juhanuus wrote:
Ok, lets assume the End to end errors are from the SD25 bug.
Would corrupted data on the drive affect flashing? I dont see how since its just data/files on the drive not in the firmware.
Afaik full formating the drive does not touch the firmware in anyway so what reasoning is there to force flash after the format?
My process has been: Flash SD25 to SD28 + Delete old and create new partition + Clean Win install.
Should'nt any possible file corruptions be gone after this? Unless your saying that the first SD28 flash somehow got corrupted because of the bugs in SD25 or smth.
All I'm asking is a credible reasoning for force flashing SD28 to SD28 again.
As far as I understand, if during SD25 some of the drive's sectors got corrupted, that corrupted data got probably pulled into the SSD as well...
If you didn't do a full zero-fill of the drive after flashing to SD28, some corrupted data is still in the SSD. It is a matter of time that the problems resurface with SD28 installed.
Regarding the other part, where the SD28 firmware itself might get also corrupted, when installed on a non-zeroed SD25 drive... I say it because these hybrid drives are much more complex than one thinks at first glance. For a standard HDD it is true that the region containing the firmware data has nothing to do with corrupted LBA data.
However, reasoning from the End-to-End errors, which appear from corrupted data between the HDD RAM cache and the disk surface itself... who knows what is the connection between RAM - SSD - HDD in a hybrid drive, in relation to the firmware. I am pretty sure that part of the firmware (the index list of the pulled data into SSD) is copied into RAM after the drive boots up. If the SSD-pulled data is damaged, the index list gets automatically damaged. This index list is saved back to the FIRMWARE region after the drive is shut down...
By performing a quick partition format, this index list DOES NOT get erased, whether a good or bad firmware is already present.
The only way to be sure that everything gets cleaned is this:
1. zero-fill (Full Erase in SeaTools for DOS - it takes about 4 hours for a 500 GB Momentus XT)
2. (force) flash to SD26/SD28
3. zero-fill again (4 hours)
4. (force) reflash to SD26/SD28
5. install clean OS (and NOT an already corrupted image file...)
I'm not entirely sure that step 1 is necessary. However, steps 2-4 surely must be! (the Zero-fill in step 3 does its job well only on drives with SD26 or SD28)
The main ideea is that nothing is solved if one flashes SD26 or SD28 on a non-zeroed drive (EVEN IF it already has SD26/SD28), since corrupted data might still reside in the SSD.
Replies to my reasoning are welcomed...
