Perfectly good drive being wrongfully accused as dead?

Though I have never lost data in a drive firmware update, there is always some risk in updating firmware and manipulating disks. Do use the Seagate firmware update tool (which will require the drive info, including serial number), to make sure the firmware is in fact compatible. Seagate manufactures their drives in multiple places, and has a lot of variants of each basic drive model. So you do need to use their tools to ensure that the firmware update is appropriate to your specific drive.


To enable Seatools advanced tests, you need to select basic tests->advanced test, and then enter f8. Then advanced tests show up on the main menu. However, with my seatools they are not enabled for non-Seagate drives (and therefore might not be enabled with the dock, since that sometimes confuses the detection).

"Full Erase" in particular likely uses the SATA erase command, which is not available over USB.

It's frankly easier to use WDC Lifeguard's "write zeros" test - that does work with any drive, and if there are errors the SMART stats will be updated by the drive itself.