Dell hell - I am so mad I could scream!

mrsfixit · Jan 22, 2009

Wayne Larmon said:
mrsfixit said:

Is this newer firmware than the firmware which didn't work for the
lucky ones, and borked working drives for the unlucky ones?

Click to expand...

It is newer and does fix drives that were "Borked" by the first
generation firmware fix.

Wayne Larmon said:

I won't be trying it. Let somebody else be the guinea pig. I can't
afford to have both my desktop machines go down right now.

Click to expand...

I'm going to wait a bit myself. I have five drives that are
affected. I'm going to watch this thread for a while. Along with
monitoring other news sites and see how this version of the firmware
works, before trying it myself.

I have 3 drives in both my desktop machines affected. I have drives coming tomorrow from newegg. 2 WD Blacks and a Hitachi. No more Seagate for me.

But I'll be taking a wait and see attitude, like you.

If you do update, could you post back here and let me know how it went?

Wayne Larmon said:
p.s., I couldn't let this pass.

"Bork or Borked" as verb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork#.22Bork_or_Borked.22_as_verb

Thanks Wayne. LOL

That was an interesting read. Although I must admit when hearing the word "bork" the first thing that comes to mind is the Swedish Chef from Sesame Street.

And I don't have kids so God know WHY that should be! ;-)

Our minds work in mysterious ways...

Candice in PA

Wayne Larmon · Jan 23, 2009

Wm. L. said:
This sounds like an OEM warranty claims for OEM product often mandate
dealing with its seller and not the original manufacturer. If you
have a serial # in a bad range and a business class system you should
be able to get it swapped fastest via an online or call to the right
channel.

"OEM" has two different definitions, for the circumstance we are talking about. There is large company OEM (Dell, HP, etc.) and individual "white box" builder OEM (components from NewEgg, etc.)

You are correct if "OEM" is used for the first circumstance. Several years ago, the Seagate HD in my sister's HP Pavilion started to die ("Disk failure" type messages stated appearing in the Windows System log). In order to get her going quickly, I Ghosted it to a spare drive I had. But when I tried to get an RMA for the bad drive from Seagate, they refused. They said that I needed to go through HP. This is consistent with the circumstances you describe.

But drives that are sold by companies like NewEgg are also labeled as "OEM" drives But they aren't treated like drives that come with computers that are manufactured by large companies (Dell, HP, etc.). For the purposes of drive manufacturer warranty replacement, they are treated the same as retail drives: the owner of the drive deals with the drive manufacturer, not with the vendor.

When the "OEM" Seagate ST31000340AS 1TB drive went bad (see OP in this thread) that I bought from NewEgg, I went through Seagate's on-line RMA request page. It went through. Seagate sent me the replacement drive (I went for the optional $19.95" service that sent me the replacement drive first) and I returned the bad drive. Seagate requires that drives that are returned be packed in at least 2" of foam. NewEgg shipped the drives wrapped in bubble wrap. Seagate won't accept drives wrapped in bubble wrap--the $19.95 service was the only way to get an acceptable shipping box (with Seagate approved foam packing.))

This is a small point, but I wanted to clarify it. Otherwise, it is possible that people that bought "OEM" drives from NewEgg (or similar vendor) might waste time trying to get NewEgg to replace the drive, instead of going to the drive manufacturer. (NewEgg will only replace bad drives if you report the problem within 14 (I think) days of purchase. After that, you are on your own.)

FWIW, the replacement ST31000340AS drive has the same bad SD15 firmware (see other threads about this), so I still have five ST31000340AS drives that all have the bad SD15 firmware. Luckily (for me), they are basically all backing up the same data, so if one of them dies, I won't lose anything valuable. (No RAID--just MS robocopy, .BAT files, and the Windows Task Scheduler.)

I'm not thrilled about the situation--I wasn't planning on using them all for redundant backup, but after I found out about the bad firmware situation ( that still isn't resolved--see other threads), I decided that overly redundant backup was the best way for me to deal with the situation and still be able to keep on working. (I migrated all my working projects to one of the ST31000340AS several months ago and there isn't any easy way for me to unmigrate. Configuring all the drives as redundant backups was the easiest thing for me to do.)

Wayne

RedFox88 · Jan 23, 2009

mrsfixit said:
According to the reviews at newegg, people are complaining about the
stock HSF with those cpu's...

No problems with my Q6600. The research I did showed the included pre-applied substance was good provided you didn't remove it at a later time and then reattach it. if the manufacturer includes it in their retail box and their instructions don't say you need to apply other substances or even include what you should apply - go with it.

mrsfixit said:
I'm a perfectionist- I can't help it. LOL

Well if you take it that way towards cameras, you'll ALWAYS be waiting for the next camera to come out and you'll never buy anything because something better will be coming up soon!

mrsfixit said:
Really? Again, I keep reading from many people to remove that and use
something good like Arctic Silver.

