Updating the hard drive firmware. SEAGATE Barracuda ES.2 restoration and firmware (after CC fly). Seagate HDD repair. About what remains behind the scenes
A hard drive, also known as a hard drive, is not such a simple device as it might seem at first glance. Throughout the history of its existence, starting in 1956, drives have undergone a huge number of changes. Now it is not just a plate and read heads, but a whole system with its own logic and software, and therefore, with its own features and secrets. In this article we will try to understand what a modern hard drive is, and also try to expand its standard capabilities for our hacking purposes.
WARNING
All information is provided for informational purposes only. Neither the editors nor the author are responsible for any possible harm caused by the materials of this article.
Electronics HDD
The design of a hard drive is probably known to everyone to some extent. Essentially, these are several plates that rotate at a speed of 15,000 rpm, a positioning device and a control electronics unit. Let's add to this the S.M.A.R.T self-control system. and other intellectual attributes. In short, you can’t figure it out without half a liter, especially since the technology of individual elements is a trade secret.
More than a dozen articles can be devoted to high positioning accuracy, recording density and other subtleties of modern HDDs, but without delving into the mechanics of the disk and the physics of the processes, we will consider the part that is most interesting to us - the electronics.
INFO
In older models of hard drives, some of the functions of the control electronics were taken over by the computer's MFM or RLL controller. But over time, due to the high data transfer rate, it was necessary to shorten the data transmission path, and the developers abandoned this idea.
Patient
So, here we have a board of a typical Western Digital WD5000AAKX hard drive with a capacity of 500 GB (Fig. 1). What we have:
- DRAM chip. It is not of interest as such; the manual can be easily found on the Internet. The memory of these chips ranges from 8 to 64 MB and corresponds to the size of the hard drive cache.
- Spindle motor controller. Responsible for controlling the mechanics, regulates power and has some analogue/digital channels. There are no manuals for the Smooth L7251 3.1 chip, but you can try looking for similar chips.
- Flash memory. Some hard drives do not have a microcircuit, but flash memory is sometimes built into the disk controller chip. Typically has a size ranging from 64 to 256 KB. Used to store the program from which the hard disk controller boots.
- And the most interesting thing for us is the hard drive controller. They are produced by Marvell, ST, LSI and others. Some hard drive companies make their own controllers, such as Samsung and Western Digital.
The hard drive controller is designed to manage conversion operations and data exchange from the read/write heads to the drive interface. Unfortunately, Marvell does not want to make documentation for its products publicly available. Well, let's try to figure it out ourselves.
Let's dig deeper
Our foreign colleague Jeroen “Sprite_tm” Domburg found an interesting way out of this situation - to study the controller, he used the JTAG interface (from the English Joint Test Action Group). This interface is designed for testing and debugging printed circuit boards. That is, using JTAG we can easily connect to a device of interest to us that supports the IEEE 1149 standard. A test port (TAP - Test Access Port) is integrated into the chip, consisting of four or five pins: TDI, TDO, TMS, TCK and, possibly, TRST. The location of these pins for the Marvell controller was found by someone dex, who kindly shared the results on the HDDGURU forum.
Jeroen found out that Western Digital controllers have an ARM core accessible via a JTAG port. And also a serial port, which is not usually used, but may be useful for our purposes.
To study the hard drive controller, we used the FT2232H board, which can be ordered online for 30 euros. It supports JTAG, serial communication, as well as SPI. To work with it, the OpenOCD program was used.
As a result, it turned out that the chip has as many as three cores. Two Feroceons, which are fairly strong ARM9-like cores, and a Cortex-M3, which is a bit weaker. All kernels have different purposes:
- Feroceon 1 handles physical read/write to the hard drive;
- Feroceon 2 - processes the SATA interface, cache and converts LBA to CHS;
- Cortex-M3 - purpose unknown. You can simply stop it, but the hard drive will continue to work.
