hard drive firmware? wd1200jb

X

XLShadow

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 14, 2001
Messages
107
I have two western digital 120GB special edition drives, EIDE. i was doing a low level format (or is it called zero fill?) to one preping for a fresh install of windows xp. (I know, writing all zeros is a bit extreme... but thats not my question.) Using the western digital's data lifegaurd tools i happened to notice a large difference between each drives firmware version number. I didn't write the version numbers down but one was 74.x, and the other was 17.x. This came as no suprise to me because one drive IS older then the other by about a year. However the version number gap is extreame. It sparked my curiosity...

Can I upgrade my hard drive firmware? Anyone have experiance doing so?

Western Digitals web page doesn't seem to offer any information on this kinda thing. All the Google searches i try only return hits that involve RAID or PCI IDE controllers. I also attempted the [H]ardforum search, now that it works (thank you [H]ard|OCP :D) but that turned up dry also. I do have experiance hacking BIOS EPA logos and making region free DVD drives via firmware hacks, but i'm not a programer; all i know i've found on google :p
anyone care to humor me?
 
Doing a zero-fill on a drive before a format & reinstall is not extreme, it wipes out the old cruft decently well and saves the old bits from showing through (at least to casual scans; forensic recovery is a whole other level).

Anyway, yes, you can update drive firmware. I'm pretty much all IBM & Seagate here, and both provide updates through their diagnostic tools. Usually the updates come as seperate downloads from the diagnostics but use the same program to do the work. For me it amounts to finding the binary, slapping it on a diskette with the tools, then booting to the diskette and flashing. Two minutes start to finish and it's over with. Generally there's not a lot of need to update the firmware unless there are problems to fix, but you can do so if you like.
 
Yeah no real reason to do it, it's not as vital as say flashing your motherboards bios or anything, but if you are bored why not :)
 
not even an hour goes by and a reply; you guys are great. :) I'll look into the WD data lifeguard tools again later to day and post what happens.
 
Email me and I'll give you a link to an iso file for seagate that I have.


Thanks, Celsius
 
XLShadow said:
not even an hour goes by and a reply; you guys are great. :) I'll look into the WD data lifeguard tools again later to day and post what happens.
Click to expand...


re: Western Digital
there might be a firmware update (depending on the model) employing WDs "in Windows (GUI) Data LifeGuard Tools", but there isnt in the DOS version
but then it would need to "phone home" and would trip the firewall to allow it, but Ive never had it do that, and there are no firmware downloads Im familiar with at the site.

however there is a Firmware Revision category in the drive information table
and Id assume that youd need to update the Lifeguard tools regularly inorder to be aware of any firmware upgrade available, which Ive done, yet Ive never seen one

again, based solely on the models I own
in the category of each LifeGuard version I have, that field is N/A
 
If i could just find a flashing utility for western digital hard drives, i'd attempt to back up the two firmwares that are on each drive now. I'd also try to put, what i belive to be the later firmware (bigger number means later version right :p ) If it didn't work or something went terriably wrong, i'd try to load up the orginal firmware. However, I cannot find any drive firmware downloads on the western digital site, much less a flashing utility. The DLG tools seem to report firmware numbers, but as far as i can tell, do not have a flashing componet. I guess this is for a reason. :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top