Again, not needed from the research I did. You can always do extra than is needed if you "really" want to.

mrsfixit said:
I do like a challenge, that's why I keep fooling around with Linux...
;-)

I tried linux a few years ago and it was pathetic. You needed to be a computer programer to get any program to be properly installed.

mrsfixit said:
mrsfixit said:

Is that a 750 watt power supply?? Sounds like a bit of overkill
unless you are planning on building a monster of a computer with 2
high end gaming video cards and 8 drive units!

Click to expand...

Oui monsieur, it is a 750 watt PSU. It has excellent reviews. Quality
is supposedly top notch. And it has a single +12v rail with 60
amps... me likey... LOL

I use the 500 or 550 that came with my case and I have 4 hard drives, 2 optical drives installed. Plus the case came with 4 fans and I have no power issues. 750 is overkill. Find a case with a supply of 550w watts or so.

mrsfixit said:
I am not building a gaming rig.

However- I most likely will have 3 optical drives, and a minimum of 2
hard drives, probably 3.

So, no- I don't think it's overkill. It's like chicken soup- it
couldn't hurt. ;-)

ussery · Jan 23, 2009

Now folks, im usually an easy going Christian person, but after talking to dell reps today, I was so mad I started to act like the devil himself.

The battery quit charging in mine and I also bought it in april of 08. Now the warranty is suppose to be good for a year, so I sent it in afer calling them about it and they told me it would be fixed without charge.. Now Today I got an e-mail from them saying. they wont fix it because the LCD and Motherboard is bad, and I told them the LCD worked fine. I said: all thats wrong is the battery wont charge up. They said: well unfortunately we cant fix it without 350.00 because the motherboard and LCD is bad. I told them again,theres nothing wrong with the LCD ,all thats wrong is the battery wont charge. Then I ask them, I said: what does the warranty NOT cover? He said the motherboard,LCD,Hard drive,and software. Then the next thing out of his mouth was-would you like to extend the warranty to for years? I said: WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING? IF THE WARRANTY BASICALY COVERS NOTHING AND YOU WONT FIX MY COMPUTER THEN NO! They said then it will be sent back to me as is. I said: what do you mean as is? He said: I mean like it is. I ask him whats wrong with the LCD? He said he doesnt know. I ask him if it still worked. He said he doesnt know. I said THEN FIND OUT! He said it has an error message. I said fine but considering the LCD worked when I sent it in,then it better be the same when I get it back. Anyway I said ILL NEVER BUY A DELL AGAIN! I MEAN NEVER! So yea I see why so many are mad at them including you mrsfixit . IM MAD TO! Now Im sure many have had good experiences with dell and im glad. But if you've never owned a dell, dont buy one.
Their warrantys are worthless.
--
No matter what your shooting, always keep God in the picture.

mrsfixit · Jan 24, 2009

ussery said:
Now folks, im usually an easy going Christian person, but after
talking to dell reps today, I was so mad I started to act like the
devil himself.
Anyway I said ILL NEVER BUY A
DELL AGAIN! I MEAN NEVER! So yea I see why so many are mad at them
including you mrsfixit . IM MAD TO! Now Im sure many have had good
experiences with dell and im glad. But if you've never owned a dell,
dont buy one.
Their warrantys are worthless.

I'm sorry, but not surprised to hear yet another Dell horror story.

It's a shame that their alleged "customer service" has deteriorated to the point it has.

I have a Dell laptop, bought from the outlet many years ago, and the only thing that ever went wrong with it was the modem malfunctioned. I talked to CS, and in less than 5 minutes they told me they'd send me another one.

I didn't mind putting it in myself, it took longer to open the package than to install the modem... ;-)

In April 2008 I bought a refurbed Inspiron 530. It was a well spec'd machine, for a price I couldn't pass up. It's been great. It runs like a champ.

The Vostro is out of my life thank goodness. But I do not trust them one bit to give me the full refund like they promised. I'll be very surprised if they do. I'll be filing a complaint with the Pennsylvania Attorney General if they don't. And the Pennsylvania AG is a force to be reckoned with, that's for sure! LOL

I have lost every bit of faith I had in that company, and so have a lot of other people.

One would think that in this economy they would be working harder to keep their customers satisfied.

You might want to contact the AG in your state and file a complaint. What do you have to lose?

