn how to use the Ultimate boot Disk 4 Windows (UBCD4Win) you may also look into 2 Freeware DBAN ( DarikBootandNuke) DiskWipe (included in UBCD) from : Download Free Disk Wipe Advantage of DBAN is that you can get ISO and Floppy versions. Since many new PCs don't have FDD , you may prefer DBAN from DBAN Download | Darik's Boot And Nuke
Good luck.

 

[brandonM3]

I hope it fixes the problem . If you don't want to download and spend time to learn how to use the Ultimate boot Disk 4 Windows (UBCD4Win) you may also look into 2 Freeware DBAN ( DarikBootandNuke) DiskWipe (included in UBCD) from : Download Free Disk Wipe Advantage of DBAN is that you can get ISO and Floppy versions. Since many new PCs don't have FDD , you may prefer DBAN from DBAN Download | Darik's Boot And Nuke
Good luck.

Just dl'd em' both.... i'll post up what happens..... if anything?! - Arigato my friend....

 

[cmn]

Just dl'd em' both.... i'll post up what happens..... if anything?! - Arigato my friend....

dōitashimashite

 

[Athlonite]

erm regardless of whether the drive is "OEM" or Retail the manufacturers warranty is still Valid unless ofcourse the drive is old enough to be now outside the period of warranty if it is still within the time period just get an RMA number frrom Seagate and send it back for a replacement it usualy takes about a month from the time you seend it off to time you get one back and the only time you gonna have a prob with a warranty is when it something like an xbox hdd where its made by seagate for MS or a compaq or dell or hp really omly when the drive says the name of who it was made for on the label will you get a sorry it's upto the company we made the drive for to support it story if it just says seagate then your sweet