Hitachi IC25N060ATMR04-0 Firmware Flasher?

[horizontal_platter]

Dear Great Gurus out there,

How can I flash Hitachi Travelstar IC25N060ATMR04 Hard Drive with firmware?

I've searched the web from corner to corner and found nothing to help me with.

If any Guru's out there can suggest a solution for me that would be a tremendous help.

Thank you in advance.

[harddrivespecialist]

Why would you even want to flash firmware on your drive?

[horizontal_platter]

Why would you even want to flash firmware on your drive?

My Hard drive firmware got corrupted. How I dont know. I took it to a computer expert and I was told so.
And I am not willing to pay the amount he suggested. I think I can do the job my self but I just need the tools.

Anyone can help would be greatly appreciated.

[Vulcan]

@horizontal_platter:

Have a read of this, to explain why the "computer expert" has given you poor advice, hence why harddrivespecialist was asking the background to this:

diy-what-the-big-deal-t12671.html

Edited to add: If you want to explain the real / original problem with the drive, and not that inappropriate (or likely incorrect) diagnosis you've received, then you might get some advice from others on the forum.

[horizontal_platter]

@horizontal_platter:

Have a read of this, to explain why the "computer expert" has given you poor advice, hence why harddrivespecialist was asking the background to this:

diy-what-the-big-deal-t12671.html

Edited to add: If you want to explain the real / original problem with the drive, and not that inappropriate (or likely incorrect) diagnosis you've received, then you might get some advice from others on the forum.

Thank you Vulcan for your help.

I read the entire post you pointed out to me.

The problem I am having with my HDD is that it will sometimes initialise on the system
and sometimes it will just hang the OS. No clicking sound or any obvious symptoms of mechanical failure.

Very repetitive.

[Cleanroom]

firmware will not fix it.

I bet it is a weak head (reading mechanism in the drive)

[harddrivespecialist]

I bet it is a weak head (reading mechanism in the drive)

Agree with this!

[horizontal_platter]

Thank you for your reply.

So what is the next course of action I can take on this hard drive?

I was keen to flash it with firmware to eliminate at least that issue.

[hddguy]

I was keen to flash it with firmware to eliminate at least that issue.

The firmware cannot be 'flashed'. the firmware here is simply a set of instructions and adaptive information relative to the operation of the media. Many aspects of the firmware are unique to each HDD and replacement of it will render the disk useless and data will be lost forever.

The firmware is stored at reserved place on the media, which cannot be accessed without proper (and expensive) equipment. Even this alone is not enough as without the relevant knowledge and experience you would surely cause more problems.

I fail to understand why you would be willing to risk loosing everything by attempting to do something you know very little about to something that contains potentially valuable and irreplaceable data??

the only advice you need is this: Take it to a pro who can sort it for you. It is the only way your data will be saved.

[buster80]

The firmware cannot be 'flashed'. the firmware here is simply a set of instructions and adaptive information relative to the operation of the media. Many aspects of the firmware are unique to each HDD and replacement of it will render the disk useless and data will be lost forever.

The firmware is stored at reserved place on the media, which cannot be accessed without proper (and expensive) equipment. Even this alone is not enough as without the relevant knowledge and experience you would surely cause more problems.

I fail to understand why you would be willing to risk loosing everything by attempting to do something you know very little about to something that contains potentially valuable and irreplaceable data??

the only advice you need is this: Take it to a pro who can sort it for you. It is the only way your data will be saved.

This is good advice, the internet is not a good place to diagnose a health issue but in this instance the people helping you are 100% the best people to listen to about this.

[Vulcan]

@horizontal_platter:

I was keen to flash it with firmware to eliminate at least that issue.

As was explained in the link I sent previously (which you said you had read ), this is not a sensible target for you, and based on your (limited) description of the drive's behaviour, this is unlikely to help, even if you could do it!

So what is the next course of action I can take on this hard drive?

IMHO that depends on things you haven't yet explained.

Are you trying to (a) recover data from the drive, or (b) just trying to fix it, without caring about the data? We often assume (a), as with the answers you've been getting so far here, but sometimes people actually want (b) without saying so. Which applies to your situation?

If you're just trying to fix the drive, then due to the low value of that drive, I would just stop here.

If you're trying to recover the data, is the data important or valuable? If so, then follow the advice of hddguy and the others. Your chances of causing more problems appears high. Just because you didn't like the price (which you haven't mentioned) from a (likely incorrect) previous diagnosis, does not mean that another DR company wouldn't offer you a better price. But as always, you have to decide on the value of the data to you.