Welcome, or No Trespassing
Since we set ourselves the goal of using the hard drive for our own insidious purposes, it’s time to think about upgrading its firmware. The simplest and probably hardest to detect method is to change the data on the fly. To do this, you need to find a suitable kernel - a kernel that has access to the data traveling between the drive and the SATA cable.
To access the core, you can use DMA (Direct Memory Access) mode. This is a mode when data exchange occurs directly from the read head to memory, without the active participation of the processor. The same applies to the SATA port: the processor only needs to tell it where the data is and the DMA logic will take care of reading the information directly from memory.
The source of information in this case will be the cache memory of the hard drive due to its good location: data read from the disk will be in the cache, so they can be immediately copied from there.
The method is quite complicated - it is inconvenient to connect via JTAG every time and poke around in the cache while the hard drive is running. Instead, to maintain access without connecting an additional board, you can reflash the flash memory chip by unsoldering it and connecting it to the programmer.
However, it would be difficult to modernize the code due to the unknown compression algorithm; instead, you can simply change the execution address and add a special block that will be read before the rest. This makes things a little easier.
As a result of his research, Jeroen created a tool called fwtool, which can dump various blocks in flash and translate the code into a text file. Then you can change, delete or add a block and reassemble everything in one firmware file, which can then be easily loaded into flash.
Changing the firmware
Such manipulations with a hard drive require considerable effort, and it is unlikely that anyone will voluntarily give up their drive for hacking. Therefore, it would be nice to find a way to flash the hard drive without any extraneous devices or removing the chip.
Western Digital has special software utilities for working with hard drives - these are tools that run under DOS and can load new firmware for a controller, flash memory chip, or service partition. The tools use so-called Vendor Specific Commands (VSC), however, more on that later.
There is also a set of tools called idle3-tools that you can use to modify your hard drive firmware. It also uses VSC using Linux SCSI PassThrough IOCTLs. Jeroen took this code, modified it and integrated it into fwtool. After this modification, fwtool learned to read and write to the flash memory chip.
Now, if a hacker somehow manages to use fwtool on a remote machine, he will be able to reset the disk's flash memory, modify it, and flash it back. True, the owner will eventually find out about the hack and will probably reinstall the system, but the attacker could introduce something that will manifest itself even after the reinstallation. For example, wait while the machine reads from the /etc/shadow/ file, where all passwords are stored on UNIX/Linux systems, and change the contents. After which you can simply log in with your password.
By the way, the described technique can serve not only for clandestine experiments, but also for defense purposes. For example, you can create a non-clonable hard drive that will work fine if the sector access pattern is random as usual. If the hard drive is only accessible sequentially, the data will be corrupted, which will make the clone different from the original.
INFO
Terminal hard drive mode
When working in terminal mode, the user can interact with the hard drive using diagnostic commands. This method is used to diagnose and repair Seagate and Toshiba drives; Western Digital does not have this option due to the complexity of the connection. Terminal mode actually provides full root control of the mechanics and logic of the device. You can also use it to update or reboot the firmware of your hard drive. A list of commands for most drives can be found on the Internet. And on the hard drive board there is a special connector for connecting via a serial port.
To access terminal mode, you will need an adapter device necessary to convert RS-232 signal levels to TTL levels (such adapters are commercially available, but you can assemble it yourself - all the necessary circuits are freely available, and you can take some models as a basis Arduino). We will take a ready-made FTDI chip that converts USB into a serial interface for the Atmega microcontroller. You need to connect GND and RESET, and use the RX and TX contacts for connection.
To work with the COM port, we use any program we like - for example, PuTTY or Hiperterminal. Select the connection type, enter the COM port number and other settings:
Speed: 9600 Data Bits: 8 Stop Bits: 1 Parity: None Flow Control: None 
To check the functionality of the circuit, you need to connect RX and TX to each other. As a result, all characters typed will be displayed in double quantity. This is due to the fact that the entered data will be transmitted along the TX line, and then the same will return through the RX line. This is done like this: by disconnecting the SATA cable, we connect the output of the TX disk to the input of the RX adapter, and vice versa - the RX adapter from the TX disk. Connect the power. After pressing the keys
Due to the large number of teams, Seagate engineers divided their structure into layers. Commands such as read, write, search, error log are available at several different levels at once. To switch the hard drive to work at a different level, you need to use the /x command.
