Filed under: Portables, Macbook Pro
Reported Seagate drive failures may affect Mac laptops
UK drive recovery company Retrodata is warning customers of a rash of failures involving a particular Seagate drive model, a SATA unit made in China and used in Apple laptops. This specific mechanism, according to Retrodata's intake notes, seems to be prone to a spectacular self-destruct where the drive heads auger into the platter, rendering the data mostly dead.How to spot the potentially affected drive: check System Profiler under Serial ATA, and if you have a Seagate drive with a 7.01 firmware revision... well, double-check those backups.
As yet, we have not seen confirmation of this problem from either Seagate or domestic drive recovery vendors, but better safe than sorry, no?
Thanks Jeff, Laurie, and everyone who sent this in.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brad said 4:23PM on 11-07-2007
This warning comes one week too late for me. Still, I'm glad this is getting some press before it's too late for the rest of you...
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cmc said 4:23PM on 11-07-2007
Oh I've got one of those. What do I dooooo?
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hessi said 4:23PM on 11-07-2007
So, let me summarize:
My MacBook Pro Core Duo, first generation, got two new mainboards within the first 6 months (kernel panic, electric shock), three new power supplies (cable melting), two new AirPort Cards (lost connection) and one new battery (complete loss).
Right now the left half part of the display light is temporarily broken and now, just to complete things, I have a Seagate 7.01 harddrive in it.
I'll NEVER buy an Apple first generation product again! :-(
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BTaylor said 4:24PM on 11-07-2007
I have a 7.01 drive...
Eep...
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Jerrod said 6:46PM on 11-07-2007
Let's hope Apple acknowledges this: My MBP is on its fourth hard drive in 8 months.
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Paul said 4:30PM on 11-07-2007
Jerrod - you should qualify for a replacement Mac by now (not that it might not have the same problem). If you get another failure, insist upon it. If Apple has to replace a large number of whole unit computers, perhaps they'll issue an acknowledgement, or warranty extension of some kind.
Still it's Seagate's fault, not Apple's. I hope there's a firmware update to resolve this soon.
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Derek said 4:47PM on 11-07-2007
I bought one Seagate drive. This exact thing happened to me before. I will never buy another again. They are the worst drives I have ever used.
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Pete said 4:52PM on 11-07-2007
My Core Duo MacBook drive failed after 9 months and according to the Apple tech it is a very common problem.
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Sebastian said 4:59PM on 11-07-2007
These news are circling around German Mac sites for a week now, and it seems A LOT of people are having problems with those drives. Mine was replaced back in January (bought the Macbook in June 2006), and guess what - I got a new Seagate 7.01 drive. :(
Would love to get an official statement from Apple or Seagate, as this obviously is a BIG problem.
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Bill Bradford said 5:02PM on 11-07-2007
I had a Seagate drive die in my first-rev MacBook Core Duo and had to have it replaced under AppleCare, about eight months ago.
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Tony Bowman said 5:11PM on 11-07-2007
My refurbed 1st-gen MacBook Pro 1.83Ghz has a Tosh 80 gig drive, so I'm in the clear. I wonder if they replaced the drive as part of the refurb process? I bought it on Apple.com in June of 2006.
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Ben Marsden said 5:14PM on 11-07-2007
One week too late for me (ST96812AS). If you have one. Back it up and swap it for something else.
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Simon said 5:13PM on 11-07-2007
I work at a school and we've had over 40 MacBook hard drives replaced. We get them replaced by Apple so they must be aware of the problem from the high volume of failures they receive. The fact they haven't issued a recall and been pro-active is very disappointing.
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thecompkid said 5:33PM on 11-07-2007
Oh god, yep, hate to sound like the echo in here, but I too was beaten out of tens of gigabytes of unbackupped data just a few weeks ago. Remember kids, only YOU can help prevent data loss.
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Matthew said 5:37PM on 11-07-2007
I have a MBP and it has a Fujitsu HD in it so I guess I am lucky. Just curious, how do you know what firmware your hard drive has? I am not seeing that listed unless I am just missing it.
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Julian Prior said 9:38AM on 12-06-2007
I swapped out the internal drive in my 1st gen MacBook and replaced it with a 100GB Seagate SATA. It died after 3 months. Replaced it under warranty with another Seagate drive and exactly the same thing happened. A 3rd is on its way but may just use it in an enclosure as a backup drive! Do Seagate do refunds??
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snowy2004 said 5:44PM on 11-07-2007
Well, mine is a 7.01 but how exactly can I see if it's from Seagate?
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Elías said 5:44PM on 11-07-2007
One month late for me :(
Mine was a 100 GB Seagate Momentus (ST9100824AS).
I was working with Open Office for Mac when my MacBook Core Duo 1,83 suddenly freezed. After a couple of minutes, I holded down the Turn On/Off button to shut it down. Then I tried to start the computer... and the system wouldn't even recognize there was a drive. I plugged the original drive that came with the MB and tried to make OS X recognize the other in an external USB case and... nothing.
I'm actually waiting for the same brand new 100 GB Seagate to come home to see if I can change the broken pieces myself (here in Spain I'd have to pay around 1.000 - 2.000 euros if I want to try with a recovery company to work it out).
By the way, the firmware is 3.06.
I hope this comes in time to warn you: DO NOT use Open Office for Mac (I think there is some kind of problem regarding to its java programming, but I am not pretty sure). Use NeoOffice instead, it works great. And DO always back up your data regularly.
You can't say I did'nt warn you pals!
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Elías said 5:46PM on 11-07-2007
"I held down"
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Alex said 6:16PM on 11-07-2007
I've got a Fujitsu drive in my MacBook Pro, but my Seagate Free Agent external hard drive just failed on me. I just hope my warranty includes data recovery, or I'll be re-HandBraking all my movies.
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