MG08ACA16TE with stock 0102 - firmware upgrade?

[aphirst]

I recently bought four 16TB Toshiba drives, model number MG08ACA16TE, hooked up through an HBA (9400-16i; I think it's an Avago or a Lenovo 430 card). They all came with stock firmware 0102 and I was wondering whether it was 1) possible or 2) desirable to update their firmware. I came across a few pages online suggesting there are multiple firmware versions floating around for this drive - https://smarthdd.com/database/TOSHIBA-MG08ACA16TE/ suggests there are 6 (0101,0102,0103,4002,4303,4305).

With a bit more digging I found this page - https://files.hddguru.com/download/Firm ... s/Toshiba/ - seemingly with a bunch of relevant firmware downloads. Potentially the most relevant are:

• MG08ACA16TE_FWUpd_TJ85_Lenovo.exe (maybe only relevant for Lenovo branded drives, according to the thread linked in its description)
• MG08ACA14TE_MG08ACA16TE_FWUpd_4305.exe (FW update 4305 for MG08ACAxxTE with stock FW 4301, 4302, 4303, 4304)

Multiple threads mention that the drive will reject any invalid firmware so there isn't necessarily any harm in attempting it, so I tried downloading the latter - the 4305 update - but since the download was flagged as a virus by Firefox (hopefully a false positive) I thought it best to consult with people on the forum before continuing.

[fzabkar]

Upload the file(s) to virustotal.com.

[SWM]

And VirusTotal determines 50/50...
Checked all files from the archive - clean.
Unpack and start update.bat.
Or TFMWizardApp.exe or TFMWizardApp64.exe, depending on the OS.
I can't add an archive larger than 2 GB to the message...

[napalm_atx]

https://files.hddguru.com/download/Firm ... S-4305.zip It is latest china firmware, it can be installed on oem drive. OEM firmware you can obtain from toshiba support

[aphirst]

Thanks everyone for all your replies.

https://files.hddguru.com/download/Firmware%20updates/Toshiba/fw-disk-toshiba-MG08-S-4305.zip It is latest china firmware, it can be installed on oem drive. OEM firmware you can obtain from toshiba support

Is that the same as the firmware from the .exe installer I mentioned in my first message?
What tool do I need to use to flash it? I may be on the wrong track entirely but I tried using OpenSeaChest but I just got an error, which I think corresponds to the drive rejecting the firmware, though like I say I'm not 100% sure I was doing the right thing.
If the flash fails even via the "right" method, would that eventually be an indication that my drive is not an "OEM" drive? (In that case, what would I have to do then? Did you mean that I'd first have to flash to the OEM firmware?)

[SWM]

MG08ACA14TE_MG08ACA16TE_FWUpd_4305 RePack: https://fex.net/ru/s/lyd7okx
As I understand it, a different FW file format is needed for OpenSeaChest.

[aphirst]

Out of curiosity I told Firefox to allow the download, but it was immediately flagged by Windows Defender. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/th ... 2147742994

Trojan:Win32/Malgent!MSR
Detected by Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Aliases: No associated aliases
Summary

Trojan:Win32/Malgent!MSR is a malware strain used by Diamond Sleet, a North Korean state-sponsored threat actor, in its software hijacking campaigns. The malware is primarily delivered through social engineering attacks using WhatsApp, LinkedIn, OneDrive, and Google Drive, where victims receive *.zip files containing trojanized software. These zip files often use job-related lures, masquerading as legitimate engineering, maintenance technician, or program manager documents. Once the victim runs the software, DLL hijacking occurs, allowing the attacker to install a backdoor, enabling further payload execution and credential theft.

Crikey.

SWM's repack doesn't get flagged up as anything suspicious, but if I run the appropriate wizard and click through, no drives show up in the "select drives" window.

Is there any way to proceed from here?

[SWM]

The easiest thing to do is to disable the driver digital signature check for the duration of the update.
Google will help you with how to do this in your system.
And I don't know if this ancient thing will work in Windows > 10.

[aphirst]

The easiest thing to do is to disable the driver digital signature check for the duration of the update.
Google will help you with how to do this in your system.
And I don't know if this ancient thing will work in Windows > 10.

I appreciate your continued help, but what would disabling the check change? I don't get any errors or anything related to drivers; the tool just doesn't see any drives at all.