Level T - certification tests. Level 1 - memory management commands. Level 2 - commands for setting up the drive mechanics. Level 3 - search commands. Level 4 - servo motor tracking commands. Level 5 - used only in factory conditions. Level 6 - adaptive control commands. Level 8 - special recording setup commands. Level 9 - commands of the defect monitoring system mode.
In addition to these nine levels, there are two additional sets of commands: network and general. The main purpose of network commands is to display changes in the current state of the system. General instructions are used to access registers, buffer memory, and data.
In general, terminal mode provides many interesting features. For example, a low-level formatting command can not only erase the data completely without the possibility of recovery, but also, if someone turns off the power during formatting, the hard drive itself will be able to “re-format” itself the first time it is turned on. In general, this is a topic worthy of a separate article. We are moving on.
Writing information to service HDD partitions
Any hard drive contains service partitions. They are designed to store hard drive utilities, such as S.M.A.R.T., early error detection modules, self-diagnosis modules, and so on. Fortunately, all this data does not completely occupy the allocated space, which means that with the right approach we can use this bonus space. Service partitions should not be confused with DCO or HPA, which can be easily discovered and accessed via standard ATA commands.
Unlike other methods of hiding information, recording in the service section does not leave any traces and is invisible to special search programs used by law enforcement agencies. In a word, this place is ideal for storing text files with addresses, passwords, appearances and other things.
To access information from service partitions, standard ATA commands are not suitable; instead, special VSC (Vendor Specific Commands) commands are used for writing and reading. As a rule, manufacturers keep these commands secret, but sometimes they release utilities for working with service partitions - for example, the wdidle3.exe program from Western Digital and its open-source analogue idle3-tools. Another example for WD is the HDDHackr program, which changes entries in HD system partitions.
WARNING
The data in the service partitions is very important for the proper operation of the hard drive. Damage to the recorded information leads to loss of disk performance. Restoring it will not be so easy - to overwrite data in the service partitions, you will need specialized programs (for example, Ace Laboratory PC3000).
The size of the service partition depends on the hard drive model. For example, in the WD2500KS-00MJB0 drive of the Hawk family with a capacity of 250 GB (firmware 02AEC), two copies of files, about 6 MB each, are written to the service partition. The zone size on each surface is about 23 MB (64 tracks with 720 sectors each). Because this disk has six surfaces (heads 0 through 5), the service partition modules are located in the space associated with heads 0 and 1, and the space assigned to heads 2 through 5 is reserved but not used. Thus, the reserved partition takes up about 141 MB, of which 12 MB is in use.
By comparison, the WD10EACS-00ZJB0, a terabyte model with eight surfaces, has 450 MB of reserved space, of which 52 MB is occupied. Ariel Berkman from Recover Information Technologies LTD wrote an article about working with HDD service departments, and also posted a PoC code for writing 94 MB of information to the service department of a Western Digital 250GB Hawk disk. This is done as follows:
- Find out your SATA IO address using lspci -v .
- To compile, use the command gcc -Wall -O -g -o SA-cover-poc SA-cover-poc.c .
- We create a random file (94 MB in size) and calculate its MD5 hash.
- We write the file to the service section.
- We clean the hard drive using the command dd-ing /dev/zero, which should be distributed to the entire hard drive (or to a separate part, having previously blocked access to the rest). It is enough to run this code once to destroy the data irrevocably.
