Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

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Derf321
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Derf321
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Registered: ‎06-27-2012
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Any possible way to update firmware via USB?

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‎06-27-2012 04:53 PM

Before you say anything about the FAQ, I know that "It is not supported or recommended to attempt to update the firmware while connected via a USB, eSATA or FireWire interface. We only recommend the update while connected through a SATA interface."

 

I know it's not recommended, but it's my only option for my situation.

 

My situation:

I have a ST31000333AS SATA internal hard-drive. Due to the plague of bad firmware, the drive fails to be recognized by the BIOS when directly connected and the drive is only usable when put in a GoFlex USB enclosure. I am just borrowing the GoFlex from a friend, so I was wondering if it is possible to update the firmware via the USB enclosure. The drive only has music on it, and no operating system so I cannot run the firmware update utility from the disk. I already tried the update via burning an ISO to a CD, but it fails to see the drive through the USB enclosure. I'd very much like to save this drive!

 

Any help is appreciated!

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Derf321
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Derf321
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Re: Any possible way to update firmware via USB?

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‎06-29-2012 10:14 AM

Please anyone reply!

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Yottabyte
fzabkar
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Registered: ‎01-27-2009
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Re: Any possible way to update firmware via USB?

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‎07-02-2012 03:48 PM

If your drive has been affected by the 7200.11 firmware bug, then a firmware update won't fix it.

As for it being detected in a GoFlex USB enclosure, is Device Manager showing the USB mass storage device or is it detecting the drive inside the box? It could be that you are seeing the USB-SATA bridge IC inside the GoFlex enclosure.

Note also that the GoFlex is configured with 4KB LBAs rather than 512 bytes. This means that the file system on any internal drive that was formatted inside a Windows PC will be inaccesible when the drive is installed in a GoFlex box.

As for your question regarding a firmware update via USB, I don't believe this is possible. In any case Seagate's updater appears to look for a SATA or PATA controller. RAID and USB do not appear to be supported. In fact USB mass storage devices use SCSI-like commands rather than ATA commands, so I wonder if firmware updates via USB are possible at all, under any circumstances.

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