[HaQue]

don't know if this is any help: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/toshiba-mg09-how-to-upgrade-the-firmware.40130/page-2

mainly about openseachest, the syntax and directory permission stuff they mention

[aphirst]

don't know if this is any help: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/toshiba-mg09-how-to-upgrade-the-firmware.40130/page-2

mainly about openseachest, the syntax and directory permission stuff they mention

Thanks a bunch. From the thread you linked:

example MG08ACA16TE:
fw 0101 can be upgraded directly
fw 0102 cannot be upgraded directly

Since mine are on 0102 too, I wonder whether I should go make an account over there, post a quick something and follow the thread...?

[SWM]

TFMWizardApp on my Windows 7 x32 and Windows 10 x64 it shows all the disks in the system. Even SSD and HDD via an additional Asmedia controller.
On Windows 7 I have digital signature verification disabled (this is necessary for my tasks), on 10 - I don't remember.
This should load: TFMDriver....sys, but the signature certificate there is outdated.
You can add this certificate to the certificate store, but I don't remember if this will help.

[vad]

Hi, I came across this thread with similar questions. I'll be using the disk standalone or in Linux software RAID. Maybe the fixed edge-cases won't hit me?

TLDR: Where's the 0103 firmware at?
Below I simply recollect the information currently available.

My HDD:
Not branded Toshiba MG08ACA14TE; product overview incl. model numbers, manual
Part No.: HDEPX11GEA51
Firmware: 0102
Rev. no. A1
Date: 20210620

I'm not sure what the difference to a -TEY model is (apparently Sanitize Instant Erase - model numbers). Are the firmwares are generally cross-compatible?
SmartHDD shows helpful firmware version stats:

Code:

Version   Prevalence
0102   36.364%
4303   36.364%
0103   9.091%
4305   9.091%
0101   4.545%
4002   4.545%

Apparently these are two different branches, since I'm on 0102, I need only 0103?
My HDD is not branded, the only eligible firmware download I see on HDDGuru is for TJ85 from Lenovo and links here: https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?t=42637

Dell has a 16TB -TEY firmware here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us ... erid=wtndc
- Serial-ATA_Firmware_WTNDC_WN64_GC04_A00.EXE
- Serial-ATA_Firmware_WTNDC_LN64_GC04_A00.BIN
And the changelog is apparently the same as 0103?

frontwing has the full changelog in Chinese for 4305 here (archive.org)

(1) Fixed the issue where drive incorrectly reported delay errors as BCRC errors.
(2) Fixed the issue where the write command was executed twice internally, causing a BCRC error or SATA I/F protocol error.
(3) Fixed an issue where host commands could cause an abort error if there was a conflict between background processing and host command processing
(4) Fixed the issue where the standby or sleep command could cause the drive to hang in certain rare circumstances.
(5) Fixed the data comparison error problem caused by the power failure protection failure of the Flush Cache command writing data after the power is turned off.
(6) Fixed a data comparison error with incorrect cache registration information that occurred during retry during pre-reading
(7) Fixed a data comparison error when power is turned off because the Flushcache command returns a response without data protection
(8) Fixed a problem that caused the drive to hang at certain times and in rare command modes
(9) Fixed the issue where the RESET command hangs after the Standby command, which includes multiple retries to flush cache data to the Media Cache.
(10) Fixed the issue where when the SCT timer is limited to less than or equal to 1 second, an SCT timeout occurs after a cache refresh command within 1 second, causing a protocol error.
(11) Fixed the issue where the data could not be transferred when the read data was found in the cache data.
(12) Fixed motor driver settings for counter recovery timeout from Idle-C state
(13) Fixed the initialization sequence in the boot sequence
(14) Changes to avoid registering CRC errors in the SMART error log
(15) Fixed the long command delay issue when deep read retry occurred
(16) Improved the latency of read verification commands

(1) Changing the Patrol Seek conditions to improve low IO performance
(2) Changed the process of searching for tracks without LBA assignment during ATI (adjacent track interference) scan
(3) Changed to use Flush Cache command to save ATI management information
(4) Disable the learning function that activates the vibration mode selection during the ATI refresh sequence
(5) Improved read retry handling during ATI refresh
(6) Added more checks to prevent the HDD from referencing the wrong current servo frame number.
(7) Improved ATI count when writing 2 tracks

Finally there's a thread over at Computerbase from 2 years ago, user has the 0103 firmware with TOSHIBA MG08ACA16TE but was missing the update tool

[napalm_atx]

Hi, I came across this thread with similar questions. I'll be using the disk standalone or in Linux software RAID. Maybe the fixed edge-cases won't hit me?
Finally there's a thread over at Computerbase from 2 years ago, user has the 0103 firmware with TOSHIBA MG08ACA16TE but was missing the update tool

Do you have firmware? Can you share it? You can use SeaChest_Firmware to download it to drive