Good luck,

Candice in PA

ussery · Jan 24, 2009

mrsfixit said:
It's a shame that their alleged "customer service" has deteriorated
to the point it has.

I have a Dell laptop, bought from the outlet many years ago, and the
only thing that ever went wrong with it was the modem malfunctioned.
I talked to CS, and in less than 5 minutes they told me they'd send
me another one.

I didn't mind putting it in myself, it took longer to open the
package than to install the modem... ;-)

In April 2008 I bought a refurbed Inspiron 530. It was a well spec'd
machine, for a price I couldn't pass up. It's been great. It runs
like a champ.

The Vostro is out of my life thank goodness. But I do not trust them
one bit to give me the full refund like they promised. I'll be very
surprised if they do. I'll be filing a complaint with the
Pennsylvania Attorney General if they don't. And the Pennsylvania AG
is a force to be reckoned with, that's for sure! LOL

I have lost every bit of faith I had in that company, and so have a
lot of other people.

One would think that in this economy they would be working harder to
keep their customers satisfied.

You might want to contact the AG in your state and file a complaint.
What do you have to lose?

Good luck,

Candice in PA

I would have nothing to loose for sure.

Ill certainly see what can be done especially if they send it back to me with the LCD not working. Have a good weekend.

--
No matter what your shooting, always keep God in the picture.

Wayne Larmon · Jan 24, 2009

mrsfixit said:
Wayne Larmon said:

mrsfixit wrote:

Click to expand...

(Snip discussion about monitoring Seagate user forums)

mrsfixit said:
mrsfixit said:

mrsfixit said:

I won't be trying it. Let somebody else be the guinea pig. I can't
afford to have both my desktop machines go down right now.

Click to expand...

I'm going to wait a bit myself. I have five drives that are
affected. I'm going to watch this thread for a while. Along with
monitoring other news sites and see how this version of the firmware
works, before trying it myself.

Click to expand...

I have 3 drives in both my desktop machines affected. I have drives
coming tomorrow from newegg. 2 WD Blacks and a Hitachi. No more
Seagate for me.

But I'll be taking a wait and see attitude, like you.

If you do update, could you post back here and let me know how it went?

I'm still monitoring the Seagate user forums and I'm still hearing enough horror stories such that I don't want to risk updating my firmware. From this morning:

"I updated 4 ST31000340AS to SD1A and two of the drives updated fine. The two others are now empty and are only recognized as 32MB drives. There is no way to partition or reformat the drive back to 1TB no matter what application I use (DiskWizzard, Vista Disk Management, etc). Is there any way to reflash the old firmware or another way for my drive to be restored to 1TB? SeaTools says that it passes all tests as a 32MB drive but it cannot see the full 1TB partition."

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=5133&view=by_date_ascending&page=12

There are lots of people that report success, but I've seen enough posts like this such that I'm still going to hold off for a while before flashing my firmware. (Again, I have five ST31000340AS drives. Some were made in China and some were made in Thailand. This might have something to do with " two of the drives updated fine. The two others are now empty...")

Again, here is a link to the Seagate user forums, if you want to monitor them yourself:
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board?board.id=ata_drives

Wayne

mrsfixit · Jan 24, 2009

RedFox88 said:
mrsfixit said:

According to the reviews at newegg, people are complaining about the
stock HSF with those cpu's...

Click to expand...

No problems with my Q6600. The research I did showed the included
pre-applied substance was good provided you didn't remove it at a
later time and then reattach it. if the manufacturer includes it in
their retail box and their instructions don't say you need to apply
other substances or even include what you should apply - go with it.

I'll look into it again. I'm leaning towards the Q9550 because I might want to try building a Hackintosh...

BTW I don't find the Q6600 to run very hot at all. I am using CoreTemp and seeing temps of around 35C at idle, and up to 55C under a full load.

But if I take my side panel off, the temps drop about 5C.

Dell cases suck for cooling... I may just leave the panel off.

RedFox88 said:
RedFox88 said:

I'm a perfectionist- I can't help it. LOL

Click to expand...

Well if you take it that way towards cameras, you'll ALWAYS be
waiting for the next camera to come out and you'll never buy anything
because something better will be coming up soon!

Bingo! That's just how I am!!! LOL ;-)

RedFox88 said:
RedFox88 said:

Really? Again, I keep reading from many people to remove that and use
something good like Arctic Silver.

Click to expand...

Again, not needed from the research I did. You can always do extra
than is needed if you "really" want to.

RedFox88 said:

I do like a challenge, that's why I keep fooling around with Linux...
;-)

Click to expand...

I tried linux a few years ago and it was pathetic. You needed to be
a computer programer to get any program to be properly installed.

