As our own Paul Lilly's been telling us recently, many Seagate hard disks have been afflicted by firmware woes. Unfortunately, Seagate's first attempt to fix the problem wound up turning working drives into high-tech bricks.

As it turns out, both Seagate and Maxtor-brand SATA drives can be affected by firmware problems. So, how can you find out exactly which models may be on the naughty list and when Seagate has a firmware fix that's ready for prime time? Here's how.

To determine if you have a drive that's affected, you need to know the drive's model number, firmware revision, and serial number. Seagate offers the free Drive Detect utility, which displays this information.

You can also determine the drive's model number by opening Device Manager in Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7, and expanding the Disk Drives category. To view the firmware revision, open the Details tab (if present) and select Hardware IDs from the pull-down menu. The firmware revision is listed thus (Windows 7 Beta shown, Windows XP and Vista are similar):

The serial number is listed on the drive's faceplace, or you can find it on the original box. 

Once you know this information, open Seagate KB article 207931 and look up your drive. The following families of drives are affected:

• Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA(160GB, 320GB, 500GB, 640GB, 750GB, 1TB, 1.5TB capacities)
• Seagate Barracuda ES.2 SATA (250GB, 500GB, 750GB, 1TB)
• Maxtor DiamondMax 22 SATA (160GB, 320GB, 500GB, 750GB, 1TB capacities)

See the KB article for specific model numbers.

To find out which firmware revisions need to be updated, and to be notified when a working update is available, click the link for your drive family. When recommended firmware is available, the download link will be posted. As an alternative to revisiting the drive family's page until the firmware update is posted, click the Subscribe icon and enter your email address. Seagate will send you an email when the page is updated.

In the meantime, follow the links on Paul Lilly's report on firmware problems to see how other users are dealing with the problem - and, back up your drives!