Apple Releases Fix for MacBook Pro Hard Drive Issues

[EagerDragon]

Yes, along with probably hundreds if not thousands of other people. There is no reason I shouldn't be able to pop the same drive into my older MBP and not have a problem. The problem lies with Apple's hardware. Are you to tell me that for every Apple you will ever own, you don't expect to be able to swap out the hard drive without an issue when you run out of space?

Any after market drive that has issues is the responsability of the disk manufactorer, not Apple. WHile they may play nice and help, Apple does not have to fix the issues if you did not buy the drive from them. Apple distributes patches for their hardware, not for hardware purchased elsewhere.

Did the drive say it was compatible with Mac OSX 5.8? If so you and the other thousands may have grounds for a class action against the drive manufacturer.

 

[lhotka]

Which other vendors? We're talking about a specific set/batch of Seagate hard drives. Nothing more. And it could as well be an OS problem, but that's just a wild speculation.


No failing after market drives here. And I would have contacted Seagate's support devision right away after experiencing the first few clicks.

in the apple discussions thread, there's folks with aftermarket -G drives that have the problem, and a few with Hitachi ones reporting the same thing too.

 

[charlituna]

The article seems to imply that the firmware upgrade will not affect after market drives which are hearing this sound. If true, that's disappointing as many of the complaints came from folks using this exact drive but who installed it after market.

There are numerous reports of people that have bought this seagate drive aftermarket for the new MBPs and older MBPs, along with the non-Gforce version drive, along with other drives, that have this same issue and Apple hasn't done anything about that.eo

yes, i'd hope they would offer a stand-alone, system-independent solution, for people like me who upgraded their unibody macbooks (or any other apple laptop) to the seagate 7200.4

i am laughing right now. Folks expect Apple to warranty thing they didn't sell. What are you smoking and can you send me some. seriously

if you changed the drive in your computer to something that wasn't what Apple put in, then you are on your own. go contact the company that made the drive.

i'm going to have to label this one a complaint FAIL

 

[DELLsFan]

Stay away from that Dell junk.

Hey now ... not everything they make is junk!

... Although, I do wish DELL was carrying the next generation of netbooks with ION processors. Intel GMA graphics on those Minis make the baby Jesus cry.

 

[Bubba Satori]

Hey now ... not everything they make is junk!

... Although, I do wish DELL was carrying the next generation of netbooks with ION processors. Intel GMA graphics on those Minis make the baby Jesus cry.

The Ion based netbooks will make very nice Hackenbooks.

 

[BVGuitarPlayer]

if you changed the drive in your computer to something that wasn't what Apple put in, then you are on your own. go contact the company that made the drive.

i'm going to have to label this one a complaint FAIL

You're right. Absolutely right. Apple shouldn't provide warranty work to something that they did not install. However, give the person a break. Think of it like this. All 2.5" SATA drives are basically the same. That's what SATA is, a standard that offers cross-compatibility. Think of it like this... Apple gets quotes from Maxtor, Toshiba and WD. WD has the cheapest 7200 RPM drives this quarter, let's use those.

It's all about money. I'm not knocking it, not saying that person is right. I am saying that all of these 2.5" SATA HDs are the same though, so cut a little slack.

 

[bozz2006]

I'm not saying I expect it, just saying it would be nice.

 

[nikiski]

FWIW, the two harddrive models that require the update are:
ST9320423ASG
ST9500420ASG

 

[nikiski]

P.S. digging into the update with Pacifist and Smulton revealed that Apple made changes to their own APM (power management), among other changes...

I'm sorry, but I can only see the new firmware file. Where did you find the change to Apple's power management? What are the other changes? Thanks.

 

[macjonny1]

Any after market drive that has issues is the responsability of the disk manufactorer, not Apple. WHile they may play nice and help, Apple does not have to fix the issues if you did not buy the drive from them. Apple distributes patches for their hardware, not for hardware purchased elsewhere.

Did the drive say it was compatible with Mac OSX 5.8? If so you and the other thousands may have grounds for a class action against the drive manufacturer.

The drive is the same as the one in the current MBPs. I'm sorry, but what to you mean "compatible with OSX 5.8?" It's the one Apple is using on the current lineup. I'm going out on a limb and guessing it is compatible. If this particular drive doesn't work well with the older and new MBPs, why not just do a blanket fix? I don't know, maybe it is harder than it seems....

 

[MacMan86]

FWIW, the two harddrive models that require the update are:
ST9320423ASG
ST9500420ASG

My BTO June 09 MBP 320GB 7,200rpm drive is a ST9320423ASG but software update doesn't suggest the update and running the package from apple.com says "this computer does not need the update" - I wouldn't mind if I didn't have the freezing problems

 

[ghostface147]

Blah. Release notes state it reduces certain noises. Doesn't say crap about eliminating it. Until it eliminates it 100%, it's not a fix. FAIL.

 

[Amdahl]

You may be right, but why was Apple able to fix it then?

They just issued Seagate's firmware update through Software Update to the systems they sold with Apple-installed drives. Apple-installed drives usually have an Apple logo on the drive sticker, and they use special Apple-builds of firmware and/or model number. Similar things happen with HP.

The point is, there may be other firmware updates out there if you call Seagate and ask. They don't usually advertise it.

