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Sorry for the alarmist title, but this appears to be a big deal. It affects OEM as well as drives used in products like FreeAgent drives.

Original article at TUAW:

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/01/19/tick-tic ... /#comments

Here is Seagate's page:

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/s ... cId=207931

Anyone know how to get the model number from an external eSATA drive? I have a couple of FreeAgent Pros. Disk utility, Disk Warrior, 'About this mac' do NOT give the needed info.

Thanks.

This is a big deal. It's being widely reported in the press. 40% failure rate is the number being used, and if your HD bricks, it requires you take it to a drive forensics place to retrieve your data.

On this iMac running 10.5.6, System Profiler (Hardware>Serial ATA>Model), Disk Utility (all screens), and DiskWarrior 4 (Hardware tab) all show the drive model numbers clearly.

In my case, it's WDC WD3200AAJS-40VWA0.

However, as yours is an eSATA drive, if the model numbers don't appear for you, I can only suggest putting it inside the machine to retrieve this info.

Kind regards.

billf wrote:This is a big deal. It's being widely reported in the press. 40% failure rate is the number being used, and if your HD bricks, it requires you take it to a drive forensics place to retrieve your data.

Yeh. I think Seagate is offering some sort of data recovery service or something gratis...

Dave Bourke wrote:On this iMac running 10.5.6, System Profiler (Hardware>Serial ATA>Model), Disk Utility (all screens), and DiskWarrior 4 (Hardware tab) all show the drive model numbers clearly.

In my case, it's WDC WD3200AAJS-40VWA0.

However, as yours is an eSATA drive, if the model numbers don't appear for you, I can only suggest putting it inside the machine to retrieve this info.

Kind regards.

Thanks. I'm hoping I don't have to do that. Maybe I can hook them up to a PC and run Seagate's utility (no mac version for the FreeAgent Pros apparently). The fact that it's mac formatted shouldn't affect the SN read out I presume...?

To be honest, I don't know because I don't own a PC. But on further reflection, I believe you should simply be able to take the drive out of the eSATA enclosure and read the model and serial numbers from the onboard sticker.

OK, I've just dug out a bare uninstalled Western Digital Raptor drive I used to have in an eSATA enclosure here and sure enough there's a large sticker covering the faceplate with all the information you need on it.

Kind regards.

Dave Bourke wrote:To be honest, I don't know because I don't own a PC. But on further reflection, I believe you should simply be able to take the drive out of the eSATA enclosure and read the model and serial numbers from the onboard sticker.

OK, I've just dug out a bare uninstalled Western Digital Raptor drive I used to have in an eSATA enclosure here and sure enough there's a large sticker covering the faceplate with all the information you need on it.

Kind regards.

beautiful. thanks.

Wow, thanks for the heads up. Just checked profiler and all 3 of my internal 7200.11 match their "troubled" list (^@!$^%#$&#!). I have 2 Free Agent drives but I can't figure out how to get the model #, doesn't come up on the USB or Firewire bus in Profiler and the only info that's physically listed on the drive is a part # and serial #. I just sent an email off to Seagate to see how to figure out if these drives are at risk. Gonna be a white-knuckled few days.

I just got 2 1TB Seagates and almost sht when I saw this but I am ok.
I went to seagate and read what ones were affected I have one that is on the list a 100333 but I have firm ware update that has a CC in it so I should be fine.

jroadrage after checking seagate and clicking on the drive number you have on your Mac using the profiler click on the drive it self not the name of it. Look at "update" and see if it starts with the letters they told you are not affected, if it does your fine.

jroadrage wrote:Wow, thanks for the heads up. Just checked profiler and all 3 of my internal 7200.11 match their "troubled" list (^@!$^%#$&#!). I have 2 Free Agent drives but I can't figure out how to get the model #, doesn't come up on the USB or Firewire bus in Profiler and the only info that's physically listed on the drive is a part # and serial #. I just sent an email off to Seagate to see how to figure out if these drives are at risk. Gonna be a white-knuckled few days.

One thing to note, the problem appears to occur after a computer power down. So until you can make arrangements for alternative drives, it might be advisable to NOT power down your computer if you can do so.

Now for the bad news, do I see this correct? This has been going on for OVER one month and Seagate has done nothing about it, continuing to sell these drives on the market (I just got two for Christmas)?

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/mes ... ad.id=3668

twistedtom wrote:jroadrage after checking seagate and clicking on the drive number you have on your Mac using the profiler click on the drive it self not the name of it. Look at "update" and see if it starts with the letters they told you are not affected, if it does your fine.

Thanks for the help but I can't seem to find the firmware version in system profiler, where should I be looking again? If I click on the hard drive under Serial-ATA I can see the model and serial #s etc., but nothing labeled firmware or update.

jroadrage wrote: Thanks for the help but I can't seem to find the firmware version in system profiler, where should I be looking again? If I click on the hard drive under Serial-ATA I can see the model and serial #s etc., but nothing labeled firmware or update.

On the Mac it is called "Revision"

Ah, got it. Thanks again for the help, all three came back clean.

Opps that is right it is called "Revision" my space out.

I have two of the affected drives. They're bare drives I use with a Wiebe Tech hot-swap enclosure, which I connect to my G5 or MacBook Pro via Firewire for backup. It was easy to find the info on the drive labels.

The bad news is that according to Seagate tech support (which I contacted via online chat), the firmware update requires the drives be in an Intel-based Mac tower (or a Windows machine). It won't work with a PPC Mac, and it won't work with the drives in the hot-swap enclosure attached to my MBP, even though it's an Intel Mac.

That leaves me with the options of finding someone with an Intel Mac or Windows machine who'll let me do the update, or taking the drives back to the store and exchanging them, though Seagate told me there's no guarantee the store will have updated drives. I know someone with an Intel Mac, so I'll ask him.

Major bummer...but so far I haven't had problems with the drives. Very disappointing that Seagate's web pages for this issue made no mention of Macs at all. I got the upgrade instructions during the chat.

UPDATE Jan 27: Seagate has updated their info a lot since last week. Among the new additions are Mac-specific instructions and utilities for looking up drives based on model and serial number. The serial number search told me that only one of my drives is affected - good news. But still there are no PPC-compatible updaters.