Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166

Hi,

I've got 4 x ST2000DL003-9VT166-302 FW CC3C which have only now started to be marked as "dead". I didn't even know there was an issue with these drives as Pro 4 had been running perfectly for 16months with no issues and had no reason to suspect anything!

A week ago I logged into Frontview to be informed that Slot 1 was dead. Cue mad panic to quickly backup everything to my Nas Duo and external USB drives. Also cue forum searches to identify problem. Found this forum and thought great problem solved. In the interim whilst conducting backups I restarted the Pro4 and was then advised via Frontview that all drives were dead! However the strange thing was I could still create back-up jobs and run them successfully and also navigate NAS via Windows Network. Sunday night I lost comms over network with the Pro4 and restarted it to be told I now had Slot 1 and 4 dead and the RAID was unprotected (Slots 2 & 3 Green ok). Again I could still run backup jobs to external USBs. Then it finally lost network comms with any login attempt to Frontview now greeted with Contact Support message.

So I've powered off Pro4 and removed slot 1 HDD. Have run Seatools for DOS long test which passed and it reports that SMART has not been tripped. I then proceed to conduct firmware upgrade as per http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=64510 (ps how do I enter url code in posts?) which appears to run ok until the very end when I get a failed message and "Model matched but firmware version not compatible." I've tried twice to upgrade the firmware and it has failed. I'm trying to raise email ticket with Seagate but for some reason this isn't working so will phone them tomorrow but in the interim:

Any ideas how to get this fixed (force firmware upgrade? http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Desktop-HDD-Desktop-SSHD/ST31500541AS-force-upgrade/m-p/79104/highlight/true) or is my NAS dead with these drives?