I have upgraded a Seagate ST31500341AS from firmware SD19 to CC1H and now it is Locked. I had it running on my PC for about 6 months (NTFS) without a password then thought I'd upgrade my NAS. I bought two more of the drives which came with firmware CC1H. I put the new disks in the NAS then flashed the old drive and added it to the array - it never initialised.

I have tried various utils like MHDD to try to unlock it by entering "master" passwords but no luck.

My drive is P/N: 9JU138-300 and I am wondering if perhaps it is not meant to run CC1H firmware though I thought the Seagate Firmware Update Utility checked suitability before applying it.

Anyhow. I have seen that the Seagate Firmware Update Utility (SF.exe) has various switches available and was wondering if any of these will enable me to force a downgrade of the firmware. I'd like to flash it with firmware SD1A or SD1B but so far the boot floppy or boot cd's from Seagate tell me "model matched" but "no firmware match!" and it terminates saying "will not download firmware"

I was hoping to force a firmware downgrade to get it running again but I can't figure out the switches in SF.exe

I have also tried to perform a secure erase which I thought also wiped the HD password. I tried HDD Erase from cmrr.ucsd.edu but it never detects the drive.

Well for once I backed up but I'd appreciate any help.

thanks

Hello,

At this point, the best what you can do is RMA the drives.
HDDs are not like cell phones, you can't flash or upgrade the FW.
The FW have a lot of calibration, and adaptive data as well.
If you updated with wrong version, maybe this drive will never work again...

Janos

With all due respect you can flash the firmware and it is not unusual to do so.
The firmware update is issued by the drive manufacturer for this very purpose. It is normal to only do it if you need to (bug fix) and normally there are no feature benefits.

HP & Dell issue Firmware upgrade CD's/DVD's that perform firmware updates on built servers including hard drives in RAID arrays and they work very effectively.

I guess you know more then average forum member, why do you even ask?

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www.datarecoveryne.com

hddl.exe would help you

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SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

From Seagate website about the latest SDXX FW's

Note: If your drive has CC firmware, your drive is not affected and no further action is required. Attempting to flash the firmware of a drive with CC firmware will result in rendering your drive inoperable.

So if you reverse this you could say

"Note: If your drive has SD firmware, attempting to flash the firmware of a drive to CC firmware will result in rendering your drive inoperable." Like you have

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

@Guru...

quote :

"Remember what happens in the Lab, stays in the Lab. Except for herpes. That s***'ll come back with you."

Do you have a lab in Vegas too ?

Yes "Golden Nugget Recovery Service" surprised you never heard of us

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

changed my signature.. Bit bored with it now

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

Golden Nugget... ah yes... they are the competitors of another member of this forum... I remember their advertisement : Golden Nugget Data Recovery - We Gamble with YOUR data

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www.datarecoveryne.com

looool

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

We are not competitors, we just on opposite ends of the country, therefore we have opposite slogans!

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www.datarecoveryne.com

Thanks Doomer, I will try, nice to see someone could actually be bothered to help.

Nothing to do with HDDs but I remember two stores on opposite sides of the street and few meters / feet away from each other :

1) "If you need it, we have it"

2) "If we don't have it, you don't need it"

You can probably flash the drive back to original code if you have the FW file?

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

IMO it is possible to revert changes done assuming some VERY IMPORTANT PARTS of the FW were not touched. But I am what I am.
It made me curious... I will do an experiment this evening, I have a lot of spare time....