It was never designed to be a public release. The script checks two things.. to make sure it's a BRINKS or a MOOSE drive, and to check the model number. If you get the firmware from the torrents (it's out there) and tear it apart with uniextract, you can see the batch file and what it checks for. It's a program that was built back in the 90's and used ever since! You remove those 2 checks, and it'll happily flash that IBM or Western Digital drive with the seagate firmware as well.
You say that now, but you have to admit, with such screaming and carpet-clawing that went on about the 1.5Tb issue, some of the fault rests on the mob mentality pushing Seagate management to get a fix out ASAP for an issue recently proven.
I'm not saying it's okay - but the exact same situation that can force a large and lumbering company to move faster, can force management to push really hard and cause quality systems to break down.
You can whip the bull to get it to run, but you may just cause it to run right off the cliff.:)
Thank you!
I did lose some very close coworkers in the last round of layoffs. i think that's another reason this is hitting so hard - we are at our highest support volume, low sales, and rough stock. I believe Seagate realizes they need to keep every customer possible. But pressure can and in this case has lead to some bad decisions by management to ignore their engineers' recommendations... but even then, this issue was hard to see coming as this firmware had a month of field proof that it works... they just didn't realize that a small group of trained people experienced and acting as an absolute filter of who gets what firmware cannot be replaced by a 10 year old batch file.
I work for Seagate. I was there when the fit hit the shan, and I saw everything going in internally, as well as externally. I really love my job, so please excuse the sock-puppet nature that creating a brand new account and claiming to be an authority on the subject I must seem to be. But I am a geek, and I really think you all need to know the true story behind the scenes.
This whole thing started with the 1.5 Terabyte drives. It had a stuttering issue, which at first we all thought was a simple bad implementation of SATA on common chipsets. Seagate engineers promptly jumped in and worked to try to duplicate the issue and prove where the problem was. This wasn't a massive rush as 1.5tb drives are what? 5% of the drives on the market. When it became obvious that the issue was more widespread, they buckled down and put out a couple of firmware revisions to fix it.
Now, in the 1.5tb drives, there are 2 main revisions. the the product line that gets the CC* firmware, and the line that gets the SD* firmware. They came out with firmware CC1H and SD1A to fix these issues and started issuing them.
But, seagate has always been restrictive of handing out their firmware, so such updates required calling in with your serial so that the people who had access to hand out the firmware could check a) model, b) part number, and c) current firmware just to make absolutely sure that they were giving the right firmware out. This has been a procedre that has worked for YEARS up until now.
Then the bricking issue came to their attention. It took so long because it's an issue that's hard to track down - pretty much the journal or log space in the firmware is written to if certain events occur. IF the drive is powered down when there are 320 entries in this journal or log, then when it is powered back up, the drive errors out on init and won't boot properly - to the point that it won't even report it's information to the BIOS.
This is a rare, but still obviously bad issue. Up until now, we all figured it was just some standard type of failure, as it was such a rare event, so we'd RMA the drives.
So, for whatever reason, mid management started freaking out (as it could be a liability for seagate, I suspect - ontop of the already potentially liable issue of the stuttering problem causing drives to fail in RAIDs). So, they pushed the release of the SD1A firmware to the general public. They took a few days to 'test', though it was mostly just including some code in the batch file that kicks off the firmware updater, to check that it is a BRINKS drive, and the proper model number. Then it was kicked out to the public.
Please understand, this firmware had to go through five different checks to make sure it applies to the specific conditions to qualify sending to a customer, before now. 5 chances for us to go your drive needs the other (or none) firmware update. Suddenly, it's down to ONE check, and even that was more designed for a contingency just incase the wrong firmware was sent out.
Of course, it starts bricking drives.
Right now, the engineers are crapping themselves, the firmware's been pulled, the support agents are told to say "The firmware will be released soon" and no real procedure to fix this issue is in place. Our phones are flooded so bad that it locks the system up when there are too many calls in queue, and emails are coming in at hundreds an hour.
We simply cannot keep up.
The good news is, the chance of your drive simply not spinning up one day is very low. And for those of you who flashed the wrong firmware - be patient. It's not bricked, just unable to write data to the platters properly. When they have a *GOOD* firmware out, a new flash should un-brick the drives. If not, flashing it back to SD15 should make it work again.
Seagate really pushes the idea of being open and honest as much as we can without being sued to hell. They let agents make choices and use their skills instead of scripting us to death. They worked hard to bring their support back t
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The engineers may be shitting BRINKS.. but management is shitting MOOSE!
