Failed SATA drive: WAS Re: Operating temperatures for MacPro cores

It was already in one of the tower bays when I noticed that it had disappeared as an icon from the desktop. That led me to investigate why, so I removed it and did my testing with a docking base simply as a convenience. Disk Utility can't find it. The tower has three terabyte drives installed in addition to the drive the system is on.

I am not sure why you are thinking about booting from a DVD. Can you advise me on that if you can see any advantage in doing so than booting normally?

Cheers and thanks for the response.

Rifty

Ah... I see your reasoning. No, the problem is that the drive itself is broken, as if I place another SATA drive into the USB docking system, it immediately comes up. This is the only one affected, though it worked without a hiccup for ten months in the MacPro box. It's exhibiting the classic symptoms of a drive that's got a physical problem and not a software malfunction. I was just hoping someone knew something about getting access to a drive that was spinning but not responding to a demand to be accessed.

Incidentally, Seagate haven't responded to me email asking to let me know what's next in terms of warranty. I'll have to give them another go or try the phone.

Rifty

check if your drive is affected by this issue and what's the latest firmware for your hard drives, since upgrading the firmware on these drives is relatively safe. Kindly follow the instruction / procedure carefully that's written on the website to avoid any complications

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

IF DRIVE IS NOT DETECTED IN BIOS

However if it is not detected, Seagate will arrange for PICK UP of your affected drives to be unlocked and have it firmware to be upgraded. This process WILL NOT cause any Data Loss

If drive is determined after Seagate analysis to be defective due to any reason other than this FIRMWARE issue, then data recovery is not provided, instead a replacement drive will be provided. We will send the original drive back to you for you to perform data recovery.

Best regards

I informed Seagate that the drive was indeed undectable in bios, and they have followed up stating that they will arrange pickup for the faulty drive (or faulty firmware) and mend it (providing that is what's the problem) and/or provide a new drive.

I will see if they are as good as their word, but right now I am giving them 100% for responding and their intentions with what to do to sort it out.

Rifty

Hi Alan - well, it's all quite interesting - Seagate did say at the outset that it might take a little time for them to line up a person contracted at this end (I live in a rural city) to arrange pickup, and that part has certainly turned out to be true. It is a couple of weeks now and I haven't heard from any local carrier about collecting the drive. So I have been waiting patiently before following up for such a response. (Maybe too patiently!)

I am going to have to contact them again and see what they've done about it, if anything.

So the drive sits in its static-proof bag awaiting transport back to be examined. Lucky I wasn't depending on them for quick action.

Cheers,

Rifty

PS I said to them right from the start that if it was cheaper and quicker for them just to send me a replacement drive, I would accept that, but I guess they want to make sure I didn't drop it or blow it up or something. If you work out the person-hours required to arrange transport, fix the drive, parcel it up and send it back, I think it would have been way cheaper for them just to send a new drive - which they probably get for less than fifty bucks apiece from the factory.

I haven't heard from a carrier yet. That seems to be the delay point.

Rifty