Updating hard disk firmware & parking hard disk

[Gijs Hillenius <gijs@hillenius.net>]

>>>>> Frank Sorenson writes:

     > Martin Knoblauch wrote:
    >> Download is simple, just don't use the "IBM Download
    >> Manager". Main problem is that one needs a bootable floopy
    >> drive and "the other OS" to create a bootable floppy. It would
    >> be great if IBM could provide floppy images for use with "dd"
    >> for the poor Linux users.

     > You may be able to use this process to avoid using either a
     > floppy drive or "the other OS":

     > 1) Download the appropriate firmware exe from
     > http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-41008
     > (in my case, this looks like fwhd3313.exe)

     > 2) Find a freedos disk image (I used one that came with
     > biosdisk - http://linux.dell.com/biosdisk/)

     > 3) Create a disk image for the firmware executable: cp
     > /usr/share/biosdisk/dosdisk.img /tmp/fwdisk1.img mount -oloop
     > /tmp/fwtemp.img /mnt/tmp cp fwhd3313.exe /mnt/tmp umount
     > /mnt/tmp

     > 4) Create a blank disk image for the extracted contents: dd
     > if=/dev/zero of=/boot/fwdisk.img bs=1474560 count=1

     > 5) Run qemu to extract files and write the disk image: qemu
     > -fda /tmp/fwtemp.img -fdb /boot/fwdisk.img A:\>fwhd3313 ...
     > exit qemu

     > 6) Set up grub to boot the new disk image (requires memdisk
     > from syslinux - http://syslinux.zytor.com/): $EDITOR
     > /boot/grub/grub.conf title IBM Hard Drive Firmware update
     > kernel /memdisk initrd=/fwdisk.img floppy

     > 7) Reboot and select the "IBM Hard Drive Firmware update"
     > option


     > It allowed me to run the firmware update program, however it
     > didn't believe my drive needed updating, so I haven't even
     > successfully tried the entire process.  Please let me know if
     > it works for you.

     > DISCLAIMER: I also provide no guarantees.  Hopefully your hard
     > disk won't fly off the spindle or anything else bad.  If it
     > does, blame someone else.

Hi Frank,

FYI I succesfully used your above method to update the firmware
for the IC25N040ATMR04-0 hard disk that came with my Thinkpad R51. 

Before the update hdparm -i /dev/hda
Model=IC25N040ATMR04-0, FwRev=MO2OAD4A

and after the update
Model=IC25N040ATMR04-0, FwRev=MO2OADEA

So, thanks!

however, the firmware update did not solve the 'head not park'
issue. :-(

sudo ./park /dev/hda
head not parked 4c


Regards

Gijs

-- 
Is it weird in here, or is it just me?
		-- Steven Wright