- We read the contents of the service section, calculate its hash and verify the integrity of the data. root@Shafan1:~/SA# dd if=/dev/urandom count=184320 > random-file ; md5sum random-file root@Shafan1:~/SA# ./SA-cover-poc -p 0x0170 -w ./random-file root@Shafan1:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs= 1M root@Shafan1:~/SA# ./SA-cover-poc -p 0x0170 -r after-dding-dev-zero root@Shafan1:~/SA# md5sum after-dding-dev-zero
HDD recovery programs
During low-level experiments, you may encounter such a nuisance as a hard drive failure. You should not immediately resort to draconian measures and format the disk; you can try to restore its functionality using some programs.
- TestDisk is the simplest and most effective program for HDD recovery. Designed to search and reconstruct lost partitions, boot sector, deleted files; fixes the partition table. Works with a large number of file systems. It works in console mode, which achieves high speed.
- Acronis Disk Director is a whole software package that includes a considerable number of tools for working with HDDs. Contains the Acronis Recovery Expert utility, which is used to reconstruct files and partitions. Unlike the previous program, it has a graphical interface, but works with fewer file systems.
- Paragon Partition Manager is a free program from domestic developers that can do almost everything that Acronis can, but is terribly slow.
Conclusion
However, it's time to call it a day. In this article I tried to show the unexplored corners and capabilities of the hard drive. Without delving into the code, we looked at a way to drain information from the drive. If you lift this curtain even slightly, a huge field for flight of fancy opens up. You can, for example, reflash the controller to hide a particularly important section from prying eyes. Or spoil data when trying to clone a hard drive, thus protecting yourself from forensic utilities. In a word, there are many options, so how to use the hard drive is your choice.
Artem Makarov aka Robin
09.11.2013
35493 views
Another difficult problem with Seagates, which was solved using the so-called Seagate HDD firmware (microcode loading via interface).
This time, the ST9500325AS laptop HDD is audibly recalibrated when power is applied, hangs in BUSY, and only outputs to the diagnostic port:
Rst 0x08M
That's all. There is no terminal functionality after startup, as the disk freezes. Before me, the disk was in another place, where the head block was changed (usually this is always the case, if they don’t understand what’s wrong with the hard drive, they immediately change the heads - just in case). Of course, replacing the read/write heads in this situation did not help in any way in restoring user files, and the disk was brought to the Hardmaster service center.
The terminal functionality on this line of drives is included in the ROM code by the manufacturer and is turned on after power is applied to the interface. It looks like this:
Rst 0x08M RW cmd 002F req = 18 F0 9F E5 18 F0 9F E5 18 F0 9F E5 18 F0 9F E5 18 F0 9F E5 00 00 A0 E1 opts = 00000000 RW Err = 84150180 ASCII Diag mode F3 T>
Those. servo positioning error, spindle motor stall and readiness in registers ready to respond to terminal requests. In this position, you can use a command to spin the engine, lift the diag ovl from the surface and read from the ATA all the modules described by id, as well as all the modules described in the system volume. All modules were counted without errors, and at first glance did not contain anything seditious that could lead to the drive freezing during normal startup.
Immediately there was a suspicion of a failure in the translation tables, but an attempt to recalculate led to the following result:
Max Wr Retries = 00, Max Rd Retries = 00, Max ECC T-Level = 14, Max Certify Rewrite Retries = 2DF8 DiagError 0000500D User Partition Format Failed - Elapsed Time 0 mins 00 secs R/W Sense 00000002, R/W Error 843200A2 , File Error 00000000 Blk Addr AD6F0001, Blk Addr Type D0, Cyl FFFF0000, Hd EC
Those. ended with an error. After some deliberation, a drastic decision was made. Considering that all the necessary parts of the service information were successfully reserved earlier, I decided to completely format the service area. Having received at the end of the process:
System Partition Format Successful - Elapsed Time 2 mins 00 secs
I distorted the power supply, and the disk came out ready with an “empty” factory passport. In this position, any read/write operation of service information results in a message about unreadiness for the process, due to the lack of “extended” commands in the “basic” ROM microcode.
Unable to load Diag Cmd Processor Overlay
In order to get full functionality in such a situation, you need to write overlays to the surface so that the disk can read them. And in order to be able to write to the surface, the disk must read them earlier. Vicious circle. How to find a way out of this situation?
