Prevent possible Seagate hard drive crashes!

[karen5567]

i just wont to no if you no any think about disk drives because my one is not on my computer no more and i cant get it up because i dont no how to

[dvanassc]

As many have before me, I also want to attest for Wayman Ng.  I recently had the problem where my computer hung on the HP splash screen when booting, due to faulty firmware on the ST3500620AS hard drive.  He quickly and inexpensively fixed the problem, and was very professional to deal with.

[campbebl]

I saw a few people had the same trouble as I did getting the firmware update package to burn the update CD.  In my case, my a6750f came with the hard drive mode set to RAID in the BIOS.  I don't know why a computer with one hard drive would ship with RAID half configured on it, but that's another issue.  The workaround to get the firmware update CD to burn was to boot into the BIOS, change the hard drive SATA mode to IDE, boot up and run the package again.  Having the hdd in RAID or ACHI mode was causing Windows to see it as a scsi drive, not a Seagate Sata drive.  I found that in RAID or AHCI mode the drive showed up in device manager as "AMD 1+0 RAID Ready SCSI Disk", whereas booting in IDE mode reveals the true "ST3750630AS".  Maybe this will help someone else.  Of course, if you actually do use RAID on your system, I wouldn't recommend changing the hdd mode in the BIOS!

[smtrader]

HELP!  I've that Error message for about a month and never occurred to me to check HP for solution...I've learned my lesson. Unfortunately, before I'm to learn my lesson, I foolishly tried to re-format the hard drive thinking then to reinstall my backup image.  I typed in c:\format c:, and it that "Format will run if volume is dismounted.  All Opened Handles to this volume would then be invalid.  Want to force a dismount of the volume"...and I clicked "Yes".

Back to HELP!  Now I can't do anything as my drive is no longer recognized by anything I throw at it!!!

Can someone please tell me how to "mount" the drive back so I can install my backup image?  Then, I'll download the new firmware to fix this faculty Seagate drive.   THANKS much!!!! 

[catzes]

The 40966 fix applies to my a6400z hp custom desktop but when i try to run it the application says that it doesnt apply to my hard drive...it has a 320gb seagate which i have had to reformat several times in the last year and a half.  Can u help?   Thanks in advance..

[AFOSAWIPS2]

I've never had the non-system disk error. 

 I do have it take forever to get past the boot screen (and not respond to the keyboard - just proceeds when it feels like it I wait long enough - today after 5 minutes of boot screen I went to the gym and when I came back it had proceeded to the Windows User Log On screen). Even that is "tolerable" as infrequently as I reboot.  However, any program requiring a lot of disk read/write acticity runs ridiculously slow.  Such as over 1 hour to run 2 windows updates yesterday.  I am wondering if the later, especially, would be fixed by this firmware update, or is my hard drive just failing.

[HPPilot]

OK, this is the second Seagate ST 3500620AS to crash my system. I have been in contact with HP support on the phone extensively, and they have never mentioned this issue.

I recently had a major crash, and had to send my PC back for a $365 repair. They sent it back to me and it ran for 2-1/2 months and another seagate drive crashed on me.

I re-installed the operating system on the remaining operational drive. I was looking for help with a printer driver that would not install, and discovered this thread. (his should be stickyd in the compuer hangs/won't boot header)

Anyway, I have upgraded to Win 7. I tried to run the seagate utility on my media center pc and it said it does not apply to my system. I'm running the Seagate ST 3500620AS drive as my boot drive now. The article for the fix says Vista is a requirement, so I'm concerned that I'm getting the doeesn't apply message because of the Win 7 upgrade, and not because the drive firmware update is unnecesary.

Can any one tell me if I have a valid concern, and is there a firmware upgrade that runs in Win 7?

[Big_Dave]

HPPilot,

Most of the VISTA based updates require that VISTA is running before the update will execute. Try the Seagate site and see if you can find the firmware update.

[HPPilot]

Do you know the firmware number I should have? the disk that just crashed is labeled HP26.

I'm checking the Seagate site but of course it's confusing and hard to navigate.

[Big_Dave]

Use your Seagate model number.