Hi,
I was working onsite at an EDU site today troubleshooting a windows AD network of dell960 machines. I was rebuilding one as a test machine, installing windows, all updated drivers, BIOS and firmware. The machines are old, but actually quite fine for this limited budget and requirements site.. so no need to say anything about that part of it. Reports of frequent crashes mainly what I was solving. I discovered BIOS was at revision A05, A18 was available, the slimline DVD had a firmware update and so did the HDD.

After all updated and windows from fresh etc, machines running great.

Issue: the HDD update was a cd image, and after booting with it, the dos screen flashed quickly and update success posted almost instantly. I don't know how long the process of firmware update should have been, but I wanted to see a before version and after. The problem was I needed a util to show me firmware version of unpatched machine while onsite. As far as I could tell, DMDE, MSinfo32, WD Datalife tools etc show only the firmware version but not the revision.
on this page http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=R269603&fileId=2731113841&osCode=WLH&productCode=optiplex-960&languageCode=EN&categoryId=SA, firmware version is listed as Version 02.03E02, A03. everything I tried showed version as Version 02.03E02 and both unpatched and patched show the same. I am guessing the revision of the unpatched may be either A01 or A02, or the units are already at that version, but I cant tell.

anyone still reading can tell me a util I can take on site to corporate environment to tell me actual revision?

"A03" appears to be Dell's internal reference for this update. I doubt that it is used by WD.

I would extract the "wd3004.exe" file from the update, unpack it with UPX, and then search the unpacked file for "A03". I suspect you won't find it.

Analysis of a Western Digital firmware update:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php? ... 776&p=2807

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks Franc. So that means whats displayed in DMDE is the full version, and by that, these disks were already there? I thought of another way by editing the firmware update batch the display versions and pause instead of auto updating and completing silently.
Thanks a lot for the link, very useful.

It appears that this is another one of those annoying utilities that give you no feedback. I looked for command line switches, but there are only 2.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

If you search for firmware updates for Dell's MD3000/MD3000i SANs, you will find that each update consists of a package of updates for several models and brands of HDD. The overall package bears Dell's version number in the form of Ann.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I would comment-out the following two lines in FLASH.BAT. You might also like to delete the ECHO-ing of blank lines.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks a lot guys, I'll report back on putting this thread to bed, cheers!

I used Francs method of editing the batch. It told me version was 02.03E02 and message "Drive already updated"

this was on machines I hadn't applied patch to as well, so looks like someone did it.. which is strange as no-one generally installs firmware in Edu sites.

WDmarvel showed the version, but I still wasn't sure exactly what the whole firmware string was and if the A03 meant anything. On the drive label the firmware is listed as simply "A0"

ISTM that you may be confusing the firmware version on the label with the version reported via the ATA Identify Device command. AIUI, they are not the same thing. Your drive probably left the factory with 02.03E02 firmware.

Here is the retail version of your drive (WD1600AAJS-00M0A0):

http://mlb-s1-p.mlstatic.com/placa-logi ... 2014-F.jpg

Here is Dell's OEM version (WD1600AAJS-75M0A0):

http://www.harddriveexperts.com/images/ ... _DRIVE.JPG

I suspect that the "DP/N" may be Dell's Part Number, 0U717D.

I believe that the firmware version, "A0", may be reflected in the last two characters of the model number suffix, "75M0A0".

According to the following document, "the model number suffix (characters to the right of the dash following the model number) is only for in-house use. Refer to Change Administration’s Model Specification (document number 2096-000101)."

Model Number Format for OEM and Distribution Channels:
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/F ... 001028.pdf

I haven't seen WD's internal document, but here is an explanation in Russian:
http://www.acelab.ru/dep.pc/doc.pc3000d ... in-N-2.pdf

Here is Google's English translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... in-N-2.pdf

In your case the suffix appears to decode as follows:

75 = Dell's Customer ID
M0 = family identifier = WDC DISK MODEL-PINCLITE- (from unpacked Wd3004.EXE)
A0 = Customer Configuration Code aka "firmware version"

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A backup a day keeps DR away.