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

[FBongor]

I very much want to know how to get the serial interface adapter.

[fzabkar]

FBongor, the most common approach appears to be to use a Nokia CA-42 cable and then cut off the phone end. This means you then need to find the Tx/Rx/Ground wires. A simpler solution may be to locate a ready-made USB-TTL RS232 converter that has the Tx/Rx/Gnd wires already terminated.

For example, you could search for a cable that uses the Prolific PL-2303HX bridge IC. Make sure its output level is +3.3V rather than +5V.

Instructions for communicating with the drive's serial console port are here:
http://sites.google.com/site/seagatefix/

The author uses a different interface cable (for those computers with a genuine serial port), but otherwise the setup is the same. The only command you need to type is Ctrl-L ("sign-on").

You should then see something like in the following threads:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda-XT-Barracuda-Barracuda/7200-12-cant-update-Firmware-from-CC38...
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda-XT-Barracuda-Barracuda/ST31000524AS-firmware-JC45-JC4B-or-JC4...
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda-XT-Barracuda-Barracuda/A-flash-of-stupidity-killed-my-7200-11...

[larsahlstrom]

Hi,

Excuse me if i interfere!     Excuse my swinglish too, i am from Stockholm.

I have a question that I want to have some light on.
Simply this:  What is the difference between my CC4C firmware drives and the CC9C firmware drives.
Serials are for my 4C pair: W24 & S1F    and my 9C pair : Z2F & Z24

I do have a problem with this chirp noise. It will be gone with firmware CC4H
But nobody has yet succeeded to update a CC9C drive!

My 4C pair is disk 1 & 2 in a QNAP server. And the 9C is disk 3 & 4.   They are running in a RAID5.
Now, when starting this server, the 9C pair wont boot, until they are warm.  Disk lights are flashing RED and nr 4 is then blank.
Until power-on #3...then drive 4 is sleepingly starting to eat breakfast and goes to work... a CC9C drive.

So I will replace the 9C drives with 4C drives now, and upgrade them alla to 4H (latest DM001 firmaware)
The chirp noise is this:   http://soundcloud.com/user3445428/weird-chirp-sound-seagate  And it is gone with 4H.

So, again...what is a CC9C drive? No upgrades, and unstable, if you ask me.  ANd I have scanned the board thoroghly after successstories, and found only "like this one above" stories.

When the drive has come to work, it woorks fine in RAID5, the server gets data backups in average 100MB/sec. (Mbyte)
But I am really afraid of the MTBF value. It could be a coldwash.

Thanks in advance for any input!



Best regards,

Lars 

[fzabkar]

Here is the upgrade matrix for CC4H firmware:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/GR-CC4H.TXT

The documentation has a slight error in that it states that "previous versions of firmware with these models and part numbers are CC46, CC47, CC49, CC4C, or CC4G". In fact the update matrix also includes CC4B.

Once again, CC48 (and CC4D) are excluded, so it appears that there is something peculiar about this version.

As for the differences between CC9C and CC4C, I have no idea except to reiterate that there are references to MC, DT, and SBS in the earlier CC4C/CC4D/CC9D update. These acronyms appear to refer to particular features. If you could run SeaTools for Windows against each of your drives, then you will find a *.ATA file, where the asterisk is the drive's serial number. These ATA files contain 512 bytes of Identify Device data that may help us uncover the differences in the feature sets. In order for SeaTools to see your drives, you may need to configure them in JBOD mode.

As for the serial numbers, you didn't say whether your drives were 2TB or 3TB. Could you also tell us the manufacturing site. That may help us understand the meaning of S, W, and Z.

[perkinma]

Hi fzabkar, thought I might try and help the discussion a bit here. I have several ST2000DM001 drives that are brand new. The drive cases are labelled firmware CC9C however examination with SeaTools shows that they are actually firmware CC9D even though they are brand new and I have not flashed their firmware.

I couldn't get SeaTools for Windows to work on my systems, but did get SeaTools for Dos to run. Except couldn't find a *.ata file, just a *.log file.

Is there another way to get the Identify Device data you are looking for, for example using ESTools or HDAT2?

In case it is the information you are after, the log file contained the following (serial numbers removed).

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v2.23 ---------------

Device 0 is Seagate Device ST2000DM001-9YN164  SERIALNO       On Intel ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R Max Native Address 3907029167 Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Number of LBAs 3907029167 ( 2000.399 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 11  Current Temp 34

Started Short DST  6/9/2012 @ 19:12.42 DST Completed Without Error Short DST PASSED  6/9/2012 @ 19:13.45 --------------- SeaTools for DOS v2.23 ---------------

Device 0 is Seagate Device ST2000DM001-9YN164  SERIALNO       On Intel ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R Max Native Address 3907029167 Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Number of LBAs 3907029167 ( 2000.399 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 11  Current Temp 34

Started Short DST  6/9/2012 @ 19:15.17 DST Completed Without Error Short DST PASSED  6/9/2012 @ 19:16.21 --------------- SeaTools for DOS v2.23 ---------------

Device 0 is Seagate Device ST2000DM001-9YN164  SERIALNO       On Intel ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R Max Native Address 3907029167 Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Number of LBAs 3907029167 ( 2000.399 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 11  Current Temp 34

Started Long Test  6/9/2012 @ 19:16.30 DST Completed Without Error Short DST PASSED  6/9/2012 @ 22:45.02 Long Test PASSED  6/9/2012 @ 22:45.02

[perkinma]

Ok, finally got SeaTools for Windows to work.

