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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 8:06 am 
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Setup with the Seagate, or switch it now?
I just took my new single drive MSS out of the box. I haven’t done the initial setup yet. It has one of the Seagate drives listed as a possible problem which has the “HP24” firmware. Should I set it up with this questionable drive or wait and replace it first with a new WD10EADS I have on order? I’m new to servers, so I’m hoping for some advice.
Thanks, Warren…


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:03 am 
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Hi,

I finally got around to set up my EX470 that I had bought a couple of months ago, and wouldn't you know that I'm stuck with one of the affected drives as well!

Just got off the phone with HP Support - the tech hadn't heard about the issue, and told me that HP wouldn't do anything anyway unless the drive failed, but agreed to open up a case number and to pass it along to his supervisor. Based on his comments and what others have been told by HP, I'm not expecting much to be done.

Is there a firmware upgrade available from Seagate for these "HP24" drives, are they working on one, or is Seagate leaving it up to HP?

I have another 400GB WD drive that I could put in there as primary in place of the Seagate (in addition to a couple of 1TB WD drives that will go in as storage drives), but how do I swap them and what do I do with the Seagate, add it to the pool or throw it away?

Or should I leave the Seagate in place, fire everything up and use it until somebody comes up with a firmware upgrade or until it fails (and then replace it with another drive without hopefully losing all my data)?

Regards,
Frank


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:30 am 
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frankv wrote:
Hi,

I finally got around to set up my EX470 that I had bought a couple of months ago, and wouldn't you know that I'm stuck with one of the affected drives as well!

Just got off the phone with HP Support - the tech hadn't heard about the issue, and told me that HP wouldn't do anything anyway unless the drive failed, but agreed to open up a case number and to pass it along to his supervisor. Based on his comments and what others have been told by HP, I'm not expecting much to be done.

Is there a firmware upgrade available from Seagate for these "HP24" drives, are they working on one, or is Seagate leaving it up to HP?

I have another 400GB WD drive that I could put in there as primary in place of the Seagate (in addition to a couple of 1TB WD drives that will go in as storage drives), but how do I swap them and what do I do with the Seagate, add it to the pool or throw it away?

Or should I leave the Seagate in place, fire everything up and use it until somebody comes up with a firmware upgrade or until it fails (and then replace it with another drive without hopefully losing all my data)?

Regards,
Frank



I have not been too pleased with HP's customer support on the firmware issue. While the HP CSRs have been polite, they have not been very knowledgeable about this issue. I have called about 3 times (initial call and 2 follow up calls) and each time I receive a different answer that is not correct. When I press them on it and they check with a supervisor, they come back saying, oh sorry, you're right and we're looking into this issue and the engineers should have an answer by the end of the week. That was nearly a month ago and no answer yet. What seems inexcusable by HP is that you called them recently and the CSR was not "aware" of the issue and gave what I call some very customer unfriendly responses. The issue is not a huge issue as it's unknown if the HP24 firmware has the Seagate bug in it (I would presume it does since the HP engineers didn't immediatley come out and say they are not affected but instead are working on a solution) and according to Seagate, the bug, which affects very few drives, causes the drive not to spin up on start-up. There is no loss of data (the data is intact and on the drive - it just requires Seagate to get it for you) and the drive can be fixed with the firmware flash and then reused. All that being said, HP needs to step up to the plate and take care of this rather than just remain silent (perhaps HP is waiting on the side since the number of drives with affected model numbers is small and the failure rate per Seagate is low...thus creating an even lower probability of a problem for HP. The problem with this approach is it is no solace to a MSS owner that has an affected drive and it fails as it is the system drive. The MSS becomes unusable until fixed.)

Rant over. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:54 pm 
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A search on HP's support forums revealed that (some of) their TouchSmart machines also have a Seagate 500GB (ST3500620AS), just like my EX470. And behold, HP has released a firmware upgrade for it! Now they only list certain hardware and OSs as affected/supported (MSS and WHS are not listed), but I can't see where the firmware would differ.

There's even a post by an owner who was able to revive his "bricked" drive using a USB data cable and Hyper Terminal, and then successfully applied the upgrade.

I may give HP another call tonight and ask them if this firmware upgrade can also be applied to MSS, though I don't expect much beyond the usual disclaimers.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:44 am 
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I called HP back and the support person said he'd check into it, and a couple of days later I got an email stating this:

"No known issues with server drives or system drives. Please dont run the f.w. update for the impacts are not known at this time when running with our MSS systems. THNX."

Yeah, right. Question is, do I try to apply the firmware upgrade (in another PC I suppose since there's no monitor/keyboard), or take my chances with the existing firmware, or make one of my 1TB WD green drives the system drive (and put the suspect drive in as a pool drive)? Isn't it overkill to have a 1TB system drive?


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 5:21 am 
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Disappointingly, I never heard back from HP on my report of this issue.

Alex, it's been some time since HP indicated to you that they would look into the issue, forumulate a response and advise if a solution is needed. I would guess you haven't heard anything further from HP?

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:16 am 
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Folks: If you know you have a drive with bad FW, update the firmware on another machine. The ISO file that is from Seagate requires a system with a monitor to boot from. And I dont think the MSS has that ability ..

