At this point, BC, the original issue of the OP was..err..I forgot now. What was the original issue?
The original issue was unrelated to the hard drive.
The problem the OP had will continue to be a problem till the issue is clearly understood. Did he find a solution?
The problem was the motherboard.
Unless the moderator stops this, I will start this with one authoritative statement which is really PR damage control. Bear with me. It is from Seagate. Western Digital later.
That addresses a problem in a upgrade version of firmware that was released on the site. That is, drives didn't come with that firmware, you had to manually upgrade to it. Additionally, they don't mention any specifics as to the problem.
This was not an isolated case, as the PR damage control above would have you believe.
What makes you think this? A few forum posts?
These are now past issues and do not represent the current sate of any of the hard drive OEMs.
So why bring it up? What was the point of that exercise?
The problem was not foreseen by either Seagate or Western Digital.
The quote refers to Seagate, you have yet to provide anything about WD.
The firmware issue was not a mere error is the code, it was a fundamental design flaw.
How do you know this? Did you fix it yourself, or are you making assumptions? That link doesn't even provide any specifics as to the possible symptoms.
The products were not suitable for the mass market.
The firmware wasn't- firmware which was only available by downloading from their site. At least, if I'm supposed to read the quote. Even if, for the sake of argument we say it was in the drives that came from the factory, there are a few things:
-It's a seagate drive. Again, not sure how this extends to WD, nor how it reaches 2 and a half years into the future with unrelated models.
-The effect? the drive would brick itself during hardware detection. A problem? Of course it was. However, you seem to take this a step further. Instead of thinking "well, golly, I see you have a 7200.11 barracuda drive, and it doesn't appear at boot up, I suspect it might be this firmware issue I read about" you go
OMG... chkdsk takes 2 seconds longer when the hour hand is between numbers! It's a massive conspiracy! WHAT? your partitions keep messing up? MUST BE FIRMWARE ISSUES! You can't copy data to a write-protected floppy... oh... and you're using a seagate drive, there is your problem! Or in this case, "I see you are having issues seeing any devices at boot... OMG... you have a WD drive, there is your problem" as if that is a legitimate means of diagnosis.
In fact the firmware problem of Seagate and the firmware of WD were very different at the code level.
YOU BLEW MY MIND.
different manufacturers use different firmware? So is this your citation for WD? "they use different code than seagate but they still have the same problem?" Because that's pretty weak.
Blaming it on a chip maker was a straw man .
And being able to update the chipset driver and resolve the problem-
welll that was simply
black magic!
Computer world is regarded as a pro-industry rag, which I read. Still about the Seagate thing, it went much further.
And you proceed to quote a PCWorld article, which basically redescribes the same thing. They claim it was part of the firmware on the drives as they came, but I think that may be journalistic imbellishment, as you are wont to find in a PC Magazine. Either way, they are rather specific that the drives were all "models manufactured through December 2008", Looking at the calendar, I see the date is May 2011. I suppose I can quote things about the FDIV bug and say Intel is unreliable too?
Western Digital also released a firmware fix for drives in its 'Green' line.
Yes, the GREEN line. a fact you never ask Original Posters about. you see WD and your eyes set fire and you go "OMG I KNOW THE PROBLEM! IT IS THE DRIVE!" regardless of whether the user is actually having issues with their hard drive or is just trying to download some attachments. It's never a WD Green drive, Just as when they say it's seagate you don't care if they have a Baracuda 7200.11 that was manufacturered before December 2008.
When you understand that it was not a failing chip and not a bug in the software, you grasp the big picture.
The big picture is: Companies and people are fallible. Well hot *censored* that is a huge revelation there, professor! Any other nuggets of wisdom you care to share with us? Perhaps that dogs and cats have four legs, flies have compound eyes, or computer memory comes in a stick format? Secondly, it WAS a bug in the software, because firmware is software, but I suppose that would be splitting hairs. Either way, these are problems, as you
have said yourself that have passed. Do you somehow think that because those two companies have had some firmware issues in the past they are somehow more likely to have more in the future then other HD manufacturers? Do you also firmly believe that because Intel had the FDIV microcode issue in their Original Pentiums that any excel spreadsheets created on Intel processors should be double-checked by a mathematician?
They do not really test they products on Personal computers.
If the issues are sporadic and rare, there is a possibility that the problem can slip through the cracks. You can't read that there was a firmware issue on a few drives three years ago and suddenly conclude that any and all products made by that manufacturer aren't tested on the very PCs that they are designed for. That's a ludicrous and overbearing assumption.
Yes, the problem was with the 'Green' drives.
I pointed this out. Again, and I repeat, this is how people threads often go if they make the "mistake" of mentioning their drive is Seagate or WD.
OP: Hi, I'm having a problem, I can't seem to see any of my drives when I boot up"
Mr.Conspiracy: Are you using a WD hard-drive"
OP: yes
Mr. Conspiracy: Even though the problem to which I refer was something prevalent three years ago and with a sub-type of the brand you use that I can't be bothered to confirm you have, and even though the symptoms where you don't see the Optical drive either are wholly unrelated to the issue to which I refer, I think you should use another brand and see if that fixes the issue.
In both the case of Seagate and Western Digital they underestimated what trousers do with the drives. Whether internal or external.
So wait... they didn't expect users to boot up? It is a rare issue that occurs when the drive is first powered on. I see that as an oversight, but hardly underestimating what people do with drives, particularly since power up the drives is almost certainly something they would expect users to do at some point.
The Pcgameshardware web site is pro-hardware and would bad mouth a company only if it did something bad.
And you know this... How? Seriously, Magazines are full of nonsense. Anything that sells another copy can be put in there. They aren't
sources of information, either.
Similar articles can be found in other forums.
And I'm sure there can be posts found about people who think that their Intel chips are posessed by a dark wizard named agememnon who eats goats and makes macaroni pictures, that hardly means it has a factual basis, it just means those people are delusional.
Let me sum this up. I really don't give a flying crap what you believe. Really I don't. I already know you believe all sorts of conspirational nonsense that would make a 9/11 "truther" blush. My "problem" is that you are using these 3 year old citations as somehow proof that Seagate and WD drives have a rate of failure that is statistically higher than other brands. That's what I was asking for, so I assume that is what you are providing. Knowing you though I wouldn't have been surprised if your evidence consisted of a souffle recipe and a laundry list. In any case, All this confirms is that you base that entirely on two instances where there were firmware issues with said drive. This is the equivalent of the following:
OP: Hi, for some reason all my excel formulas are wrong, any help?
Poster: can you post the formulas you are using?
Conspirational crazy person: Are you using an Intel chip? Did you know that over 20 years ago there was a problem with one of their chips microcode that caused it to do math wrong? It was called the FDIV bug! Somehow this bug from 20 years ago translates into the cause of the problem on your i5 system! Apparently whenever a company has an issue with a single line of their products we must generalize that problem and make assumptions whenever that brand is mentioned!