 

[EagerDragon]

The drive is the same as the one in the current MBPs. I'm sorry, but what to you mean "compatible with OSX 5.8?" It's the one Apple is using on the current lineup. I'm going out on a limb and guessing it is compatible. If this particular drive doesn't work well with the older and new MBPs, why not just do a blanket fix? I don't know, maybe it is harder than it seems....

I understand what you saying, but a blanket fix would have to come from the drive manufactorer. As I understand the issue, a disk drive feature seems to clash with the way Mac OSX works, so this is a mismatch. For drives that were physically sold by Apple, Apple has taken the step to release a Firmware Fix. For drives not sold by Apple, the fix has to come from the manufactorer.

As to compatible .... Most drives are compatible with all computers so who would have thought that there would be an issue. Drive manufactorers are adding more features to their drives so power consumption, for full driveencryption, etc. If the new feature clashes with the OS, then the drive model is not compatible with that OS.

It makes no difference if the two drives were manufactured next to each other and are only one serial number appart, if they were not bought from Apple, only one will get the firmware from Apple. Apple is not responsible for making 3rd party hardware work with the Mac.

Who knows, they may change their mind later, but I do not think that Legaly Apple has to fix the problems for hardware it did not sell.

 

[Di9it8]

Maybe it isn't completely Apple's fault. Perhaps you should contact Seagate if you bought aftermarket?

The drives have a 5 year warranty, so that should be covered.......

 

[macjonny1]

I understand what you saying, but a blanket fix would have to come from the drive manufactorer. As I understand the issue, a disk drive feature seems to clash with the way Mac OSX works, so this is a mismatch. For drives that were physically sold by Apple, Apple has taken the step to release a Firmware Fix. For drives not sold by Apple, the fix has to come from the manufactorer.

As to compatible .... Most drives are compatible with all computers so who would have thought that there would be an issue. Drive manufactorers are adding more features to their drives so power consumption, for full driveencryption, etc. If the new feature clashes with the OS, then the drive model is not compatible with that OS.

It makes no difference if the two drives were manufactured next to each other and are only one serial number appart, if they were not bought from Apple, only one will get the firmware from Apple. Apple is not responsible for making 3rd party hardware work with the Mac.

Who knows, they may change their mind later, but I do not think that Legaly Apple has to fix the problems for hardware it did not sell.

Yes I understand what you are saying....perhaps there is a lot more to it. I admit I don't know nearly enough about computers to comment.

Anyway, I did in fact buy one of these 7200rpm drives but I never upgraded my 2007 MBP with it, because I heard about this issue. What I did instead was buy a small firewire 800/esata enclosure from Oyen Digital so now I have a screamin fast super small 500gb portable drive that can run on firewire bus power.

 

[Master Chief]

Am I the only one who finds HDFW.efi suspicious? I mean if this was just a Seagate firmware update... then this file wouldn't be there

 

[EagerDragon]

Yes I understand what you are saying....perhaps there is a lot more to it. I admit I don't know nearly enough about computers to comment.

Anyway, I did in fact buy one of these 7200rpm drives but I never upgraded my 2007 MBP with it, because I heard about this issue. What I did instead was buy a small firewire 800/esata enclosure from Oyen Digital so now I have a screamin fast super small 500gb portable drive that can run on firewire bus power.

Sounds like it was a win/win for you then. You can also use it for TimeMachine backups, and for storing extra files you do not to have 100% of the time on your laptop.

Congratulations.

 

[orthorim]

I'm confused. I have a Unibody MacBook Pro 17" purchased 2 weeks ago, custom configured with a 500 GB 7200 drive. I checked Apple system profiler and it shows my drive as Model #ST9500420ASG. (Seagate Momentus 7200.4 SATA 500-GB Hardrive.)

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...ecadd110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&locale=en-US

I ran software update and it did not see the firmware update. So I did a manual download and tried to run it and I got an error message saying "This computer does not need this update."

Good to know.

Makes sense because the 17 umbp was never affected by those various issues. Reading the above, maybe some were? I don't know, I didn't have this issue and I am keeping with the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

 

[nikiski]

My BTO June 09 MBP 320GB 7,200rpm drive is a ST9320423ASG but software update doesn't suggest the update and running the package from apple.com says "this computer does not need the update" - I wouldn't mind if I didn't have the freezing problems

You may not need the update if your firmware version is already at 0007APM2.

 

[nikiski]

Am I the only one who finds HDFW.efi suspicious? I mean if this was just a Seagate firmware update... then this file wouldn't be there

Could it be a file that allows access to the harddrive through EFI? Just a speculation.

 

[jedijoe]

The drives have a 5 year warranty, so that should be covered.......

sorry but seagate is only 3 yrs starting jan 2009 on all consumer drives. they no longer stand behind their product. why should we?

 

[adamjackson]

1 hour in and yep the every 30 minute beeping has stopped!

 

[Di9it8]

sorry but seagate is only 3 yrs starting jan 2009 on all consumer drives. they no longer stand behind their product. why should we?

That covers everybody as the problem has only just started, just checked my drive warranty runs out 2014

 

[iheartzombie]

thank goodness.

i was regretting my CTO for the 320GB i made a couple days ago

great news