FW: 7.01 revisited?

[pcimage]

Received YET ANOTHER clicking Seagate Momentus today.

The worst case yet, platters scratched so badly you can see through them!



Getting these on a frighteningly regular basis.

ALL ST9160821AS (Or it's 120Gb brother)
ALL FW:3.CAE
ALL Made in China
ALL from Apple Macbooks

7.01 drives re-labelled? You decide!

[jono-ats]

I suspect same drive, different firmware.

There have been a number of "theories" about why these fail. Ideas include microscratches on the platter surfaces; bad firmware code, etc. Perhaps Doomer knows but isn't saying . . .

Sometimes we saw as many as 5 a day. More than any other brand / model failure.

About 2 years ago I sent Seagate corporate two samples of this type of failure, which they "lost." Months later, I sent them a 3rd. After quite some time, all they told me was that there was a head crash. Thanks, Seagate. I already knew that.

When I spoke to the engineer, he denied there was any problem with this series, and stated that any failures I was seeing were within the "normal" range. AFAIK, Seagate has never publicly acknowledged a problem with this drive.

In my experience, Seagate has been incredibly unhelpful when pressed for any tech support or assistance. We are a Seagate "partner" but I don't understand THEIR concept of this word.

Sometimes severe corruption occurs along with the crash. So even if you manage to recover data from one of these drives, chances are there is some corruption or some other problem.

It's an ugly recovery. We refer these to others.

Jono

[BlackST]

Despite quality problems, maybe, are we sure that users are using the drives correctly? Such severe damage for me means bad hit/fall and further attempt powering drive on...

[wiseleo]

No, I've seen my share of 7.01 and 3.CAE drives. At this point, if I confirm I am about to waste time on one of these, I tell a client flat out that they are looking at the maximum possible cost.

This is not impact damage. This is drive disintegration under normal use conditions.

It is further exasperated in Macbooks by the fact that the drive is further insulated in terms of noise.

[lostinspace]

I had one of these. It failed while files were being moved around. Certainly there was no shock or excessive heat involved. This is only one example of course but looking at the volume of drives being received I very much doubt that they are all due to customer misuse. I prefer to take the view that Seagate make very iffy drives.

[scratchy]

I've just had a 7200.2 ST980813ASG with identical problem.

[scratchy]

More ^^^

FW: 3.ADD

[drc]

Same here with the 3.CAE drives. The last one I opened had the platters scratched so badly you could see through them. I stopped working on them after that point.

[prodata]

seagate 2.5" Drive is a nightmare....

[Odiferous]

seagate 2.5" Drive is a nightmare....

Correction: ALL (newish) Seagate drives are a nightmare.

I wouldn't buy shares in that company - the class action law suit against them for the 7200.11 is picking up pace, and there will soon be a similar suit relating to the 7.01 momentus drives.


Duncan

[jono-ats]

Too bad they are only trading at about $3.00. I'd sell 'em short if they had farther to drop . . .

[Odiferous]

Too bad they are only trading at about $3.00. I'd sell 'em short if they had farther to drop . . .

I may just do that on Monday.

Trouble is, if they suspend trading (realistic possibility within a few months) you're stuffed...

Sell short + data recovery dividends means Seagate can be a valuable company.


Duncan

[Odiferous]

@jono

From Seagate's latest press release:

"Current uncertainty in global economic conditions makes it particularly difficult to predict product demand and other related matters and makes it more likely that Seagate’s actual results could differ materially from current expectations."

Explicitly - "other related matters" - in other words, "we're really deep in the brown stuff at the moment"


Duncan