:deadhorse:


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:29 pm 
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mogwai wrote:
Folks: If you know you have a drive with bad FW, update the firmware on another machine. The ISO file that is from Seagate requires a system with a monitor to boot from. And I dont think the MSS has that ability ..

:deadhorse:



I hear what your saying and while it seems like a reasonable solution that should work, it's odd that the HP OEM Seagate drives contain a firmware that seems to be HP's proprietary firmware and thus, it's unknown how the drive will react to applying Seagate's firmware. I have to imagine what you suggest would work but....if it doesn't, there goes the system drive. Plus, and most importantly, as reported by Alex, HP has stated:

Quote:
HP customers should not apply the hard drive firmware available on the Seagate website.


http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2009/02 ... rt-server/

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:43 pm 
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Had not checked this thread in a while...

I see several folks asking if they should do something about their drives BEFORE they set up the machine. My recommendation is YES. This thread contains the only reference I have seen to recovering one of these units if they fail and, since it is at least second-hand, I have to question whether it was exactly the same problem. Other posts indicate it cannor be recovered. Obviously a replacement from HP before the setup would be my preferred solution.

If you set the MSS up with three drives (which I recommend) then you can "risk" the system drive until one of the other drives fills up as you can recover the server without loosing data until then.

ONLY if you have anEX48x would I recommend replacing the system drive with a 1TB or larger drive as, until the others are almost full, the system drive will be VERY under-utilized. But with anEX48x you can only add a single eSATA drive so you may actually want to have that space. With an EX47x you can attach a 4-Bay eSATA enclosure and postpone the system drive upgrade -- probably indefinitely.

And YES, a 400GB drive will work as an alternative for a system drive.

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 6:02 pm 
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Well, folks, there may be some good news on this front.

First, a big "thanks" to JimT for his post over on MediaSmartHome: http://www.mediasmarthome.com/forum/thread/11391/Seagate-Barracuda-7200.11-drives-firmware-query/ . First, he posted a link summarizing the problem: http://i.gizmodo.com/5134240/seagate-reverses-course-offers-free-data-recovery-for-borked-barracuda-hard-drives . The details of the problem are not new but this reference states that Seagate WILL support users in recovering data! That is good news!. Then he posted the following:

Quote:
HP26 is the latest which fixes the bug - not sure how you would apply it to the mediasmart pc though...

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/soft ... =pv-6833...

If your drive does so happen to appear to die, you could try this link to recover the drive.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/psg/board/mes ... 409#U34409

First is a reference to the HP-26 firmware upgrade (which I was aware of but did not know the number or have a link.

Second he provided a link to the upgrade!

Third he provided a link to a description of how to un-brick a drive if one fails.

Obviously I have not tried to un-brick a drive -- fortunately I have not had one fail (yet). But it is VERY reassuring to know that it has been accomplished by an end-user and that, if all else fails, Seagate stands ready to assist.

Again, a BIG THANKS to JimT!

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 6:21 pm 
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I don't see any reason why the HP firmware drives will be any different that the regular Seagate firmware drives. The drive will have to be pulled and updated on a computer with a monitor and an sata connection. There should be no data loss from the update process and after re-inserting the drive in the MSS, it should boot up and work normally.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:40 pm 
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Generally agree with all that, Cavedriver, EXCEPT that there has to be a difference if HP is going to the trouble of installing special firmware. We do NOT know if the installation replaces ALL the firmware or only a portion of it and we DO know that HP has said NOT to apply the Seagate update! When I do not have better information I tend to follow instructions!

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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:19 pm 
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JohnBick wrote:
Generally agree with all that, Cavedriver, EXCEPT that there has to be a difference if HP is going to the trouble of installing special firmware. We do NOT know if the installation replaces ALL the firmware or only a portion of it and we DO know that HP has said NOT to apply the Seagate update! When I do not have better information I tend to follow instructions!


I'm referring to the update procedure, not the HP vs Seagate firmware. If the HDD has the original HP firmware, then the HP updated firmware should be used for the update. The standard firmware update procedure via an sata port on a pc should work just fine.


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:59 pm 
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FORWARD: I am of the belief that unless you know what the heck you are doing, stick to the provider of the hardware for FW updates. If you do not follow that caution, don't blame me.

Do we really think that HP customized the firmware only to be used with their MSS units for any other purpose than branding? I highly doubt it. From an R&D standpoint, it would be highly cost-prohibitive and would not produce any gain.

I have a suspicion that flashing the drive with a Seagate FW would produce non-spectacular results. Possibly the only thing would be that the drive would not register as an HP OEM unit. I really should test that and put my money where my mouth is. Off to get a eSata enclosure! Updates to follow!

I do challenge the necessary requirement for having an HP FW on the drive as it would prevent any other manufacturer's drives (or even Seagates) from working with the system. We know that is not the case, as you can take almost any drive and use it in an MSS as a system drive. What other motive other than branding would HP have to utilize a custom FW on the drive without breaking compatibility?

*waits for the flood of worms to come!*

:beerme:


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 Post subject: Re: Seagate Drive Issues
PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:05 am 
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I thought I said this earlier, but to the best of my knowledge no special firmware was created for the MSS, and if it had been I would have been tasked with testing it. My feeling is that the HP designated firmware is strictly to apply an OEM label to the drive, for warranty and support reasons.

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