While it's been some time since Seagate drives shipped in Apple machines, external drives or other machines may have them.... here's a description of the problem and a link to find out if your Seagate drive may be susceptible...

...from: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39596623,00.htm

Bug hits Seagate disks Colin Barker ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 19 Jan 2009 16:12 GMT

Seagate on Friday acknowledged failures among recent models of its Barracuda and DiamondMax disk drives. Users affected lose all access to data on their disks, and the disks themselves are reported to become undetectable to the computers in which they are mounted.

Seagate acknowledged the problem in a statement on its website that said: "A number of Seagate hard drives… may become inaccessible when the host system is powered on."

The drives in question are the Barracuda 7200.11, which comes in capacities ranging from 160GB to 1.5TB, the DiamondMax 22 and the Barracuda ES.2 SATA drive.

Once a drive has become affected, "the data becomes inaccessible to users but the data is not deleted", the Seagate statement read. According to the company the issue is caused by a problem with the firmware on the drive, which "is affecting drives from these families manufactured in December 2008".

With the statement, Seagate provided details on how users could check if their drives were affected, but did not provide an immediate update to the firmware that could fix the problem. Instead Seagate advised users of affected drives to contact the company directly, and offered a data-recovery service if required.

More information on the issue is provided on the Seagate website. Users who believe they have affected disk drives Seagate must contact the company by calling them directly. According to a Seagate spokesperson, although an international call is required it should be at no charge. Users can also contact the company by sending an email (discsupport@seagate.com ), mentioning drive model number, serial number and current firmware revision.

ZDNet UK contacted Seagate for comment but the company had not responded at the time of writing.

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

Welcome, Seagate hard drive owners. A number of Seagate hard drives from the following families may become inaccessible when the host system is powered on:

Barracuda 7200.11 DiamondMax 22 Barracuda ES.2 SATA

Once a drive has become affected the data becomes inaccessible to users but the data is not deleted. Seagate has isolated this issue to a firmware bug affecting drives from these families manufactured in December 2008.

Please use the following tools and instructions to determine if you have one of the affected products. If your drive is affected, we recommend that you update the firmware on the disk drive to prevent this condition.

To identify your drive, retrieve the model number, serial number and firmware revision without removing your drive. There are multiple methods:

Seagate DriveDetect.exe method (recommended)

Click here to download Drive Detect: When running Drive Detect you will see a screen like this. Look for the drives that are attached:

In the example above the Drive Name is the same as the Model: ST31500341AS, the serial number is 9VS00J20 and the firmware revision is SD1A.

Device Manager Method :

Use Microsoft Windows Device Manager to see the model numbers of your disk drive. - Choose Start | Run | type: devmgmt.msc - Click Ok.

- Expand the Disk Drive branch to see the model numbers:

Seatools for Windows Method: Download SeaTools for Windows which displays all of the required information.

After determining your serial, model and firmware revision please attempt to find your model in the following list of affected models. If you have one of these drives you can choose it from the list for model-specific instructions to update the firmware.

Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS ST3750330AS ST3640330AS ST3500320AS ST31500341AS ST31000333AS ST3640323AS ST3640623AS ST3320613AS ST3320813AS ST3160813AS

Barracuda ES.2 SATA ST31000340NS ST3750330NS ST3500320NS ST3250310NS

DiamondMax 22 STM31000340AS STM3750330AS STM3500320AS STM31000334AS STM3320614AS STM3160813AS

If you need assistance updating your firmware you can email us directly at disksupport@seagate.comPlease include the following disk drive information: serial number, model number, and current firmware revision. We will respond to your email request with appropriate instructions.