Rob wrote:
>
> Thanks for the heads-up on Seatools for Windows! Like you, I normally
> use the DOS/bootCD version but if it doesn't work on a particular mobo,
> I will certainly now avoid trying the Win version..
> At least Hitachis's DFT works with non-Hitachi drives, so while perhaps
> not ideal for testing a Seagate (would it interpret SMART properly, ie
> do all drive manu's have their own interpretation of SMART data?) it
> should be better than nothing when seatools for DOS won't run (I also
> use HDtune.)
> Cheers,
Well, the only harm would be to the enclosure holding the drive.
The Seatools for Windows includes the ability to access USB enclosure
based drives, while apparently the MSDOS version doesn't.
Now, if you actually needed to test a Seagate, inside a Cypress based
enclosure, I'd think twice about doing that. As long as the recipe is
available on the cypress.com site, to reload the EEPROM, it's not a big
deal. I found one other posting, where the author of the post didn't
put 2+2 together, but once I read that post, that kinda provided the
"cement" for what I was seeing. (He mentioned using Seatools, and then
the next day, had a problem.)
I didn't try it a second time, to verify :-) Call me lazy...
I don't want to discover how many write cycles it's rated for.
Back when I first heard about this problem, there wasn't
a cause known at the time. Just that the EEPROM was
getting erased. Now, a question for the geniuses who set this
up would be, why is the damn EEPROM not write protected ?
Surely they could load it, then cut a strap at the
factory to protect it from overwrite. The procedure I used to fix
it, is similar to how they would load it at the factory. The only
question is, why they didn't come up with a way to protect the
EEPROM after loading it. There must be a way... It's not like
the definition loaded in there, needs to be changed or anything.
They could even have used an OTP (one time programmable), as that
would prevent writing to it a second time.
*******
For anyone else who runs into this, this is an example of the solution
to the problem.
http://www.mvixusa.com/support/index...kbarticleid=74
Paul