Seagate Offers Second Fix For Hard-Drive Firmware

Seagate Technology has pulled a firmware fix for its 1-TB Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive after the patch reportedly caused 500-GB versions of the drive to stop working.

Seagate on Wednesday promised to have a second fix within 24 hours, according to tech site Channel Register. Seagate has told its customers that they shouldn't lose any of their data as a result of the problems, but it has also promised to provide recovery services at no charge if necessary.

Seagate could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Seagate pulled the first fix on Monday for "validation," according to the company's support site. On the same day, Seagate customers started flooding the company's community forum with complaints that the patch apparently caused the 500-GB Barracuda to stop working.

Last week, Seagate said it had isolated the problem that affected the Barracuda drives and other drive lines based on the same platform. The products had been manufactured through December.

The latest firmware troubles occurred about two months after the company had problems with its 1.5-TB Barracuda 7200.11, which randomly froze, according to tech site Tom's Hardware.

Seagate's product headaches are on top of the company's financial troubles. The company last week said it would cut thousands of jobs and slash executive salaries as a result of a drop in sales related to the economic downturn.