Seagate Promises Firmware Update for Barracuda Drives
In the past weeks, Seagate hard drive users have been experiencing failures with their Barracuda drives. Seagate responded with updates, then with a recall, and now promises a resolution.
The problem with the Seagate drives goes back at least as far as November 2008 with complaints on the company's community forums site. The Barracuda drives quit working and the BIOS didn't recognize them after restart, making them inaccessible. In response, Seagate issued a firmware update just a few days ago, but had to recall the update.
The spokesperson from Seagate has promised a prompt followup.
The problem mostly affected Barracuda hard drives of the 7200.11 series with 1 TByte capacity, but others of the Barracuda ES.2 SATA and DiamondMax 22 series also showed the same problem. The full list of affected drives are on the Seagate Knowledge Base webpage. Seagate claims a failure rate of about 2-6%, although other forums suggest a considerably higher one.
Users of the affected hard drives are recommended not to stop and start the drive, in that an update will no longer fix the damage. However, Seagate promises that no data is lost and offers a free restoration service.
If uncertain whether a Seagate hard drive is one of the affected ones, send email with the serial number, model number and firmware version to discsupport@seagate.com". Determine the firmware version by using "hwinfo --disk".
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.