Nah. YOU can certainly do it! With your computer skills? Are you kidding me?

If you need to install something from the repository it is dead simple.

What I have had difficulty doing in Linux is getting third party stuff to install.

Stuff from the repo is just a matter of using Synaptic to select what you want and have it automatically install.

Believe me- If I can do it...

I am using Ubuntu 8.10 BTW. It's not my first choice. I like Mepis and PCLinuxOS better, and they use the KDE interface. But Ubuntu just seems to work with every machine I try it on, and it is the #1 distro right now. It's the most supported and most updated, which is why I'm sticking it out with that one.

RedFox88 said:
RedFox88 said:

RedFox88 said:

Is that a 750 watt power supply?? Sounds like a bit of overkill
unless you are planning on building a monster of a computer with 2
high end gaming video cards and 8 drive units!

Click to expand...

Oui monsieur, it is a 750 watt PSU. It has excellent reviews. Quality
is supposedly top notch. And it has a single +12v rail with 60
amps... me likey... LOL

Click to expand...

I use the 500 or 550 that came with my case and I have 4 hard drives,
2 optical drives installed. Plus the case came with 4 fans and I have
no power issues. 750 is overkill. Find a case with a supply of 550w
watts or so.

As I said, I am reusing my Thermaltake Armor case. The PSU in that case is not compatible with the new boards.

So I still have to buy a psu. Corsair has a couple of lower wattage psu's I will look at. I'm pretty much set on Corsair for my psu...

Candice in PA

mrsfixit · Jan 24, 2009

Wayne Larmon said:
mrsfixit said:

Wayne Larmon said:

mrsfixit wrote:

Click to expand...

I have 3 drives in both my desktop machines affected. I have drives
coming tomorrow from newegg. 2 WD Blacks and a Hitachi. No more
Seagate for me.

Click to expand...

I am formatting the second Western Digital drive right now. First one went ok. I haven't gotten to the Hitachi drive yet.

The WD is now installed in placed of the 1 TB Seagate. I will be using my Thermaltake BlacX dock to transfer the data off the Seagate and onto the WD. That is assuming the Seagate still works after being shut off... :-(

Wayne Larmon said:
I'm still monitoring the Seagate user forums and I'm still hearing
enough horror stories such that I don't want to risk updating my
firmware. From this morning:

I'm not Jewish, but I think "oy vey" is appropriate right now...

Wayne Larmon said:
"I updated 4 ST31000340AS to SD1A and two of the drives updated fine.
The two others are now empty and are only recognized as 32MB drives.

Snipped post... I will now go read it on the Seagate forum...

Wayne Larmon said:
There are lots of people that report success, but I've seen enough
posts like this such that I'm still going to hold off for a while
before flashing my firmware. (Again, I have five ST31000340AS
drives. Some were made in China and some were made in Thailand.

I have 1 Thailand, 1 China. Both SD15 firmware. One 1 TB, one 500 GB...and I have a 320 gig in my other system that has been acting up for the last 6 months with the not being recognized in the BIOS problem. And it a 7200.10 drive- it's NOT supposed to be one of the affected drives. I think this problem goes deeper and affects more drives than Seagate will admit to. The second WD Black is going in that system IF it will work with the sata 1 controller in that system... yes, I'm due for a new system... LOL

Wayne Larmon said:
This might have something to do with " two of the drives updated
fine. The two others are now empty...")

Again, here is a link to the Seagate user forums, if you want to
monitor them yourself:
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board?board.id=ata_drives

Yeah, I'm heading back over there now to see what's going on.

I'm not doing any upgrades until I know it works 100%.

BIG thanks Wayne for letting me know what is going on. Please keep me posted. I really appreciate the info.

Candice in PA

Wayne Larmon · Jan 24, 2009

mrsfixit said:
Wayne Larmon said:

I'm still monitoring the Seagate user forums and I'm still hearing
enough horror stories such that I don't want to risk updating my
firmware. From this morning:

Click to expand...

I'm not Jewish, but I think "oy vey" is appropriate right now...

Me neither, but I agree.

I was monitoring the threads on the Seagate forums and noted a post that said that Seagate has added a serial number check page, so you can check to see if your exact drive needs flashing. This has been added to the

Firmware Recommendations for Barracuda 7200.11, ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22 Drives [207931]
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

page. (Even though the serial number check page says that it will accept up to 100 serial numbers, it only works for me if I give it a single serial number at a time.)

