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Seagate Firmware Update Bricks 500GB Barracudas

Posted by kdawson on from the three-steps-back dept.

Voidsinger writes "The latest firmware updates to correct Seagate woes have created a new debacle. It seems from Seagate forums that there has yet to be a successful update of the 3500320AS models from SD15 to the new SD1A firmware. Add to that the updater updates the firmware of all drives of the same type at once, and you get a meltdown of RAID arrays, and people's backups if they were on the same type of drive. Drives are still flashable though, and Seagate has pulled the update for validation. While it would have been nice of them to validate the firmware beforehand, there is still a little hope that not everyone will lose all of their data."

7 of 559 comments (clear)

  1. At least no censoring by amclay · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm glad to see them trying though. It's nice of a company to realize they made a mistake, and work to fix it.

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    It's all fun and games till someone divides by 0. Then it's hilarious.
  2. If You Can Reflash It, It's Not Bricked by Fieryphoenix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ay Caramba already.

    1. Re:If You Can Reflash It, It's Not Bricked by ResidntGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The whole point of calling something a "brick" is that's how useful it is - it can't be made to do anything better, ever again. If you can plug a cable into something, and run a program on your computer that makes it able to store data or play MP3s or whatever, it's CLEARLY more useful than a brick.

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      ResidntGeek
    2. Re:If You Can Reflash It, It's Not Bricked by smellotron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...I'm not sure "ever again" needs to be part of the definition.

      Every time I've ever heard the term "Bricked", the "ever again" has been the most significant implication. The term loses its meaning if you expand it to include any device that is currently not functioning.

  3. Not bricked! by ZorkZero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not bricked if you can fix it without modifying the hardware. It's a nice term -- stop destroying it.

  4. Re:THE FACTS by rossz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a lesson to be learned here. DON'T FARKING LET MIDDLE MANAGEMENT BYPASS YOUR TRIED AND TRUE TEST/RELEASE PROCEDURE. Yes, the initial problem was bad, but the rush to get a fix out made it much much worse. Upper management is at fault here for allowing middle management pencil pushing idiots to do this to the company's reputation. Procedures are in place for a damn good reason.

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    -- Will program for bandwidth
  5. Re:Pwnt. by pipatron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Raid has never been a backup. A backup is something stored outside of the running set. That way you can restore the data if your running system would, you know, break down.

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    c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */