With the recent move to “high definition” content and my obsessiveness to keep entire seasons worth of television programs on my computer for easy viewing access via the Xbox 360 or PS3, imagine my frustration when Vista started warning me that my measly 120GB drive was running out of space.

With out hesitation, this tech-savvy consumer rushed over to newegg.com and began shopping for a bigger drive, a drive that could hold a massive video and music library and still have room to spare. After a few hours of searching, comparing, and mentally justifying the expense, I ordered myself a 1 terabyte drive by Seagate!

A few days later, the drive was finally in my hands! I carefully opened the box and pulled out the giant wad of bubble wrap which encased my new drive. As I struggled with the profuse amounts of tape and bubble wrap, my precious new drive suddenly flew out of its bubbly haven, flipped through the air, and promptly landed on the floor before I had a chance to react. Doh!

After gently installing the gravity defying drive, my PC began booting up…*Click* *Click* *Click*, Windows didn’t even detect the new hardware. Just like that, my dreams of massive storage were shattered! I called up newegg’s customer service and set up an RMA. I sent my drive back, 1 1/2 weeks later, I received a replacement.

This time, the unpacking and installation was rather uneventful. Vista promptly located drivers and I initiated a format. After everything was said and done, my entire music & video library now resided on this drive, with tons more storage space to spare! I began clicking through my video library and opened up a video, just to try it out. *Click* *Click* *Click* Eh!?!

It was then that I noticed the new hard drive would “click” when it would spin up, and again whenever it would access data. Usually a “clicking” noise from a hard drive means bad news, but a quick search on the internet revealed that these new 1TB drives were known to “click” during normal operation. I backed up my important data, since in my eyes, failure was imminent.

A few weeks went by and the clicking was still present, yet the drive hadn’t experienced any sort of failure. I did begin noticing some severe lag and skipping while playing back video content located on that drive. To make matters worse, certain programs, like MSN Messenger and Firefox, would stall for short periods of time while this drive was trying to access data. This was completely unacceptable! My quest to find some answers began anew!

Seagate’s own analysis tool called SeaTools, available here, displayed no errors or warnings after thoroughly scanning the hard drive for hours. Seatools for Windows doesn’t operate properly under Windows Vista 64, so I used the DOS based version and booted from CD. Several other free diagnostic utilities, like Windows Vista’s built in drive checker utility, and Seasoft’s Sandra Lite, generated the exact same results…my drive was healthy. As time went by, I grew more and more inpatient with the slow transfer rates and occasional video skipping of my once highly praised 1TB drive. Surely I wasn’t the only one experiencing this issue?

One day, I fatefully stumbled across a page on Seagate’s own website detailing some of the potential issues Barracuda 7200.11 SATA models with firmware SD04 or SD14 were experiencing. Aha! Unfortunately, Seagate wasn’t going to let just anyone download the updated firmware and the flasher utility without first going through their customer service dept. Rightly so I suppose, since improper flashing of the drive can render it useless, but I didn’t want to deal with customer service…especially since they would know a lot less about my situation than I would.

Armed with firmware versions, and model numbers, I scoured the net until I stumbled across a forum thread addressing these exact issues. This is a direct quote from that post.

Barracuda 7200.11 Reporting Wrong Cache Size

Seagate has recently discovered that some of Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives with firmware version SD04 or SD14 will report an incorrect cache size.

The discrepancy is due to the firmware incorrectly identifying the cache size during the buffer size auto detection algorithm. This incorrect value will be passed from the drive, via the “Identify Drive” command to the system BIOS, which in turn reports the incorrect cache size.

The following Barracuda 7200.11 models have been impacted:

* ST3500320AS PN 9BX154-302 with firmware code SD04 or SD14
* ST3750330AS PN 9BX156-302 with firmware code SD04 or SD14
* ST31000340AS PN 9BX158-302 with firmware code SD04 or SD14

For all inventory with the Seagate P/Ns mentioned, a simple firmware update is needed to resolve this issue. No action required for -302 with firmware code AD14. Additionally, no action on your part is required for the Barracuda 7200.11 drives that have already been shipped to end users – Seagate will provide end user support at the Seagate Support Web Site.“

This thread also provided a direct download link for the firmware I needed!

At this point, I must mention that I am in no way affiliated with Seagate, and that flashing your hard drive’s firmware should only be done after carefully verifying that your drive has been affected by this issue. Verify this in “Windows Device Manager” by clicking on “Properties” and looking at the “Device Detail ID” under the “Details” tab. Even with the correct hardware and firmware pair, flashing firmware can potentially turn your expensive hardware into a paperweight if done incorrectly, and I take no responsibility for any damage you might cause. Do this at your own risk!

Also, its worth mentioning that the firmware upgrade utility runs from a Floppy or CD upon boot, and in my situation, required a PS/2 Mouse & Keyboard.

After a quick firmware upgrade that resulted from weeks of searching, I’m happy to report that my drive is no longer skipping during video playback, programs no longer stall while waiting for the drive, and the drive’s performance has significantly increased in read/write/delete access. The “clicking” noise is still present, but as stated earlier, this seems to be a normal operating noise on these particular models.

Technorati Tags: 1TB, 7200.11, AD14, Barracuda, Barracuda 7200.11, Clicking Noise, Hard Drive Clicking, Hard Drive Firmware, SD04, SD14, Seagate, ST31000340AS, ST3500320AS, ST3750330AS