Thought this was worth a thread of it's own. If you've bought a Seagate Hard Drive in the last year or so, consider checking out this link and seeing if your hard drive is at risk of failing:
Link
So to clarify,
Seagate noticed an abnormally high failure rate in it's 7200.11 drives and issued a new firmware. The new firmware then bricked drives they were put on and they've subsequently pulled the firmware from distro.
With an SD15 1TB drive I'm madly backing up as we speak....damn drive manufacturers, if its not Deathstars it's Seagates or WD's dying by the droves one time or another. No brand loyalty required.