My Seagate 1TB drive which I bought when I got my new computer have just decided not to be detected by my Motherboard’s BIOS over the weekend! While I search for a elixir to fix the problem from the internet, I found out that this problem is bigger than I thought. Thankfully for that, Seagate have acknowledged the problem and offers to reactivate the drive, update the firmware and the best part of all, the data on the drives would be intact after the fix!
Since the problem happened over the weekend, the only means of communication I have with Seagate is via the internet, emailed them to check if my data will really be intact on Saturday night, 16th of May 2009, and I got a reply promptly at around 6am, on Sunday. While the reply did not answer my question, it’s still comforting to recieve some form of reply from them over the weekend. Nevertheless, the email conversation seems to take up a lot of time and come Monday, I called my local Seagate hotline and got to speak with a Customer Service Officer (CSO). After she asked me some question to ensure that my drive qualifies for the service, which ensures the data is intact, she sent me an email promptly with an acknowledgement form which says they will not peek the data on the drive, they will not remove any data from the drive and I have to sign it and fax/email back.
I printed the form out, sign and scan the form and emailed back to them at around 3PM on Monday, 19th of May, and today, someone came knocking on my doors on behalf of Seagate to collect the drive to be fixed. I was told over the phone that the whole process could take 7 – 10 working days upon receiving of my drive on their side and that the courier will take 2 – 3 working days, which is a total of 9 – 13 days not inclusive of the time when you call them until they actually lodge your request after you email back the signed form.
Overall, so far so good, I will update this post again when my HDD is back from the hospital. While I do complains to quite a lot of my friends about this matter, I am still very satisfied with Seagate’s service to fix the drive and return my drive with the data, although the whole problem would not have existed if not for a bug in the firmware of the harddrive. At least they acknowledged their fault like, ok I messed it up, come, I will fix the problem for you. I also believes that companies will have a faulty product once in a while which some how get pass their QC phase and got released to the mass.
I will still buy another Seagate hard drive in the future if I need, I already have 2x 1Tb and 1x 500Gb in use now, not forgetting my 2x Freeagent to go and my 160Gb, 250Gb and 320Gb drive which is in my older computer. All of which are Seagate drives. I could say I would still support Seagate again in the future due to their good after sales service, but much I would like, I would need to do some serious consideration if I want to buy any other products from Sony in the future!
My PS3’s blueray drive decided that it’s time to stop working altogether a couple of months back. Upon investigation online, the drive failing rate is rather high and it seems to happen to the older batch of 40Gb PS3. It’s definitely not due to wear and tear, I know, since I only used the drive for less than 300 hours as I’m not a hardcore gamer. I also do not use it to watch any bluray video. However, with all the complains on the internet and forums, Sony do not come forward, like Microsoft on their Red Ring of Death, to acknowledge that they screwed something up! Instead, they use it as a money making tools from their customer, charging obscene amount to fix the problem! Thus, as much as I like, my PS3 will be the last Sony product I have, even more so since FF series are no longer going to be exclusive to Sony Playstation.
Now, if you have a Seagate drive, go to the link above and check with the Serial checker to see if your drive is affected by the faulty firmware. If it does, and your drives still have not died, follow the steps on the site to update the firmware and you would be fine for now, until of course, when the drive have got other problems.