I checked my five drives. It said that three of them are affected and need the firmware update. One was not affected. And one was "Contact tech support"

I'm guessing that the "Contact tech support" one means that I need to send it back. I just got this particular drive from Seagate as an RMA replacement for a ST31000340AS that went bad (a lot of fatal SMART errors and it failed several diagnostic tests) last week. I paid $19.95, because Seagate will only accept drives that are packed in 2 inches of foam (bubble wrap and peanuts aren't allowed). So I paid $19.95 for them to send me the replacement drive in an approved shipping box. (Which I used to return the original bad drive.) So I won't be happy if I need to spend another $19.95 to return this drive.

Oy vey, indeed.

At this point, bailing out to WD drives does sound appealing. Just to get out of the mad house that Seagate has turned into.

Wayne

Pik2004 · Jan 24, 2009

Kenneth Margulies said:
Buy an Apple.
Apple has much more control over the software and hardware...and
Consumer Reports Magazine rates them highly on Customer Service.
In general, you get what you pay for...simple, but true...

I already have Mac and they have there own pit falls like there finder and DVD burner, I found Explorler and Nero much better (these two are main reason for looking into PC desktop). They crash as much as XP or more. One thing I like about Mac is that connecting to any external monitor, Wifi, Bluetooth,....etc is so much easier. Other than that XP does just about everything Mac does (except that Mac does it fancier like time machine vs system restore).
--
Peter
http://www.pbase.com/pik2004
http://www.flickr.com/photos/18053674@N08/

RedFox88 · Jan 24, 2009

mrsfixit said:
BTW I don't find the Q6600 to run very hot at all. I am using
CoreTemp and seeing temps of around 35C at idle, and up to 55C under
a full load.

But if I take my side panel off, the temps drop about 5C.

Dell cases suck for cooling... I may just leave the panel off.

The previous computer I built was too hot to leave either side panel on which made for a noisey computer. My new case has fold down side that you cannot take off. But it has 4 fans and is overall quiet for so many fans and doesn't need a side folded down.

mrsfixit said:
mrsfixit said:

mrsfixit said:

I'm a perfectionist- I can't help it. LOL

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Bingo! That's just how I am!!! LOL ;-)

I cannot help you with that and for technology - that is a horrible way to be since it continually advances.

mrsfixit said:
As I said, I am reusing my Thermaltake Armor case. The PSU in that
case is not compatible with the new boards.

Doesn't have a 20+4 motherboard power leads? Does it have a 20 and a 4 that can be plugged in together? That about all my power supply has. It's not a 24 port lead but 2 individual power leads.

mrsfixit · Jan 25, 2009

Wayne Larmon said:
mrsfixit said:

I'm not Jewish, but I think "oy vey" is appropriate right now...

Click to expand...

Me neither, but I agree.

Wayne Larmon said:
that said that Seagate has added a serial number check page, so you
can check to see if your exact drive needs flashing.

Ok, I'm going to check that out. Thanks for the info Wayne.

Wayne Larmon said:
I checked my five drives. It said that three of them are affected
and need the firmware update. One was not affected. And one was
"Contact tech support"

I'm guessing that the "Contact tech support" one means that I need to
send it back. I just got this particular drive from Seagate as an
RMA replacement for a ST31000340AS that went bad (a lot of fatal
SMART errors and it failed several diagnostic tests) last week. I
paid $19.95, because Seagate will only accept drives that are packed
in 2 inches of foam (bubble wrap and peanuts aren't allowed).

Yeah, I've heard about the packaging requirement. And this really annoys me because newegg ships the damn things in bubble wrap... I don't like newegg's packaging at all. No wonder people get so many DOA drives.

I guess I lucked out this time. All 3 of mine are working so far.

Wayne Larmon said:
paid $19.95 for them to send me the replacement drive in an approved
shipping box. (Which I used to return the original bad drive.) So I
won't be happy if I need to spend another $19.95 to return this drive.

You'll be even LESS happy if they send you another defective drive to replace it... :-((((

Wayne Larmon said:
Oy vey, indeed.

At this point, bailing out to WD drives does sound appealing. Just
to get out of the mad house that Seagate has turned into.

Exactly. Good grief, what a mess.

Wayne, what software do you use to test your drives? I want to test mine before I entrust all my data to them.

Thanks for the info,

Candice in PA

mrsfixit · Jan 25, 2009

Wayne Larmon said:
I was monitoring the threads on the Seagate forums and noted a post
that said that Seagate has added a serial number check page, so you

I just checked. Both my 500 GB boot drive and my 1 TB storage drive in my quad core machine are affected.

Damn. Now this means an OS reinstall. I was hoping against hope that the 500 GB drive was not affected...

Supposedly the 320 gig in my Athlon system is not affected- but for 8 months I've been having issues with it locking up, giving me a BSOD, and not being recognized by the BIOS upon reboot. 20 or 30 reboots later, I can coax it to work.