An option, given that in a situation with a formatted service disk, the disk becomes ready via the interface normally, there is one - using the id92h command, load it into the HDD loader, i.e. a microcode package, including the required overlays, and thereby, as they say, reflash the Seagate hard drive.
After this operation, the translator recalculation completed successfully
Max Wr Retries = 00, Max Rd Retries = 00, Max ECC T-Level = 14, Max Certify Rewrite Retries = 2DF8 User Partition Format Successful - Elapsed Time 0 mins 00 secs
And, the final touch is the recording of the previously saved translator (id2Bh). After reapplying power, the disk produced the usual:
Rst 0x08M (P) SATA Reset
and full access to all LBAs described in the passport. If before the disk came to me, inquisitive hands would not have climbed into the hermetic zone, then with the help of the manipulations described above it would have been possible to repair the hard disk while preserving the information.
Winchesters Seagate series Barracuda ES.2 were very popular in 2008-2009. Unfortunately, all these hard drives cannot boast of high reliability. The reason is the low quality of drives, due to poor quality assembly and cheap materials (the manufacturer saved on everything during the global crisis). Failure cannot be predicted, since the cause of failure is usually a firmware error.
Symptoms of defective hard drives can be very different, usually the computer may suddenly begin to “slow down”, freeze, and after a reboot the hard drive is no longer detected by the system, sometimes the disk very quickly begins to become covered with bad sectors and S.M.A.R.T. The hard drive marks them as Reallocated sectors. The last situation is shown in the screenshot after this paragraph. This is a consequence of self-destruction of the hard drive microcode. The fact that the hard drive is blocked is only a consequence. But it is better to have a locked disk with working heads, information from which can still be recovered, than an unblocked one, but with cuts, and cannot be restored at any cost. The firmware will only cause additional difficulties if the drive gets damaged again.
So, what do we have today? Firmwares that are affected by this problem: SN04, SN05 and earlier. SEAGATE hard drives made in Thailand or China. NS series hard drives: ST31000340NS, ST3750330NS, ST3500320NS, ST3250310NS. Symptoms: not detected in Bios or thousands of Realloceted Sectors (reassigned sectors) instantly appearing.
If, when turned on, the screw makes a quiet “strangling sound” or “twitches” rhythmically, then further instructions will not help you. This malfunction is nothing more than a jammed spindle motor shaft. Occurs spontaneously or after the HDD falls (a very small impact is enough). A poorly designed hydraulic bearing and low-quality cheap materials are to blame for this.
First, we need to get an RS232-to-TTL adapter. You can assemble an adapter based on the MAX232 chip as shown in the diagram:
Note on the diagram:If it is possible to connect to a stabilized voltage of +5V, then the circuit can be simplified by removing the 7805 stabilizer with two capacitors from it.
Alternative RS232-to-TTL adapter circuit:
After this I would also do (erase) the entire hard drive through Victoria, SeaTools or MHDD. Then I would do a Scan + Remap (check with Remap enabled) for reliability.
Source material taken from:
Converter
You can buy a converter (USB-TTL and COM-TTL are available for sale) or make it yourself (I provide several diagrams below).
For those who have Arduino: let's connect GND And RESET, use contacts RX And TX.
To check the circuit, you can close RX And TX, - as a result, everything we enter should be returned.
Connection
Connecting RX And TX, as in the figure below, disconnect the SATA cable and connect the power.
To work with the COM port, I used PuTTY, your favorite program will also do the job perfectly. So, open PuTTY, select the connection type Serial, enter the port and other settings:
| Speed | 38400 |
| Data Bits | 8 |
| Stop Bits | 1 |
| Parity | None |
| Flow Control | None |
F3 T>
To see a list of commands and descriptions for them for your hard drive, you must enter /C, and then Q.
Recovery
It's time to start rebuilding.Important: Please be careful when entering commands!
