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Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

June 1st, 2008, 2:48

Hi there, this is my first post in this forum, I would suggest that the guide and info from aimtrading have some picture, or diagram for clear view. As the title, 'newbie', perhaps some newbie quite confuse where these term are located, such as me 8)

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

July 10th, 2008, 10:36

explained so well that this newb almost understands it! :D

so here are my newb questions then:

1) where can i get the Samsung firmware writer?
2) is there any Samsung firmware available?
3) is it possible to update/upgrade the firmware on a Samsung SP2504c drive form vt100-41 to vt100-50?
4) have i posted this in the wrong thread? :oops:

i have no real reason for doing this, other than my fetish for having the latest drivers and firmware for my equipment.

cheers,
Andre

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

October 26th, 2008, 20:34

I'm new to the board.... thanks for the info so far!

I had a drive or two every now and then that needs data extracted from it... now I just crashed my main drive and need of ton of things extracted. I figured I should start learning....

-JR

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

November 14th, 2008, 7:13

JackRipper wrote:I'm new to the board.... thanks for the info so far!

I had a drive or two every now and then that needs data extracted from it... now I just crashed my main drive and need of ton of things extracted. I figured I should start learning....

-JR



Your in the right place :D

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

December 27th, 2008, 0:51

aimtrading wrote:The SA is stored on 'negative cilinders' of the HDD and therefore is not accessible by normal read commands. However, the area can be accessed with other ATA commands. An example of a (more or less) 'standard' ATA command that can access info on the SA is the 'download microcode' ATA command, that can be used to update information in the firmware code module. However, most of the commands that can be used to access the SA are vendor specific. Since vendors (obviously) don't want users to mess around with the SA, these commands are generally not made public. However, these commands can be deduced by, for example, reverse engineering the firmware code itself.
Aimtrading.


I dont understand - you say above that normal commands cant read the SA - yet you say you can deduce the commands by reverse engineering the SA. How can you reverse engineer the (commands) to the SA if you cant read the SA in the first place?

Confused,

-Al
:?:

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

December 31st, 2008, 12:30

SA also means ROM. If you know how to read these and then what to look for you can glean a whole host of info from these.

<itch>

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

January 2nd, 2009, 5:57

A few terms I have come across on here:

PSV
MCU
TSV

Anyone care to tell me what they stand for please?

Thanks in advance

-Al

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

January 20th, 2009, 23:34

hi all,

i am noob here, and i'm from indonesia.
i have a question,
how do i learn about ata command, am i have to learn assembly programing first or maybe something else?
please give me some advice.

thank you people.





*sorry for my poor english :mrgreen:

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

January 20th, 2009, 23:51

You will need a lot of research, and may be ATA13 can be a starting point.

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

January 21st, 2009, 3:10

cryoborgofthevenus wrote:You will need a lot of research, and may be ATA13 can be a starting point.


can you describe for me what is it mean?

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

January 21st, 2009, 3:21

http://www.t13.org

Various documentations are there.

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

January 21st, 2009, 5:26

cryoborgofthevenus wrote:http://www.t13.org

Various documentations are there.


thank you, thats what i need :D

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

January 21st, 2009, 8:40

cryoborgofthevenus wrote:http://www.t13.org

Various documentations are there.



cannot access this site :(

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

April 29th, 2009, 10:25

Hello friends.
I am a new bee to this site.I really appreciate the site, and all the knowledge it imparts to the world for free. Well i always heard from my dad, nothing is for free, but hdd guru is a free teacher,advisor, friend, and caring for its fellow members.
thank you very much for every thing you give us on this site and forum.

researchman.

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

April 29th, 2009, 17:54

Hi aimtrading!

Thank you for sharing! Very positive.

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

May 17th, 2009, 7:52

Nice article
Althought I knew about the basics of the System Area and SMART stuff, but wasnt until I saw the PC3100 video on youtube and this article that I was aware of the multitude of firmware blocks

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

June 26th, 2009, 6:07

For completeness of this topic, its worth mentioning that certain modules can't really be reloaded from a library or from another working drive, as they are specific to the actual physical drive itself
eg defect lists (p-list, g-list), translator tables, adaptives etc

There may be tools to help recreate translators and defect lists etc
(although unless it regenerates 100% the same as before (unlikely?) then probally cant reliably access existing data, but should be able to reuse and 'reformat' the drive

A good overview of adaptives from http://www.q-lab.ru/en/en_teorfaq.shtml :

Every single hard drive goes through a very important phase of manufacturing — precise calibration. With very dense data storage on modern HDDs, even tiny shifts during manufacturing can lead to the total failure of the device causing the electrical components to give error. This is why the process of calibration consists of numerous operations with the purpose of selecting optimal functional variables; such as correction for much precise impulse positioning and a quicker seek-time as well as adjustment of electrical currents for shifting magnetic-resistant heads, witch leads to a stronger read signal in different parts of the disk surface; the write currents are also adjusted. Values found, also known as «adaptives», are stored as tables on the disk and device operation is impossible without them.

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

November 16th, 2009, 22:21

When I was learning data recovery, found the following info to be shared:

Modern disks normally have their firmware codes located on data platters and also the PCB board. If the firmware area is corrupted, the drive will appear to have failed even all the electrical and mechanical components are still fully functional.

* be recognized incorrectly in the BIOS, the computer will then often hang
* Drive powers up, but is recognized wrongly, sometimes with nonsensical characters, manufacture alias (Such as N40p for Maxtor 6Y and etc ;)
* Drive powers up, but is not recognized /defected by the computer
* Drive freezes during booting up;
* Drive detect in wrong Capacity, such as 80 GB detected as 1Mb;
* be recognized as 0 bytes in size
* S.M.A.R.T error;
* Drive is locked by human error; such as Hitachi hard drive by a drop; it is a self protection method of HDD design;
* Drive clicking ;( it can be caused by firmware too, the heads try to read the SA on platters and can not positing ;)
* run slowly make a regular ticking noise at start up

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

November 18th, 2009, 12:49

bigal.nz wrote:A few terms I have come across on here:

PSV
MCU
TSV

Anyone care to tell me what they stand for please?

Thanks in advance

-Al



MCU=Micro Controller Unit , most important chip on PCB.
PSV= no idea ( Pet Store Verified ? =))) )
TSV - no idea , but if u meen TVS=Transient Voltage Suppression diode, consider it a fuse. It will sacrifice itself in the event of a spike and die instead of another chip.

Re: newbie info, from and for newbies :) About firmware, SA, etc

December 20th, 2009, 4:44

what can i say aGREAT post
thank you
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