Firmware Problems on Seagate SCSI Hard Disk Drives
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Oct 2006 : We saw the first drives with this problem during the Summer of 2005. and our software engineers worked hard to find a solution to this problem. To begin with, it eluded us, then during October 2006 we made the breakthrough that has enabled us to recover data from drives that suffer with this problem. We are normally able to recover > 99 percent of drives with this problem. Seagate also manufacture drives for OEM suppliers, including HP, Compaq, IBM, etc and so some drives from these manufacturers may show similar symptoms and we are able to recover from all families of Seagate and OEM hard disk drives. |
Symptoms of Seagate SCSI disk failure
The symptoms are dependent upon the SCSI or RAID controller in use, but generally the drives are still recognised, but report as 0 MB. On the RAID controller the drive may just show as 'Failed'. The problem is that defect map tables or the translator tables stored within the factory zone on the hard disk become corrupt.
When the drive powers up after such a failure, the tables are unable to be read correctly and the drive will not initialise correctly and generates a medium or SCSI sense error.
Our engineers have worked out the location where these tables are stored in the factory zone of the hard disk and are able to access and repair them bringing the drive back online, at least long enough for data recovery purposes.
To the best of our knowledge, we are one of only a few companies in the world that are able to recover drives with this problem