The system will run fine for weeks or even months. But if it loses power- like when the power goes out- or I have to unplug it during a lightning storm- it triggers these problems again.

I've changed the boot drive twice in that system- and disconnected all the other drives- EXCEPT the 320 gig- with no improvement. And the only common factor the entire time has been that 320 gig storage drive...

Event viewer shows a "hard disk controller error" when it happens.

Do you know- if that refers to the hard disk controller on the motherboard, or the disk controller in the drive itself?

What a major PITA.

And even more so for you- you have five of the things...

Candice in PA

mrsfixit · Jan 25, 2009

ussery said:
ussery said:

It's a shame that their alleged "customer service" has deteriorated
to the point it has.

Click to expand...

ussery said:

You might want to contact the AG in your state and file a complaint.
What do you have to lose?

Click to expand...

I did not know about this. I just happened to catch a snippet on CNN this morning about it.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dell-to-Pay-US-3-85-Million-in-Settlement-with-46-US-Sates-101803.shtml

If you go to Google News, and put in "Dell settlement" you'll find a ton or articles about it.

Of course, that sum of money spread across 46 states is a joke- but if you live in one of those 46 states- you might be entitled to something back.

You must file a claim- and you only have 90 days to do it. You might want to jump on this because, like we both agreed- you have nothing to lose.

Candice in PA

Wayne Larmon · Jan 25, 2009

mrsfixit said:
Event viewer shows a "hard disk controller error" when it happens.

Do you know- if that refers to the hard disk controller on the
motherboard, or the disk controller in the drive itself?

I'm not enough of an expert to know the answer. You might want to start a new thread asking about this problem. There are people that post on this forum that know much more than I do about PC hardware issues. They might not see this new issue for you, because the initial thread topic is different.

I updated the firmware on four of my ST1000340AS drives and I didn't see any new problems. All the data is still there and I don't see any new SMART errors.

But I'm also experiencing a new, possibly unrelated series of errors that are logged in the machine that has four of my ST1000340AS drives. Because I don't know exactly what is going on, I'm not going to say more. But I think I am safe in saying the the firmware upgrades were successful. (I saw the first error message before I did the firmware update. I was hoping that the firmware upgrade would solve the problem. But it didn't.)

mrsfixit said:
What a major PITA.

And even more so for you- you have five of the things...

Yes, but because I'm now (essentially) using four of the drives to back up the fifth one, I'm not overly worried about losing all my data. I also have it backed up to three external drives. My initial plan wasn't to use them all for this much redundancy, but when the Seagate problems hit the news, I changed my plans and went for maximum redundancy. (My original plan was to use some of the drives to bring old data that I have stored off-line back on-line.) I'm losing time and aggravation, but (hopefully) not important data.

Wayne

Wayne Larmon · Jan 25, 2009

mrsfixit said:
Wayne Larmon said:

I'm guessing that the "Contact tech support" one means that I need to
send it back. I just got this particular drive from Seagate as an
RMA replacement for a ST31000340AS that went bad (a lot of fatal
SMART errors and it failed several diagnostic tests) last week. I
paid $19.95, because Seagate will only accept drives that are packed
in 2 inches of foam (bubble wrap and peanuts aren't allowed).

Click to expand...

First the mea culpa. I got confused about the two drives that I had already had replaced. The one that was tagged as being "Contact tech support" was actually the one that had been replaced by NewEgg several months ago, because the original was DOA. The one that Seagate shipped me last week was actually "Not affected." So I owe Seagate an apology for the above paragraph.

mrsfixit said:
Yeah, I've heard about the packaging requirement. And this really
annoys me because newegg ships the damn things in bubble wrap... I
don't like newegg's packaging at all. No wonder people get so many
DOA drives.

The drives from NewEgg are sealed in anti-static bags, so I don't see any problem with the bubble wrap+ peanuts. I don't see how the foam protects the drive any better.

I don't know why Seagate disallows bubble wrap/peanuts. Because drive manufacturers stopped packing drives in foam several years ago (even retail drives), very few people have drive shipping boxes with foam anymore. I used to have a bunch of drive boxes with foam, but they got thrown out when we cleaned out the basement a few years ago. I didn't know that they were the last of a dying breed. :-(

mrsfixit said:
Wayne, what software do you use to test your drives? I want to test
mine before I entrust all my data to them.