- Let's go to level 1 by entering /1
- Let's clear S.M.A.R.T. team N1
- Turn off the power and wait for the engine to stop (~10 sec)
- Turn on the power and press again Ctrl+Z
- Clearing the list of bad blocks: enter i4,1,22
- Repeat points 3-4
- Enter in the console: m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22(for hard drives “Made in China” - m0,2,2,22)
- Let's move on to level 2: /2
- Stop the engine: enter Z
- Turn off the power
Now I have described a situation where everything works as it should, but this rarely happens. There have been several challenges along the way that I'm sure you will also face. Therefore, for everyone who did not succeed, look for a solution in the last section of this article.
About what remains behind the scenes
Since this article is the result of my own experiments based on various materials on HDD recovery, then I will describe the problems that I myself encountered.| Problem | Solution |
| Console noise | Connect a contact GND to ground on the power supply. I used the wire from the power key. Also pull out the jumper SATA I from the hard drive. |
| On the screen after pressing Ctrl+Z nothing appears | Most likely not connected correctly RX And TX. |
| When you turn it on for the first time, an error appears LED:000000CC FAddr:0025BF67 or LED:000000CC FAddr:0024A7E5 | First, let's try turning off the heads. To do this, we unscrew the board (at the same time you can clean the contacts with an eraser: I had a lot of dirt there), put an insulator (paper, electrical tape, etc.) on the contacts leading to the heads, and screw the board back (not with all the screws, but so that there is power to the motor). Turn on the power, press Ctrl+Z, enter /2
, Then Z. We are waiting for a message about a successful stop. Spin Down Complete Elapsed Time 0.138 msecs Without turning off the power, unscrew the board, take out our insulator and screw the board back, enter the command to start the engine: U. If the method of disconnecting the heads does not help, you need to close the contacts on the board with sharp tweezers or thin wire. The photo (available via the links below) shows short circuit points on different hard drives. |
What is a hard drive called?
Most PC users have probably heard the concept of “hard drive” (aka hard drive, hard drive or disk drive). Sometimes, together with this concept there is the phrase “hard drive firmware”. Let's take a closer look at what it is.
This device (hard drive) is intended for long-term storage of information and has an extraordinary amount of memory. That is, absolutely all files and data that you enter into your computer are automatically written to the hard drive.
The operating principle of a hard drive is similar to that of a vinyl record player. But, unlike a player, the reading head does not touch the disk with information, but receives data while located at a distance of several nanometers from the media. And in appearance, a hard drive is similar to an ordinary CD or record, being round plates coated with a layer of ferromagnetic material.
A hard drive is a device for storing and storing information used in computers and laptops. Outwardly, it looks like several CDs located on top of each other that rotate on the same axis.
Main technical characteristics of HDD
Sometimes choosing a hard drive turns out to be a problem for professionals, let alone the average user.
We can highlight several basic characteristics that will help form a general idea of the parameters of hard drives.
First characteristic - size. Most often these are 2.5 and 3.5 inches wide. At the same time, a larger amount of information can be recorded on a 3.5-inch hard drive. Mostly stationary computers are equipped with these, and smaller hard drives are installed on laptops - they are lighter and consume less energy.
Second- thickness of the hard drive. This figure varies from 7 to 12.5 mm.
Naturally, the thicker the hard drive, the more information it can accommodate. At the same time, the standard thickness of a laptop hard drive is 9.5 mm.
Third factor - rotational speed. Everything is simple here: the higher the rotation speed, the higher the computer performance.
Powerful models have a disk speed of 7200 rpm, but are noisy. They are used on devices with a good cooling system.
Slower disk models rotate at a speed of 5200 - 5900 rpm. Their advantage is quiet operation and low heating.
Amount of hard drive memory - this is the fourth characteristic that you should pay special attention to when choosing a product. In a standard laptop, a 2.5-inch hard drive with a thickness of 9.5 mm has a memory of 1 terabyte. For most tasks this is quite enough. As for desktop computers, up to 3.5-inch wide and 12.5 mm thick drives can store up to 4 TB of information.
