Hi and thank you for the great community!

I have a 4TB SATA HDD, Dell-branded, model ST4000NM0035, manufactured by Seagate.

I would like to update its firmware, but am having a tough time.
Some notes:

I noticed some strange noise and looked it up online. It seems that this is a common issue with these drives, which is fixed with a firmware update:
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/commen ... g_strange/

Seagate does offer some updates, despite finding none in the initial search:
https://www.seagate.com/content/dam/sea ... N-TN05.zip

However, my drive has a firmware revision DA03 and an exact Model Number ST4000NM0035-1V4107.
Seagate explicitly mention that their firmware update (.LOD file) is not suitable as this drive has Dell-specific firmware.

I found two newer firmware updates on Dell's webpage: DA05 and DA06.

I would like to flash the latter, but their download links contain only EXE files for Windows, or a BIN file for Red Hat Enterprise Linux:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us ... erId=R100W

I downloaded the latter, and tried to run it on RHEL (Dell Support Live Image v. 3.0), but it failed.
The same happened when running on current stable Debian.

Dell Nautilus Firmware Update Utility A22 detected a firmware update, but it also failed with some unclear error code:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us ... erId=9RP29

I extracted the firmware file using:


I now have the .FWH file under
Nevertheless, it is not compatible with Seagate's openSeaChest_Firmware and SeaChest_Firmware.

As explained by fzabkar,
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php ... wh#p295472

So it seems that the .LOD file can be extracted from the .FWH file.
How to do this, such that I can use it in openSeaChest_Firmware and update the HDD's firmware successfully?

I am thinking of something like:


This was suggested by chatGPT and it does seem to remove just the header, but is it correct?

Many thanks in advance!

Kind regards,
dando

It's very easy to brick HDD with the wrong update...

Many thanks for your fast response, SWM!

What is the chance to brick the HDD with the firmware file you kindly attached?

In the meantime, I made some investigations.

First, I compared the DA06 FWH file (DELL, Seagate_MakaraBP_DA06.fwh) to the TN05 LOD file (Seagate, MakaraBPEntCapSATA-STD-512N-TN05.LOD). It seems that the common part starts after 208 bytes, i.e., this should be the length of the DELL header:


Next, I compared the .LOD file you provided to the .FWH file by DELL.
It seems to have the leading 272 Bytes removed instead:


If desired, I can also attach the firmware files.
However, they can be downloaded:
1. Dell DA06: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us ... erid=r100w
2. Seagate TN05: https://www.seagate.com/content/dam/sea ... N-TN05.zip

Many thanks in advance!

I cut out for you a piece that HDD understands on command 92H "Download microcode".
I did not study the update headers from different manufacturers.
If the loader does not fit, HDD will not accept it. But often HDD is damaged by an update when the process is interrupted (power outage, reset), or when HDD has a faulty recording in service area.

@SWM, I see what you've done, and your edited Dell LOD file does match Seagate's earlier retail versions. However, I notice that the latest Seagate retail LOD version (TN05) has an extra 64-byte header. That's what is confusing the OP, and it confuses me, too.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

fzabkar, It's very possible that I'm wrong. I have nothing to test it on. Sorry.
The whole question here is, for whom are these 64 bytes. For HDD or for the new update program...

the extra 64 bytes are needed in signed LODs.

_________________
Adatmentés - Data recovery

pepe, Thanks, we'll know.

Thank you very much for the discussion!

I tried to update the firmware with the provided LOD file by SWM.
This was not successful, unfortunately:


This was when using the latest openSeaChest_Firmware from github:
https://github.com/Seagate/openSeaChest

I also tried with an older version of SeaChest_Firmware, the one included in the Seagate update package:


In the meantime, I tried updating from within Windows with the official packages by Dell.
This did not work, with the same error message as when using the Linux package.
What is interesting is that this was on a Dell machine, albeit the SATA HDD was directly attached to the motherboard with no HBA or other cards in between.

Kind regards,
dando

Header of signed LOD


Header of unsigned LOD


Signature at end of LOD


Could the unsigned LOD have been rejected because it was too long (because of the signature)?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

size does not matter, at least not in this way. But missing critical objects from the LOD does.

_________________
Adatmentés - Data recovery

The signed firmware posted by SWM was flashed successfully!

SWM, fzabkar, pepe, many thanks for all your invaluable contributions to the discussion!

As a conclusion:
The leading 208 bytes from the DA06 FWH file (DELL, Seagate_MakaraBP_DA06.fwh) correspond to the the DELL header. After stripping them, the firmware is signed and valid for the update.

This can be achieved with the following command in Linux:


Afterwards, openSeaChest_Firmware can be used for flashing.

Once again, many thanks!

All the best,
dando

Error that I am getting while issuing command
--fwdownload in Hdparm may be of interest here.
It is Samsung SSD 850 PRO in safe mode by connecting two separated pins on the board.
"dparm --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing --please-destroy-my-drive --fwdownload-mode7 /media/sdb1 RI_PM863_GA38 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
RI_PM863_GA38.fwh: file size (1049024) not a multiple of 512"


RI_PM863_GA38.fwh File is taken from Dell update package for this model Samsung 850 pro 512Gb
It wont recognize it in Samasung Fw utility nor execute secure erase command.
It is signed as Samsung SSD 0000 model.
I am also receiving errors with samsung.py script for decoding original fw package.
Is someone would help me here I would be thankful.

Strip off Dell's header.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

"dd if=Seagate_MakaraBP_DA06.fwh of=Seagate_MakaraBP_DA06.lod ibs=208 skip=1"

So I can use same command in the Gparted with the name of dell fw but how I will know how how many "ibs" to cut?
Is it there some other program to open it and see it like on thef images on the previous posts?
Thanks.
"failed to open ri..(Dell file)"
Stuck again.

I don't know the size of the header in your case. It's not always the same. You need to make an intelligent assessment, preferably by comparison with standard Samsung firmware payloads.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I see it somewhere before and I can calculate with multiplier of 512 from error message but it will be simple if you can upload origin decoded file from Samsung fw like on the github site od samsung py script because "dd" command wont open Dell fw file.
https://github.com/chrivers/samsung-firmware-magic

Could you please just upload EXM04B6Q_10170217.enc > EXM04B6Q_10170217.bin

It is simple because I am receiving errors both with opening Dell fw file and encoding Samsung origin fw file.
What is Linu distro that will work here and may be I can use size of your uploaded file for later model of Samsung SSD from this topic:

EXT0DB6Q.enc.decoded.7z [306.01 KiB]

svetoklik,