I had been receiving the "Error: Specific model not found. ST31000340AS expected" message on both the first and second versions of the released firmware updates. It turns out that this was due to having my drives connected to a SAS controller, rather than a SATA controller. Switching the drive to a SATA controller allowed the firmware update to proceed as normally. Hopefully this will help any one else who might be making the same mistake.
By the way, customer service was entirely unhelpful in solving this. I told them I was using a SAS controller and couldn't install the update. Their advice was to try installing the update. (What?!). Then they suggested I send the drive back (I just received it last week as a warranty exchange, after the first one bricked).
