Seems that Seagate finally released officially the SD1A firmware. Should it be updated or not, let's see how this current firmware works. I made promise to myself that I never update hd fw again :)

Yeah, it worked. Now I got my two drives back, great!. Can't say how pleased I am at the moment :) Thanks immortalx, and thanks maxtorman!

Hmm, I guess I could dare and try, since you obviously have same type of drive (ST31000340AS?). I think I take one beer and try :)

Great! I have two 1T 9BX158-303 drives, both currently with non-working AD14 firmware. Did you flash your drive with SDA1 or SD15 firmware? And where did you get it, since it's not downloadable from Seagate website anymore... :(

Since I have totally same situation, please let me know if you have success on this, I would love to get my data back accessible. I also asked SD15 firmware, but unfortunately, noone has reacted to my request.

I'm totally with you. I did the same thing for my drives, after I got instructions from tech support (and confirmation that flashing is right and safe way to do). After few emails, tech support's votes are like two says nothing can be done except RMA, two says that new firmware should do the trick (whenever it's published). One said that it was my own fault :). I hope I can re-flash the drives with this new incoming firmware, I kinda have some confidental data there (personal backups from last... six years etc..), so I'm not very eager to send it via post (packages do disappear, you know...)