I have just read this in El Red:-
Seagate has promised to issue a fix for the latest Barracuda bricking fault within 24 hours.

This will be firmware to fix the firmware (SD1A) that was issued to fix the firmware (SD15) that caused some 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 drives and others to stop working. The SD1A firmware caused 500GB Barracuda 7200.11s to stop working.

In all cases Seagate assures its customers that none of their data on the drive should be lost as the firmware faults render the drives inaccessible but doesn't cause corrupted data on the drive.

Seagate says that: "This firmware upgrade will be available on the Seagate website within 24 hours"

It adds that: "Seagate is working with customers to expedite a remedy."

The pressure will be on Seagate to get it right this time. Manufacturing problems and bugs are not unknown in the tech industry, but it takes a particular kind of genius to rush out patches that actually compound the problem.®

Could this be my problem?

Could be. This is all over the tech news:

Seagate cops to widespread HD problems, vows full support

I think my Seagate was manufactured before this problem I got it in August 08 and I think this problem is for the later model. I will go back to Samsung as I have found them to be very reliable. When I put on another OS on I am going for Linux Ubuntu and play with that.

ubuntu works very well. My only issue with the current version is the latest nVIDIA drivers crash it.

Anywho if you are not familiar with WINE it is a windows emulator that you can install in ubuntu in order to run most windows programs.

You can find it in Add/Remove Programs > search > WINE

just a question jephree if Windows requires a registry to operate but Ubuntu does not how does WINE get Window's softeware to work? Or am I geting into deep water.

I'm afraid you're asking the wrong guy on this one.

You might get better replies in the Linux section.

I can only Google you:

ubuntu wine - Google Search

Thanks jephree for the link , what would I do with out you guys.