When choosing a hard drive, you should pay attention to the ratio of the device's power and the degree of noise it produces.
Reasons for malfunctioning hard drives
Even the highest quality and most expensive hard drive can break. Let's look at the reasons that can shorten the life of hard drives.
- Overheat. The most common and banal reason. Sooner or later, a laptop or computer accumulates dust, air access to the hard drive decreases, the temperature inside the device rises... The result is a laptop in repair. For the same reason, computers should not be placed near heating devices or in hot and humid areas.
- Poor quality power supply. Sudden power surges negatively affect the operation of the hard drive, since they can damage the surface of the hard drive and are one of the main reasons for its premature failure. At the same time, the computer power supply does not always prevent such situations. The only way out of this situation is to purchase an uninterruptible power supply.
- Mechanical damage. If a computer, like a smart and intelligent machine, is able to cope with the problem of overheating or power surges and prevent breakdowns, then it cannot protect itself from impacts and careless operation of the user.
- Incorrect operation of the hard drive. The problem of data loss can occur if the user restarts the computer while the hard drive has not yet completed the space partitioning steps. Of course, modern programs allow you to recover data, but the process is very lengthy, labor-intensive and, moreover, financially expensive.
- Defect in production. Unfortunately, no one is immune from this, and defective products are found, even despite the manufacturer’s complex product control system. So, if when buying a laptop or computer you are confused by extraneous noises, clicks and crackles, contact the warranty department.
To extend the life of your hard drive, and therefore save all your data, take care of the correct operation of the device. If there are problems with voltage, connect an uninterruptible power supply, and when transporting, use special bags for laptops in order to protect the machine from shocks and damage.
Step-by-step guide for flashing hard drive firmware
If your computer begins to slow down, freeze, extraneous noise appears, or the computer begins to get very hot, do not panic. If reinstalling the operating system did not bring positive results, the reason is most likely in the hard drive. It needs proper flashing. There are many programs on the Internet that can handle this. To search for them, enter the phrase in the browser search window "hard drive firmware", and click the “Search” button.
There is absolutely no difficulty in installing the programs - they are completely automatic. Therefore, even a novice user can cope with them.
However, there are some points to consider.
Step 1. Find the serial number of your hard drive and use the serial number checker located on the main page of the website. To do this, enter the number in the dialog box that opens and run the scan.
Step 2. Wait for the scan to complete. The phrase Drive is not affected means that your hard drive is fine and does not need flashing; if this is not the case, then perform step 3.
Step 3. Save all your data from the device you intend to work with to an independent medium. This could be an external hard drive.
Step 4. Create an image of the program for flashing on external media such as a flash drive and boot through it. The program will offer to flash the hard drive in options A/B/C. Select the letter that matches your device.
Step 5. Once in the main menu of the program, select the number of your hard drive. We wait. The firmware process has started.
Before flashing, you should disconnect all connected drives to avoid failures or interference during flashing.
Step 6. While the disk is being flashed, the computer cannot be restarted or disconnected from the network. The end signal will be the computer rebooting itself, or the message “Press any key” will appear.
Step 7. Finish the utility and enjoy the updated hard drive.
By the way, flashing a disk requires at least basic knowledge about the structure and operation of computers, so if you are not confident in your abilities, turn to professionals for help. After all, losing data or replacing a hard drive is not part of your plans. Yes, and incorrect operation of the device may not be related to the hard drive, but may have other reasons.
Problems that may arise after flashing the hard drive yourself
Let's say you did the HDD firmware yourself. Let's look at what problems may arise:
- the drive does not boot or is not recognized;
- the BIOS displays the wrong media model;
- The hard drive capacity is displayed incorrectly.
In such cases, you should immediately contact a specialist. Such errors can be eliminated, but this should be done by an experienced professional. Using special software, he can not only bypass damaged areas of the hard drive, but also restore lost information.
