SAMSUNG HD103UJ - LBA-48 disabled

[dro]

Hi everyone,

Using Samsung's estool I disabled LBA48 support to aforementioned drive (yes, I know...), thinking I could just enable it again the same way. The drive is now recognised as 137GB RAW, and estool refuses to re-enable LBA48 with an error. HDAT2 also fails with error. HDD Capacity Restore also fails ("is not accessible or damaged in some way. Therefore factory capacity cannot be recovered. Please try this program on another platform")

Now, according to info I've found looking for a solution, there is a bug in the drive firmware preventing re-enabling LBA38, so I'm basically screwed.

But before I give up, I see there is some newer firmware for the drive floating around (not easy to find...), like A001AC00017. Is it possible that a newer firmware fixes the problem mentioned in previous post and will allow me to re-enable LBA48? Or even that simply updating the firmware would fix the problem by reverting to factory defaults? Or will it just make matters worse?
(I have heard stories of people's perfectly working drives getting bricked by firmware upgrades.)
Drive is HD103UJ, firmware 1AA01113, serial S13PJ90S318743.

It is frustrating to know that there is nothing wrong with the drive itself, the data is there and it just refuses to divulge it...

Thanks in advance for any help,

Dimitris

[BlackST]

Updating firmware usually doesn't change user configuration and LBA48 is a user-configurable parameter.
Easy to fix with specialized gear or knowing what to do, don't know if there is a way with free stuff.
The worst scenario is if the configuration overlay is screwed, then there is no other option than pro help.
In any case data is safe and sound in the drive as long as you don't tinker with it, and it *should* be a cheap job.