Well, since MY Seagate 500GB drive is still ticking along nicely, I don't think I'll be applying any "fixes"!!! I don't think I've every applied a firmware update to a hard drive - the only time I tried was with a couple of Seagate 750GB drives I bought this fall that had the cache problem noted in the article Bob links to - and that firmware update was Windows-only so I couldn't do it! IDIOTS. Back they went to CanadaComputers, who could have done it for me, but I decided to get the Hitachi 750's instead. Glad I did, seeing the cries of woe from Seagate purchasers since.