If the data is not important / valuable, and if you are prepared to accept the risks of DIY (i.e. you may change a potentially recoverable situation into one which is totally unrecoverable, or at least much more expensive for professional recovery, and you are totally accepting all responsibility for all actions that you take), then there might be other DIY things you can try.

This depends on exactly what you meant by: "[...] my HDD [...] will sometimes initialise on the system". If the drive can be read (at all) after it does "initialise" (depending on what you mean by that exactly), then potentially you could attempt to clone the drive once it does "initialise", hoping that the drive doesn't die during that process, and then work on recovering the data from the clone. Depending on exactly how the drive behaves, you probably need to use cloning software which will cope with some unreadable sectors. There have been several previous threads here on that topic - different people recommend different software.

Many people will not be successful trying to do this for the first time, due to lack of knowledge, experience & skill in this area, and may make things worse, as I explained above. Some people have been successful. As I've said before, it's your data, your risk, your choice.

I won't be giving an even more detailed step-by-step plan. I just wanted to point out that you have a decision to take - assuming that you want to recover the data, how important is that data to you, and what risks are you willing to take? When you've decided, then I believe your options will be clearer Good luck with whatever you decide!

[horizontal_platter]

Thank you for your valuable advice.

My apology if the information are limited from my side to be frank, I am confused my self.
I dont know whether its a firmware or hard ware issue. But you expert would know better.

As per advice, I cloned the drive. But I want to fix the problem on the faulty drive. I believe everything
is fixable.
I did some searching on the net. I found a piece of software that allowed me to check the SMART log.

I get the following error displayed after the scan:

SMART reports command failure (feh) in summary error log.

What does this mean?

As for taking decisions, I still think I want to flash the hard drive's firmware.

[labtech]

1. How did you clone the drive? What hardware or software?

2. How did the cloning process go? Any errors?

3. Did you verify the data on the clone is good?

[guru]

Not everything is fixable. However, HGST DFT can test the drive and give you some feedback hxxp://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/#DFT , read the manual first :O)

If you believe that a firmware update will help please contact HGST support and they will advise

hxxp://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/hddemail.htm

[horizontal_platter]

Thank you. I have emailed the hitachi support.

If anyone can help, What does "feh" failure command on SMART means and anyway of fixing that?

[horizontal_platter]

I found this piece of utility to do the firmware upgrade.

I downloaded the software and burnt it to a CD and booted from the CD.
The software detects the hard drive and indicates that there is a new firmware. So I followed the on screen
instruction to update the firmware, It says firmware upgrade successful. But when I reboot the PC
as per instruction, when the software starts again it says there is a new firmware for this drive.

After re-boot and software says new firmware for the hard drive same message as before. Seems like the software does not
push the firmware to the Hard Drive even though it says successful upgrade.

Have you had any experience of this? I am using desktop pc with just one drive on the IDE.

Please see the photos I took. May be someone can advice me.

Attachments

Update successful. But after reboot the same firmware is displayed and the software utility wants me to upgrade again.

[fzabkar]

Did you power off the drive after the update? If not, then the drive will report the version of firmware loaded in SDRAM.

[horizontal_platter]

Did you power off the drive after the update? If not, then the drive will report the version of firmware loaded in SDRAM.

Hi. Thanks for your reply. I turned off the PC from the switch and after switch ON the boot cd run. Detects the hard drive
and prompt me to upgrade the firmware.

Software says successful upgrade but at every power off and ON the software prompt the firmware upgrade message.
It shows the same message as above.

So What am I doing wrong?

[fzabkar]

FWIW, I am aware of one Samsung SpinPoint firmware release that correctly updates the firmware but does not modify the reported version. Perhaps that is what is happening in your case ???

BTW, in what context are you seeing a "feh" failure?

Can you show us where you found the Lenovo firmware? I've given up searching for it.

[horizontal_platter]

FWIW, I am aware of one Samsung SpinPoint firmware release that correctly updates the firmware but does not modify the reported version. Perhaps that is what is happening in your case ???

BTW, in what context are you seeing a "feh" failure?

Can you show us where you found the Lenovo firmware? I've given up searching for it.

Hi. fzabkar.

If the firmware is programmed by the software then it should be reading the new updated value on the PC BIOS.
But in this case the value is still the old one. I dont know if this tool is doing the job right.

The "feh" is in the SMART log. When I ran PC-Check software, this is shown on SMART Immediate Test. Then
I ran HDAT2 and and now it showing "29h" . I dont know what this all means?

Any suggestions?

The Lenovo software is found here:
http://hddguru.com/software/2006.02.27- ... le-CD-ISO/

If you can get it to work, please let me know. Would be greatly appreciated.