Filed under: Hardware, Peripherals, Bugs/Recalls, iMac, PowerMac G5, Bad Apple, Mac Pro
Seagate continues to communicate bad news
There has been plenty of confusion over the continuing saga of Seagate hard drives with firmware problems that can lead to eventual failure and data loss. We've followed the story here and here.It hasn't been pretty for either Intel or non-Intel Macs. It would have been nice for Seagate to provide a Mac OS X-native firmware updater for older machines. There must be an awful lot of hard drives out there just waiting to fail. Many people who don't follow tech news don't even know what pain might strike them.
Mac users who had written Seagate about their problems did not get much information, but now there are some more details sent in an email to customers about the bad news for non-Intel based Mac owners. Full email reproduced below:
If you are trying to update your drive firmware with a MAC, you must have an INTEL MAC to allow you to perform this action. If you do not have an INTEL MAC, you will then need to take the drive to a PC, or a MAC with an Intel Processor. If you do not have either, you may need to warranty the drive with Seagate, and the return drive should have the updated firmware upon receipt.
If you have an INTEL MAC, you would simply need to burn the ISO file to CD using the burning utility that you have installed on your system. Once you have the CD created, you will then need to reboot the system with the newly created CD in the CD ROM bay while holding the "C" key on the keyboard to tell the system to boot to the CD rather than the internal hard drive. Once you have booted to the CD, simply follow the onscreen prompts to complete the firmware update. Older Macs that are PowerPC (PowerMac G3,G4,G5, iMac G3,G4,G5) based can not bootup to the FreeDOS. FreeDOS is the operating system that is booted to when booting to the firmware update CD. Please keep in mind that you should always backup the data on the drive before doing the update in case there is data loss. In most cases, the data on the drive should remain in tack and unaltered; however, things happen, and its always better to be prepared in case we come across any obstacles with the integrity of the data on the drive.
Instructions for updating firmware on a Intel based Mac.
1. Download and burn the Firmware ISO that has been provided to you by Seagate for your drive/s
2. Burn the ISO to a CD (how to: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8729.html)
3. Insert the freshly burn CD back in to your Mac.
4. Reboot
5. After the Chime press and hold the Option key on the keyboard.
6. Once you see the Apple with the spinning gear beneath, release the Option Key.
7. At this point the system will come to a screen with pictures of hard drives and a CD, the CD should be named Seagate.
8. Click on the CD
9. Click on the arrow pointing to the right.
10. At this point FreeDOS will boot and the on screen instructions should be followed.
Once again, I want to thank you for your business.. If you still need further assistance, or the information provided was not of good use, please feel free to contact Seagate Technical Support at 800-SEAGATE ( 800-732-4283).
Translation: You are well and truly hosed if you don't have access to a Mac Pro or a Windows PC that can update the firmware. People who have returned their drives to Seagate got a refurbished drive, even if a brand new one was sent in for exchange. Worse, there are some scattered reports that the replacement drive still had the bad firmware! Way to go, Seagate: if your Mac-owning user base didn't feel completely screwed over before this, we all probably feel that way now.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Matt Hoult said 3:16PM on 2-05-2009
While it can't be expected that a hard drive manufacturer explicitly support all possible hardware, it would be interesting if it were AMD they weren't supporting rather than PPC Macs. At least there is the option of using the warranty instead and they aren't going to charge for the privilege (although the postage will be up to the customer I guess).
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Gordon Werner said 3:13PM on 2-05-2009
1. how do we know if we have a seagate drive
2. how do we know if this is a problem or is going to be a problem (the drive that is)
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Matt Hoult said 3:20PM on 2-05-2009
Go to the Apple Menu in the top left corner of your screen, and choose About this Mac. Click the More Info button at the bottom and choose either ATA or SATA from the resulting windows side bar. This will give you all the details of the ATA and SATA devices (including hard drives) attached to your machine (not including those in FireWire or USB caddies).
Han said 3:16PM on 2-05-2009
you are also screwed if you are a macbook pro (intel or ppc) owner...
if you have any of the 7200.11 externals... there's no way to update these hd's with the newer firmware.
i got 2x 7200.11 1 TB connected to my ready nas duo...
both of the serials have bad firmware... but i can't do anything about bc i have no mac pro or a pc desktop.
you can even update the damn thing if you have it in an external enclosure! stupid seagate... NEVER buying from them again.
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Mike H said 3:21PM on 2-05-2009
External drives ARE upgradeable: just pry the casing apart and pull out the SATA drive inside.
Don't like using screwdrivers? That's what warranties are for!
atuck said 3:38PM on 2-05-2009
Shit, though, even taking them out you STILL need a Mac Pro to fix the firmware.
Damn.
Han said 3:26PM on 2-05-2009
@ mike,
of course i know you can take it out of the enclosure...
but you still can't upgrade firmware it in my setup which is all macbooks/pros
let's say i take out a 7200.11 from a external firewire casing... i still need to connect to the drive via sata to the macbook pro... that means i have to open up the entire macbook pro.. NO THANK YOU.
if i had a mac pro or a pc desktop... of course i can take out the enclosure and upgrade the firmware with the mp or desktop pc.
you silly.
