this is basically a heads up to anyone using 500GB 7200RPM drives from Seagate. 20-30% of these drives will simply fail, becoming a complete brick with no warning.

I've had a few contact that have had to deal with these problem drives, simply RMA'ing them via the reseller (one guy had three of them). As it turns out this is a firmware problem.

FWIW, heres a thread from MSFN on the topic.

http://www.msfn.or...a-720011-troubles/

heres a link to the seagate KB article outlining the steps you need to take to upgrade a working drive to a proper firmware version.

http://seagate.cus...h.jsp?DocId=207931

the process is pretty simple; use a windows utility to determine the serial numbers of the drives; plug the serial numbers into text box search to find out if they may be affected. if you have affected drives, the search tool hands you back a link to download a firmware upgrade utility (exe or iso).

do make sure you read all the docs! im sure i saw a notation about the dangers of running the update utility if the drives are set up in a RAID configuration, but now i cannot find the note.

i happened to have two of these drives, both models ST3500320AS. one drive that was affected, the other one was fine. the utility upgraded firmware across the board. no issues so far after reboot.

if you have an affected drive thats already bricked, you can apparently RMA it to seagate for data recovery and/or replacement. there is also a way to solder a new interface on to the control board for the drive to retrieve data as well, but only for those in the nothing-to-lose category.

anyways, hope this saves a few people some heartache and data recovery charges.