Have got the *.ata file, have taken the serial number out of the file name but couldn't work out how to remove the serial number from within the body of the *.ata file. If someone could advise that would be appreciated.

Have attached regardless for now. Hope this helps, if you need any further info on these drives / CC9D firmware please let me know.

[fzabkar]

perkinma, I have reformatted your Identify Device data here (serial number removed):
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/ST2000DM001.TXT

Refer to section 7.16.7 of the following document for an explanation of each data word.

Working Draft AT Attachment 8 - ATA/ATAPI Command Set (ATA8-ACS):
http://www.t13.org/documents/UploadedDocuments/docs2008/D1699r6a-ATA8-ACS.pdf

Having said that, I confess that I don't recognise anything that would explain the difference between CC9x and CC4x firmware. It would be better to have two sets of data for comparison purposes, but I'm not sure that even this would help us.

However, what I did find was that there are numerous references to "MC" in the *.LOD files within the update package. These occur in the context of references to "Media Cache", so I suspect that one difference may be that Media Cache is disabled in the CC9x versions and enabled in the CC4x versions. I don't know what this means in terms of performance, though.

[perkinma]

Thanks fzabkar. I'm keen to see if I can do a force firmware update to the CC4H branch of firmware. However I will try and get a serial cable working first so that I can extract more info if necessary to minimise the likelihood of bricking a drive. It might take a couple of weeks but will post further when I have the interface cable working.

[perkinma]

Hi fzabkar. I have finally got the serial interface cable working. Here is the response to a ctrl+z then ctrl+l:

Boot 0x40M

 Spin Up[0x000065B4][0x00006A20][0x00006E8C]

 Trans.

Rst 0x40M

 MC Internal LPC Process

 Spin Up

(P) SATA Reset

 MCMainPOR: Start:

 MCMainPOR: Non-Init Case

 MC Seg Disc and Cache Nodes:  40125B20  40122EF8

 Seg Write Preamble VBM start: 0000204A end: 00002091

  Footer - start: 00002093 end: 000020DA

 Seg Read Preamble VBM - start: 000020DC end: 00002123

  Footer - start: 00002125 end: 0000216C

 MCMainPOR: MCTBufferPtr->Header.MCStateFlagsDisc = 00020001

 MCMainPOR: MCTBufferPtr->Header.MCTStateFlags = 0000000A

 MCMainPOR: MCStateFlags = 00020001

 MCMainPOR: MC off and MCMT empty

 MCMainPOR: EXCEPTION: POR Failed General

 MCMainPOR: Feature Disabled...

 PowerState = IDLE1

 PowerState = IDLE2C!

                     A5disabled by SPort

ASCII Diag mode

F3 T>

 HighPowerMode Status 0001 Req 0027

Grenada Luxor 2.1 RAP22 - GR Hda DH, DETCR, 4K Zest

Product FamilyId: 58, MemberId: 03

HDA SN: ########, RPM: 7199, Wedges: 188, Heads: 5, OrigHeads: A, Lbas: 00001D273EAC, PreampType: B4 53

PCBA SN: ############, Controller: LUXORL_2_1( 202)(FF-FF-FF-FF), Channel: ITERATIVE, PowerAsic: MCKINLEY DESKTOP LITE Rev 15, BufferBytes: 4000000

Package Version: GR753D.CCD9.AY0AAL.CC9D    , Package P/N: 100698760, Package Global ID: 00410638,

Package Build Date: 01/06/2012, Package Build Time: 16:03:27, Package CFW Version: GR75.CCD9.00417868.00410638,

Package SFW1 Version: D39A, Package SFW2 Version: ----, Package SFW3 Version: ----, Package SFW4 Version: ----

Controller FW Rev: 01061603, CustomerRel: CC9D, Changelist: 00417868, ProdType: GR75.CCD9, Date: 01/06/2012, Time: 160327, UserId: 00410638

Servo FW Rev: D39A

RAP FW Implementation Key: 16, Format Rev: 0002, Contents Rev: 61 02 00 00

Features:

- Quadradic Equation AFH enabled

- VBAR with adjustable zone boundaries enabled

- Volume Based Sparing enabled

- IOEDC enabled

- IOECC enabled

- DERP Read Retries enabled v. 3.8.00.0000000000001FF7

- LTTC-UDR2 disabled

 MC Internal LPC Process

edit: forgot to remove s/n.

[perkinma]

Now, not to pretend that I actually really understand the contents of the file - but if I understand correctly this drive currently uses the GRCC9D6H.LOD file. Now I assume that the CC9D part is the firmware version and the 6H refers to heads (and assuming 5 or 6 head drives both use the 6 head firmware), so if I wanted to get to CC4H firmware the correct force firmware command for this drive would be:

FDL497A -m Grenada -f GRCC4H6H.LOD -i ST2000DM001 -s -x -b -v -a 20

fzabkar, have I got this right? If you could assist and guide on the next steps it would be greatly appreciated.