drivnotreada Segate DrivesSunAlert describes an issue with a subset of SCSI/FCAL drives affecting less than 1% of a total population of 550,000 drives worldwide. Drives affected are Seagate Models that Sun purchased over a two year time span ending in early 1999 specifically... Barracuda 9LP 7200 rpm Barracuda 18HH 7200 rpm Cheetah 9LP 10K rpm Sun purchased these drives from 1997 to early 1999. - The symptom of this issue is that the drive becomes not ready after a system shut down. The system shutdown could occur by bringing down the system or by a power interrupt. - The cause of this issue is a charge leakage over a significant period of time in the drive ROM, changing the state of a random bit which results in the drive becoming not ready. The drive data is not accessible in this state however it has not been corrupted and can be recovered if required. Drives affected are Seagate Models that Sun purchased over a two year time span ending in early 1999 specifically... Part Number 540-3923-01 FCAL (CUDA 18HH) SCSI (MAXSTRAT ONLY) FCAL (MAXTRAT ONLY) 540-3704-01 SCSI (CUDA 9LP) 540-3720-01 SCSI (CUDA 9LP) 370-3595-01-04 SCSI (CUDA 9LP) 540-3734-01 SCSI (CUDA 9LP) 540-3869-01-02 FCAL (CHEETAH 9LP) 540-3966-01 SCSI (CHEETAH 9LP) 540-3881-01 SCSI (CHEETAH 9LP) 370-3649-01-02 SCSI (CHEETAH 9LP) The drive not ready condition is a result of a Flash ROM failure. The Flash ROM (Calico Chip) controls the drive during the power up sequence. During the programming process of the chip, random bits will get a trapped charge which will result in the bit changing state. The bit changing state is caused by the bit loosing its charge. This causes a checksum error which prevents the drive from coming ready. This problem is addressed in the following patches: Patch-ID# 109115-06 T3 1.16c: System Firmware Update Patch-ID# 106817-04 Hardware, 9GB Disks: Download program and ST39173W 4315 firmware Patch-ID# 109962-04 Hardware, FC-AL Disks: Download program and FC-AL Disk Drive firmware Patch-ID# 108105-02 Hardware, 9GB Disks: Download program and ST39102LC 6329 firmware segatedrives If you need help with ordering or configuring your system call: © 2011 Ames Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved.