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.

When we last left this running soap opera of some Seagate hard drives failing, the drive manufacturer had issued some firmware fixes, then pulled a couple out of circulation, and now has returned them with some fixes for the fixes.

The firmware updater, at first glance, looks like it needs a Windows PC, but the reality is the ISO images, once burned to a CD, will boot on an Intel based Mac. They will not work on any PowerPC platform, so don't even try. I was surprised that these discs would boot, but it worked for me and there are similar reports all over the tech support boards.

Let me state up front that firmware updates can be deadly, and only try this if you have good, recent backups of all your data. This is really important, because if it fails because you haven't followed the instructions, your hard drive is offline. The data will be OK, but it will not be accessible. Seagate is saying they will retrieve data from problem drives, but that is a slow process and a gigantic hassle.

These instructions are for a Mac Pro, which are the Macs most likely to have added internal drives. If you are brave, and only if you are brave, read on for the steps...

It hasn't been a great year so far for care companies and banks. Now, add Seagate to the list of enterprises facing unexpected challenges. The big manufacturer of hard disks reports that a 'small' number of Barracuda 7200.11 drives are failing. Once they fail, the data on them is supposedly still intact but can't be accessed without expert recovery procedures. Seagate has promised to expedite data recovery for affected users, which is nice enough but cold comfort if you're among the unlucky.

Seagate offers a software utility that will tell you if your drive is at risk, but that only works on Windows PCs. The firm is providing some firmware updates for the affected, but at this point they do not appear to have an updater that will run under OS X.

The problem drives also extend to the Barracuda ES.2 SATA units and the DiamondMax22. The flaky drives could be internal models, or drives installed in external cases.

Wondering if you have one of these drives? You can use the 'more info' button when you select 'About this Mac' from the Apple menu (or just run the Apple System Profiler utility from your Utilities folder -- same result), and click on the Serial-ATA label in the left column. You'll get all your drive model numbers, and the firmware revisions. If the numbers match the bad news provided by Seagate, you'll know you may be living on borrowed time.

Lots of people around the 'net are reporting failures, and others say their drives match the numbers and aren't sure what to do without a viable firmware updater. I tried to call Seagate myself this morning and after navigating the inevitable phone tree a recording said they were too busy to take my call. I'll bet they are. Seagate did say today they will fix any defective drives and they will provide a free data recovery service. That is nice but it's a time consuming and troublesome process.

There is some talk of a class action lawsuit (of course) but clearly something is amiss with some Seagate drives so if you have one or more check them out, and hope the company comes up with some Mac friendly answers. If anyone has tried updating the firmware of a drive via Boot Camp, please advise (no, before you ask, trying to use a virtualization tool like VMware or Parallels to modify your drive firmware is neither advisable nor particularly feasible). Note that back in 2007 we reported on some problems involving Seagate drives and Apple laptops.

Here's how to contact Seagate, but I suspect they are pretty busy. No telling how many Macs have these drives in them. Apple uses a lot of different vendors, including Seagate. Check your backups, folks.

[via Engadget & The Register]

For your Wednesday morning amusement, the Sniper Twins have put together this hilarious video promotion for Seagate: a hip-hop office drama, replete with Mac desktops, laptops and servers.

This definitely falls in the "so bad it's good" category, so if you have a low tolerance for office-themed irony, you might want to give it a pass.

[Via Swissmiss.]

More Mac 101, our series of basic tips for new and returning Mac users. Since most Mac models don't offer extra drive bays, external hard disks are the way to go for adding vast storage capacity to your computer. External HDs are great for storing large projects, moving huge amounts of data from place to place, or backing up via Time Machine.

Hard disks are a commodity product nowadays: the market is flooded with a cornucopia of options, most of them cheap and easy to install. So which is right for you?

The trick is this: find out who makes the actual hard drive inside the external enclosure (that is, inside the nicely-designed plastic or metal box that sits on or under your desk).

It's what's inside that counts, and we'll explore after the jump.

If you're as burned out about iPhone rumors as we are, maybe rumors of new storage capacities (finally) coming to the iPod can grab your attention. Engadget found some comments in Business Week from Seagate CEO William Watkins on the state of small-format storage, including whether the Flash memory craze has fazed the company and what's coming down the pipeline in 1.8 inch hard drives. Apparently, the company will have a 120GB 1.8 inch hard drive ready for the December quarter, which would be ripe for the iPod - as it's been stuck at 60GB since Fall 2004.

This is obviously no indication of whether these drives will actually make it into the iPod, but it's great to know they're available, which means there's a chance. Hold your breath at your own risk.

Who doesn't love tiny little hard drives with lots of capacity? Seagate recently announced their smallest drive yet, measuring 40x30x5 mm (that's millimeters, which is metric for "frickin' tiny").

Why do you, as an Apple fan, care about this?

iPods, my friends, iPods. With smaller, higher capacity drives becoming available that can only mean that the birth of the iPod invisa will soon be upon us.

[via HiFi Blog]

According to Macworld, Seagate is shipping a 160GB laptop drive. Does this mean the 120GB hard drive I asked to be squeezed into the MacBook Pro I ordered will soon be replaced by another drive with an extra 40GBs of space? I have no idea. This is total speculation, but it would be cool.

If you grab one and hack it into your MacBook Pro, PowerBook, or iBook, let us know.

Sometimes I dream of the day when we'll have 300GB hard drives in our portable computers, but the dream quickly turns to nightmare when I realize that by the time that happens the System folder will most likely take up a good 100GBs of that 300...