I don't test them exhaustively--I'm not a hardware geek. I use Western Digital's Windows DLG program to do quick (several minutes) tests and to do an overall PASS/FAIL test of SMART data.

http://www.driverskit.com/freedownload/Storage/Western_Digital/Win_DLG_Data_Lifeguard_Diagnostics_1_02/17294.html

I hadn't installed Seagate's SeaTools, because it requires .NET. And because the WD program seemed sufficient for doing a quick sanity test. The WD program is small and free standing. It installs without requiring a reboot. (Or at least it did when I installed it several years ago. I don't know about the current version.)

I check the Windows system log every so often. But usually only if the system seems more sluggish than normal (excessive drive retries....)

I'm going to try a few things more. If I am still puzzled, then I'll try Seagate's Seatools.

Again, at this point I don't know if my new problem is Seagate drive related, or if it is some other computer problem. But installing the firmware update didn't seem to change anything, for the better or for the worse. (Based on watching it for a few hours.)

Wayne

mrsfixit · Jan 25, 2009

Wayne Larmon said:
mrsfixit said:

Wayne Larmon said:

I'm guessing that the "Contact tech support" one means that I need to
send it back. I just got this particular drive from Seagate as an
RMA replacement for a ST31000340AS that went bad (a lot of fatal
SMART errors and it failed several diagnostic tests) last week. I
paid $19.95, because Seagate will only accept drives that are packed
in 2 inches of foam (bubble wrap and peanuts aren't allowed).

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

First the mea culpa. I got confused about the two drives that I had
already had replaced. The one that was tagged as being "Contact tech
support" was actually the one that had been replaced by NewEgg
several months ago, because the original was DOA. The one that
Seagate shipped me last week was actually "Not affected." So I owe
Seagate an apology for the above paragraph.

No, I think Seagate owes all of US a big apology for having to go through this in the first place.

They've known about the problems for months, and did nothing but deny their existence until it finally hit the newspapers and tech sites.

Wayne Larmon said:
Wayne Larmon said:

Yeah, I've heard about the packaging requirement. And this really
annoys me because newegg ships the damn things in bubble wrap... I
don't like newegg's packaging at all. No wonder people get so many
DOA drives.

Click to expand...

The drives from NewEgg are sealed in anti-static bags, so I don't see
any problem with the bubble wrap+ peanuts. I don't see how the foam
protects the drive any better.

My 3 drives came in the usual anti static bags, and they were in a kind of styrofoam caddy. And that was wrapped in bubble wrap, and packed with peanuts.

I've got the 2 WD drives installed, and I'm copying data now. The WD had a jumper thank God that limits the speed to sata 1, so it works with my old Athlon system.

The 500 GB Hitachi I partitioned and formatted and it's now waiting to become my new boot drive.

Wayne Larmon said:
I don't know why Seagate disallows bubble wrap/peanuts. Because
drive manufacturers stopped packing drives in foam several years ago
(even retail drives), very few people have drive shipping boxes with
foam anymore. I used to have a bunch of drive boxes with foam, but
they got thrown out when we cleaned out the basement a few years ago.
I didn't know that they were the last of a dying breed. :-(

See, don't listen to your wife. Never throw anything out... ROTFL

Note that this comes from a woman geek and big time pack rat... LOL

My husband throws stuff out, and I'll sneak it back out of the garbage... drives him crazy... ;-)

Spouses just don't understand that some stuff you just don't see anymore, and it's worth keeping.

Wayne Larmon said:
Wayne Larmon said:

Wayne, what software do you use to test your drives? I want to test
mine before I entrust all my data to them.

Click to expand...

I don't test them exhaustively--I'm not a hardware geek. I use
Western Digital's Windows DLG program to do quick (several minutes)
tests and to do an overall PASS/FAIL test of SMART data.

Ok, I'll go download that. I did a couple of quick passes with HD Tune, and it didn't show any issues. I'll run the more extensive tests overnight.

Wayne Larmon said:
I check the Windows system log every so often. But usually only if
the system seems more sluggish than normal (excessive drive
retries....)

Yeah, same here. I monitor event viewer constantly now.

Wayne Larmon said:
I'm going to try a few things more. If I am still puzzled, then I'll
try Seagate's Seatools.

Again, at this point I don't know if my new problem is Seagate drive
related, or if it is some other computer problem. But installing the
firmware update didn't seem to change anything, for the better or for
the worse. (Based on watching it for a few hours.)

Damn. I think I will hold off for a while then. Since the only important thing on the C drive is My Documents, I'll just back it up every day just in case my boot drive fails. I'm still taking a wait and see attitude, and probably won't update until I know it's foolproof.

I think maybe it's time to get Ghost or some kind of cloning software, so I can clone my setup over to the Hitachi drive.

Do you know if you can flash the firmware with the drive in an external dock?