Han said 3:42PM on 2-05-2009
@atuck & @mike
my point EXACTLY.
Han Cho said 3:17PM on 2-05-2009
also... seagate tech support suxs.
their 800 number was down for like a week.... for bad weather?????
and they take forever to reply to your emails... they apologized for having server problems @ their end... PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY ARE USING THEIR OWN STUPID DRIVES!
ULTIMATE FAIL.
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Andre said 5:48PM on 2-05-2009
Curious minds need to know...
How did the bad link(s) get in there? Was the site compromised, and was there any harm done?
Andre said 3:40PM on 2-05-2009
Why does one of the "here" links in the first paragraph point to the site below with pop-ups and a distorted page that looks a bit like TUAW? Has TUAW been hacked?
https://accesovpn.terra.es/http/www.tuaw.com/2009/01/19/tick-tick-tick-significant-number-of-seagate-hard-drives-fail/
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SEC_BSD said 4:10PM on 2-05-2009
Yes, that is probably a hack. Next time it might be loaded with drive-by download. TUAW better check into it.
SEC_BSD said 4:29PM on 2-05-2009
At 4:30pm that link appears to be fixed.
Michael Rose said 5:03PM on 2-05-2009
Thanks for noting those bad links; they've been corrected.
Marty Safir said 4:33PM on 2-05-2009
Mel, thanks for covering this. This is a huge scandal and Seagate's getting a free pass on this in the press.
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Josh McCulloch said 4:05PM on 2-05-2009
Can anyone confirm whether an eSATA Express 34 card in an Intel MBP will work for updating the firmware? I have two 5-bay eSATA enclosures currently connected to an old G4 MDD I'm using as a server that combined have eight 1TB drives with the affected firmware, and needless to say, a) I'm choked that Seagate would leave us hanging like this, and b) I'd like to fix it. I don't own an eSATA Express 34 card, but would consider getting one if it's the only way to fix this...
Cheers, Josh
Josh McCulloch Photography
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Han said 4:15PM on 2-05-2009
@josh,
i looked a lot into this... i know exactly what you are thinking.
there are a couple of factors:
1) not all eSATA expresscards will work in this situation in my opinion. since seagate gave us a bootable iso disk... that means the esata expresscard that is connected to the seagate HD must be detected on boot (meaning the expresscards will allow the HD to be bootable)... only expresscard with JMicron chip is able to be bootable under mac os x 10.5. all other cards i hear are not able to work on boot.
2) this one i'm not so sure... but let's say we do get a bootable expresscard 34... assuming that you put the seagate HD drive in a eSATA external case... and connect it to the expresscard... this will not work in my opinion... because the firmware update will have to go through the external case's chipset... no way for the expresscard to have a direct connection without going through the external case's chipset... this is a guess because seagate is stating that we need to directly connect the drives to the motherboard esata port (for pc and mac pros).
i've thought about this for about a month... if your office/home is all laptop and no desktop... we are out of luck. NO WAY OF UPDATING FIRMWARE unless we take it to a mac pro or desktop pc with esata support.
Gary K said 5:18PM on 2-05-2009
Josh McCulloch said 4:05PM on 2-05-2009
Can anyone confirm whether an eSATA Express 34 card in an Intel MBP will work for updating the firmware?
Yes. I have that setup and it works. Apparently not all Express 34 cards are the same; the Sonnet Tempo card works. Get the .iso file, burn it to CD. Then connect and power up your drive enclosure. Then, restart from the CD. Your MBP will boot directly into FreeDOS (!) and you follow the instructions from there. At the end, the software tells you to power cycle the drive. Do this and...nothing. It just sits there. So what most people do is just reboot the CD, run the software again and when the drives are identified, you will see that the firmware is updated. There are some posts on this procedure over at MacinTouch in the January 26-27 time frame under the Seagate thread.
Josh McCulloch said 4:23PM on 2-05-2009
@Han,
Thanks for the feedback. I hadn't given any thought to the fact that the external case's chipset would affect this. I'd sure be curious to find out if anyone has any success with actually trying this. Maybe the good folks over at MacGurus have an answer. They are the Mac eSATA experts...
I also have a 24" Aluminum iMac, but this doesn't help me either... Argh!
The real bummer here is that I've been a great ambassador for Seagate over the years, telling friends and colleagues how great and reliable their drives are, and now this...
Cheers, Josh
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Han said 4:27PM on 2-05-2009
well... actually if you are using the alumni imacs... they have sata drives inside..
all you have to do is open the imac... take out the original sata drive...
put in ur drives that are affected with the bad firmware...
put in the cd and boot up and run the firmware upgrade.
i've read everywhere on forums (esp. accelerate your mac) that is works flawlessly.
tell me how it goes!