I finally figured out what was crashing the servers here at dvorak.org. Bad firmware on the new Seagate 1.5T Barracuda drives. Everyone makes mistakes but in this case there is no firmware to download. You have to email them and then wait till they reply. And to email them you have to fill out a long form to create an account and agree to their terms, and when you do it creates an account – but the account doesn’t work. Seagate used to be a good company but I am not as impressed as I used to be. In the mean time the drive has been moved to a less critical server.
Also – updates need to run under either DOS or LINUX. Not running WINDOWS on this server.
I had no problems getting the firmware for my shiny new Seagate monster drive, and it arrived as an iso to burn a CD image. It’s a boot disc, it doesn’t care what flavor of OS you’re running. A few minutes later I had a drive that’s been issue free for over a month now. It’s a no-brainer.
Seagate has some pretty good looking help online (by way of Engadget).
Uh, sorry, but Gizmodo sez thet the firmware fix for Seagate Barracuda hard drives just turns them into paperweights.
I suggest people try the firmware released today:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207951
#43 – B. Dog, check this site out. http://storagesecrets.org/2009/01/seagate-boot-death-analysis-overhyped-fud/
According to this, the likelihood of SD1A bricking a drive is HIGHLY unlikely. However, you should still back up your data and update your drive to SD1B.
I’m still disappointed in the way Seagate handled this, but I suspect this will all soon be forgotten.
These drives are still better than Fushitsu drives.