It's sitting in my Thermaltake BlacX and I was just wondering...

Thanks for keeping me updated Wayne.

Candice in PA

mrsfixit · Jan 25, 2009

RedFox88 said:
mrsfixit said:

Dell cases suck for cooling... I may just leave the panel off.

Click to expand...

The previous computer I built was too hot to leave either side panel
on which made for a noisey computer. My new case has fold down side
that you cannot take off. But it has 4 fans and is overall quiet
for so many fans and doesn't need a side folded down.

Fold down sides?

What kind of case do you have?

I'm weird- fan noise does not bother me. It's white noise for me.

The Armor I have has two 120mm fans and two 90mm fans. I have no cooling issues with it. And I love the side panel. Two spring latches and the panel comes right off. Nice.

RedFox88 said:
RedFox88 said:

RedFox88 said:

RedFox88 said:

I'm a perfectionist- I can't help it. LOL

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Bingo! That's just how I am!!! LOL ;-)

Click to expand...

I cannot help you with that and for technology - that is a horrible
way to be since it continually advances.

Yeah, true- but it stops me from buying too much anyway. ;-)

RedFox88 said:
RedFox88 said:

As I said, I am reusing my Thermaltake Armor case. The PSU in that
case is not compatible with the new boards.

Click to expand...

Doesn't have a 20+4 motherboard power leads? Does it have a 20 and a
4 that can be plugged in together? That about all my power supply
has. It's not a 24 port lead but 2 individual power leads.

To be honest... I really don't remember. I think it's just 20 pin...it's powering an Athlon 64 2800. It's a pretty old system. I'm pretty sure the PSU won't work with the newer boards.

Candice in PA

Wayne Larmon · Jan 25, 2009

mrsfixit said:
Wayne Larmon said:

Again, at this point I don't know if my new problem is Seagate drive
related, or if it is some other computer problem. But installing the
firmware update didn't seem to change anything, for the better or for
the worse. (Based on watching it for a few hours.)

Click to expand...

FWIW, the problem is that I started seeing

The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort2, did not respond within the timeout period.

in the System log, starting last night around 2:00 AM. The machine wasn't doing anything at that time (other than being on. It was done doing its nightly incremental backups.)

I don't even know if ' \Device\Ide\IdePort2' refers to one of the SATA drives or if it refers to the CD/ROM drive. I used WinObj (which was explained to me on
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=30700782 )

and it shows three devices like this, with the numbering starting at "0". I couldn't resolve the name any further--I don't know what ' \Device\Ide\IdePort2' points to.

It was this morning when I flashed the drives, after seeing that message (for the first time.) After flashing the drives, the message appeared again several times. Which is why I don't think that it is related to the firmware upgrade.

It might be related to me mounting a 4th SATA drive in the system last week. Up until then, the machine only had three SATA drives. I Googled for this error message. Most of the results were something along the lines of "Uh, dunno. Must be something wrong with some hardware somewhere." But one guy said that he solved the problem by upgrading his power supply. So I just shut the machine down and disconnected the 4th drive. So now I wait and watch the system log. (I already tried disconnecting and reconnecting all the assorted drive cables earlier today.)

mrsfixit said:
Damn. I think I will hold off for a while then. Since the only
important thing on the C drive is My Documents, I'll just back it up
every day just in case my boot drive fails. I'm still taking a wait
and see attitude, and probably won't update until I know it's
foolproof.

I think maybe it's time to get Ghost or some kind of cloning
software, so I can clone my setup over to the Hitachi drive.

I use Acronis True Image. I like it because it runs under Windows. I make image files of my C: partition every month of so. I only install programs on my C: partition, so they are only 20-30 gigs. True Image does an image backup in about four minutes.

I used to use Ghost years ago, but then I heard that they went to activation. True Image doesn't require activation. A drive imaging program that requires activation is a PITA.

When I evaluated True Image last year, the 30 day demo version was fully functional. I made an image file from my C: drive restored it to a different drive with the demo. After proving to myself that True Image worked on my hardware, I bought it.

mrsfixit said:
Do you know if you can flash the firmware with the drive in an
external dock?

I don't know.

mrsfixit said:
It's sitting in my Thermaltake BlacX and I was just wondering...

The firmware update program has a menu option that scans to see if it recognizes drives. You can boot it up and see if it recognizes the drive. (The docs caution you to disconnect any SATA device that you don't intend to flash, so it is good to verify that the drives that are connected are the ones that you intend to flash.)

mrsfixit said:
Thanks for keeping me updated Wayne.

You're welcome.

Good luck.

Wayne

Dell hell - I am so mad I could scream!

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