MacMedics Case File: Seagate 7.01 Firmware Hard Drive Failure Video

Update 2/1/11: We’ve noticed (and others on the Internets) that Seagate drives that have the firmware version of 3.CAE are in the same category as the Seagate 7.01 firmware drive that are prone to catastrophic and sudden failure. MacMedics STRONGLY recommends that both the Seagate 7.01 AND 3.CAE hard drives should be replaced no matter where they are installed or how old they are. Having an effective back-up is great protection, but if you’ve got a ticking time bomb in your computer it could blow up at anytime, and you could still lose data. Also, no time is a good time to have your hard drive blow up. It could happen before a big trip or project and the computer would be unusable until the drive was replaced, and the data that you HAVE backed up can be restored. In some cases that could take an entire day as Time machine often take several hours to fully restore. Also, MacMedics recommends having a clone of your hard drive in addition to your Time Machine back up. Read all about Time Machine warnings here.
Update 2/16/10 Apple announces repair extension program for MacBook Seagate 7.01 hard drives. Get details from Apple.com. If you have an affected MacBook, call MacMedics and we can arrange to have hard drive replaced.
Certain 2.5” Seagate SATA hard drives most commonly found in MacBooks from 2 to 3 years ago (Also found in some MacBook Pros and Mac Minis, check yours if if you’ve ever had your hard drive replaced as some of these units also ended up as service parts.) I’ve seen various sizes fail as well, mostly 60 and 80 GB.
We’ve just filmed a short video that demonstrates the classic sound of a failing Seagate 7.01 drive. Nothing too surprising here, as it sounds pretty much like any other failing hard drive. Here at MacMedics we’ve been warning folks about this issue for several years, yet we still see them come into the shop all the time (both working and still in service and ones that have died). The video also shows what a damaged Seagate 7.01 firmware drive looks like on the inside once the drive crashes.
Our original Blog post that has been updated many times can be found here. We’ll also post the video there.
Other MacMedics Blog posts that mention the Seagate 7.01 firmware issue can be found here.
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