[opensuse] Bad Seagate HDDs - Vote for my bugzilla
All, I just created a bugzilla that OS should detect the known bad Seagate drives and post a warning to the user. https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=467740 If you agree with me, please vote for it. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Greg Freemyer wrote:
All,
I just created a bugzilla that OS should detect the known bad Seagate drives and post a warning to the user.
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=467740
If you agree with me, please vote for it.
Greg
+2 votes (I'm glad I don't have any of these ;-) -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 7:00 PM, David C. Rankin
Greg Freemyer wrote:
All,
I just created a bugzilla that OS should detect the known bad Seagate drives and post a warning to the user.
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=467740
If you agree with me, please vote for it.
Greg
+2 votes (I'm glad I don't have any of these ;-)
We have about 40 that match the model numbers in question. I haven't seen a list of firmware revs yet that are affected. FYI: We have had a lot of drive failures, so I'm sure we have bad drives. I just don't know which ones. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 1/21/2009 at 1:58 AM, "Greg Freemyer"
wrote:
We have about 40 that match the model numbers in question. I haven't seen a list of firmware revs yet that are affected.
FYI: We have had a lot of drive failures, so I'm sure we have bad drives. I just don't know which ones.
From the Seagate KB: Affected drives are from the series Barracuda 7200.11 DiamondMax 22 Barracuda ES.2 SATA
Apparently Seagate is not having all the information to identify themself if the disk is affected by the problem, and they actually recommend against flashing the disks firmware 'to prevent' anything. The suggestion goes clearly in the way of 'crash and flash'. The fact that there seems not to exist a (public) table of affected bios revisions (yet) would also make it close to impossible to create a tool that can identify if your disk is at risk. Just because you have the correct model can't be an indication, as the user might already have the newest bios applied. Dominique -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 3:46 AM, Dominique Leuenberger
On 1/21/2009 at 1:58 AM, "Greg Freemyer"
wrote: We have about 40 that match the model numbers in question. I haven't seen a list of firmware revs yet that are affected.
FYI: We have had a lot of drive failures, so I'm sure we have bad drives. I just don't know which ones.
From the Seagate KB: Affected drives are from the series Barracuda 7200.11 DiamondMax 22 Barracuda ES.2 SATA
Apparently Seagate is not having all the information to identify themself if the disk is affected by the problem, and they actually recommend against flashing the disks firmware 'to prevent' anything. The suggestion goes clearly in the way of 'crash and flash'.
I'm very confused by that. Do you have a link that says "crash and flash" or similar. It is my understanding that once is crashes, it is too late. The firmware can no longer be upgraded. At least not via the standard process. AIUI, the drive simply becomes unrecognizable and is effectively a brick. Data recovery can be performed, but it is not a simple matter of applying software tools that are readily available. I have not seen it officially, but I have seen unofficial mailing list posts saying that Seagate is offering free data recovery services for drives that have bricked themselves due to this firmware bug.
The fact that there seems not to exist a (public) table of affected bios revisions (yet) would also make it close to impossible to create a tool that can identify if your disk is at risk. Just because you have the correct model can't be an indication, as the user might already have the newest bios applied.
I believe there is a partial list of known bad firmware releases and for those there is a recommended firmware upgrade. New info is expected as Seagate investigates the situation. So the situation is dynamic. It seems there are 2 choices: 1) The community (Novell or even a more comprehensive Linux community team) monitor the situation and roll-out notifications / recommendations as they become available. This was done for the faulty laptop batteries, so the mechanisms are in place. I believe all that is needed is config files for HAL. 2) Have everyone that purchased one of the potentially affected models research the Seagate recommendations on a regular basis. I believe 1) is the best for the community and given the severity of the problem it is a minimal amount of effort. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 7:00 PM, David C. Rankin
+2 votes (I'm glad I don't have any of these ;-)
I have 2(a 16MB and a 32MB cache) and I was going to do the update but didn't have time. The problem is that the drives have a tendency to "freeze" for up to 30 seconds, and I have seen that happen occasionally for a few seconds, and was never able to pin down the case until I saw that firmware update. The good news is that the new firmware is making the drives unusable, so they have pulled it ;-). There are some really pissed off people who used the new firmware right now to say the least. Newegg has a 1TB Hitachi for $99 shipped that I may order just to have a backup in case they don't get the firmware issues fixed. Needed another drive, but didn't want to do it yet.... Oh well... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 1/20/2009 at 8:46 PM, "Greg Freemyer"
wrote: All, I just created a bugzilla that OS should detect the known bad Seagate drives and post a warning to the user.
That sounds like a very short sighted project ending up with quiet some effort (the user needs to be informed, screen message). In plus the message alone won't help the average user that did not hear about this issue in any news page before, so he'll just be scared off by 'his computer telling him that the disk is broken'. So caution is required for such a case! The user that would know what the message means is the one that was already informed by the various news reports... thus it only would offer an additional confirmation to the user that he's affected. Dominique -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (4)
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David C. Rankin
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Dominique Leuenberger
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Greg Freemyer
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Larry Stotler