sequence of 8 flashes with eSATA drive

[prener]

My 300GB eSATA drive started flashing 8 times a few days ago. Powering down and rebooting didn't fix the problem -- the 8300HD showed the drive as connected with a 0 Byte capacity, and all the programs recorded on it were inaccessible. Eventually, I tried powering everything down and doing a hard reset of the 8300HD. (Unplug it, then plug it in while holding the power-on button down.)

Now I can get at the programs on the eSATA drive, but it is still flashing the sequence of 8 flashes. What does this mean? Does it mean the drive is about to die?

[WK-Michael]

That means that there is some type of internal error. Brief reference info is here:

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/m...tart_guide.pdf

How long have you had the drive? Is it from us?

[prener]

8 flashes

Yes, I got the drive and enclosure from you, just about two years ago.

[WK-Michael]

Then it's not under warranty at this point from us, but it may still be from Maxtor/Seagate. You can try them, or see new (and larger) units here:

http://www.weaknees.com/scientific-a...vr-upgrade.php

[prener]

Thank you for your quick replies. I have already purchased a new (larger) unit, from you. I am just concerned about the eventual loss of the programs I have recorded on my failing drive. I was hoping for some information about what sort of internal error the leds indicate, e.g., excessive read retries, temperature, etc.

[WK-Michael]

Unfortunately, it's really just a generic "failure" indicator.

[prener]

I don't think there is anything Weeknees can do about this, but I'm putting the information here in the hope others will see it and know where the problem lies. It turns out that many people have been experiencing this same problem with Cablevision's SA8300, ever since Cablevision pushed new code to the box a few weeks ago.