It was never designed to be a public release. The script checks two things.. to make sure it's a BRINKS or a MOOSE drive, and to check the model number. If you get the firmware from the torrents (it's out there) and tear it apart with uniextract, you can see the batch file and what it checks for. It's a program that was built back in the 90's and used ever since! You remove those 2 checks, and it'll happily flash that IBM or Western Digital drive with the seagate firmware as well.
You say that now, but you have to admit, with such screaming and carpet-clawing that went on about the 1.5Tb issue, some of the fault rests on the mob mentality pushing Seagate management to get a fix out ASAP for an issue recently proven. I'm not saying it's okay - but the exact same situation that can force a large and lumbering company to move faster, can force management to push really hard and cause quality systems to break down. You can whip the bull to get it to run, but you may just cause it to run right off the cliff. :)
Thank you! I did lose some very close coworkers in the last round of layoffs. i think that's another reason this is hitting so hard - we are at our highest support volume, low sales, and rough stock. I believe Seagate realizes they need to keep every customer possible. But pressure can and in this case has lead to some bad decisions by management to ignore their engineers' recommendations... but even then, this issue was hard to see coming as this firmware had a month of field proof that it works... they just didn't realize that a small group of trained people experienced and acting as an absolute filter of who gets what firmware cannot be replaced by a 10 year old batch file.
Please excuse me, but I hesitate to answer many questions about myself. That said, I am still a current employee and would like to remain so. :)
I work for Seagate. I was there when the fit hit the shan, and I saw everything going in internally, as well as externally.
I really love my job, so please excuse the sock-puppet nature that creating a brand new account and claiming to be an authority on the subject I must seem to be. But I am a geek, and I really think you all need to know the true story behind the scenes.
This whole thing started with the 1.5 Terabyte drives. It had a stuttering issue, which at first we all thought was a simple bad implementation of SATA on common chipsets. Seagate engineers promptly jumped in and worked to try to duplicate the issue and prove where the problem was. This wasn't a massive rush as 1.5tb drives are what? 5% of the drives on the market. When it became obvious that the issue was more widespread, they buckled down and put out a couple of firmware revisions to fix it.
Now, in the 1.5tb drives, there are 2 main revisions. the the product line that gets the CC* firmware, and the line that gets the SD* firmware. They came out with firmware CC1H and SD1A to fix these issues and started issuing them.
But, seagate has always been restrictive of handing out their firmware, so such updates required calling in with your serial so that the people who had access to hand out the firmware could check a) model, b) part number, and c) current firmware just to make absolutely sure that they were giving the right firmware out. This has been a procedre that has worked for YEARS up until now.
Then the bricking issue came to their attention. It took so long because it's an issue that's hard to track down - pretty much the journal or log space in the firmware is written to if certain events occur. IF the drive is powered down when there are 320 entries in this journal or log, then when it is powered back up, the drive errors out on init and won't boot properly - to the point that it won't even report it's information to the BIOS.
This is a rare, but still obviously bad issue. Up until now, we all figured it was just some standard type of failure, as it was such a rare event, so we'd RMA the drives.
So, for whatever reason, mid management started freaking out (as it could be a liability for seagate, I suspect - ontop of the already potentially liable issue of the stuttering problem causing drives to fail in RAIDs). So, they pushed the release of the SD1A firmware to the general public. They took a few days to 'test', though it was mostly just including some code in the batch file that kicks off the firmware updater, to check that it is a BRINKS drive, and the proper model number. Then it was kicked out to the public.
Please understand, this firmware had to go through five different checks to make sure it applies to the specific conditions to qualify sending to a customer, before now. 5 chances for us to go your drive needs the other (or none) firmware update. Suddenly, it's down to ONE check, and even that was more designed for a contingency just incase the wrong firmware was sent out.
Of course, it starts bricking drives.
Right now, the engineers are crapping themselves, the firmware's been pulled, the support agents are told to say "The firmware will be released soon" and no real procedure to fix this issue is in place. Our phones are flooded so bad that it locks the system up when there are too many calls in queue, and emails are coming in at hundreds an hour.
We simply cannot keep up.
The good news is, the chance of your drive simply not spinning up one day is very low. And for those of you who flashed the wrong firmware - be patient. It's not bricked, just unable to write data to the platters properly. When they have a *GOOD* firmware out, a new flash should un-brick the drives. If not, flashing it back to SD15 should make it work again.
Seagate really pushes the idea of being open and honest as much as we can without being sued to hell. They let agents make choices and use their skills instead of scripting us to death. They worked hard to bring their support back t