In case you missed it in the general forum above, Seagate says there is a potential problem with some of their hard drives and have issued a new firmware revision. You can read about it here:

Seagate Knowledge Base (http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931)

I know cross-posting is generally frowned upon, but this seemed like a more logical place for it.

Thanks for taking the time to post that - I have one of those drives and although it has been working fine I've been feeling nervous....

Beware!

PC Pro: News: Seagate bug fix bricks Barracudas (http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/245748/seagate-bug-fix-bricks-barracudas.html)

Yeah, how ridiculous. I read some long (45+) page threads last night and eventually concluded that as of about 22 Jan their firmware update was finally working properly. Updated last night and all went fine. But as always YMMV.

I've been having bad luck in the last year and a half with their drives. One literally crashed my comp. Later on I found out after troubleshooting it for 2 months after havng taken apart the comp one by one and OS repairs , etc. The read/write arm went clunkers on me. Another one just stopped operating. I know it's not the Intel mobo.

So I have here a Seagate 1TB drive I'm thinking of installing, but having major reservations. It's not on that dreaded list, but the fail rate is unusually high for me.

While checking some of my drives and looking for answers, I found this recent article

Seagate drives hit by firmware glitch (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9132608&intsrc=news_ts_head)

Customer feedback for Seagate drives, at Newegg, has taken a considerable nosedive over the past year or so. Seagate has also scaled back their warranty from 5 years to 3 years. I'm favoring Hitachi drives now.

i had the exact firmware problem... Everything goes well until one day .. when I shut down. it won't detect it again .. nothing at all..

CAll up seagate and have the drive sent to Singapore.. they replace my firmware I believe.. and I get back the drive intact.. no data loss at all.. All in within 7 days.

I'm kinda impress.. though I have to suffer from missing files for a week and lots of worries.. cause I have 2 more edits that I have yet to finish .. have backups in tape.. but not the photos that I shoot from CF cards.

I like using 4GB CF cards in my still camera, especially because it's a real nice size to easily burn a DVD backup, as soon as I've transferred the photos from the CF card to my computer.

This problem is not new and was its peak last Jan-Feb 2009. Seagate has already published the firmware fix and it has a list of the known serial nos. I bought my 2 seagate HD (one 2.5" external 320gb) and a 1.5tb external 3.5" in the height of controversy. I just checked if my HD is one of those bad batch, and it wasn't. So far, after 4-5 months, all is still well. And I still have that 5 year warranty in place. After Jan 3, I think they will honor up to 3 years only.

I also don't think you can just switch drives manufacturers. Everyone has had their bad batches one time or the other. And as time goes on, there are fewer manufacturers to pick. I think only Hitachi is more solid than seagate or WD, but you can't find them as many. So, in the end, you have to do your own precautions in spite of warranty and a safe conduct pass from the manufacturers. This means backup and do redundant copies of your files. This is known since time immemorial and woe to those who don't do this regularly.