URGENT: Corrupted Firmware takes out HDD - An adventure in recovery

[Beeblebrox]

As all of you know, HDD manufacturers place a certain amount of the device firmware on the spin platter to lower the cost of the HDD. That's great, but this way the firmware is easier to corrupt than if it were stored in flash rom. Well, that's exactly what happened to my Samsung HDD when one morning all it could do was make funny clicking noises. The problem is not physical and has been isolated to firmware.

I have found the firmware upgrade and the method to upgrade the firmware. Problem is, since the disk is currently unable to "introduce its self" to the BIOS, and the BIOS has no idea the disk is there, the firmware patch / upgrade is for now useless.

While searching for a solution I also came across this, which might be interesting to some of you: coreboot is firmware you can compile yourself for your BIOS (working on it now and hoping it might give me some options to the un-recognised drive).

My question: Is there a way to write to or reset the firmware section of HDD so it gets recognized by BIOS as a device (gets IRQ or something), then I can insert the firmware upgrade CD and possibly have the latest version written to the firmware section of disk.

 

[sossego]

The closest project it may work on is Debian/kFreeBSD. Menuconfig is the front end to the Linux kernel building process.

 

[ian-nai]

Have you experimented any with "atacontrol"? To me it sounds like your HDD is lost. I know that's a danger with any firmware rewriting. But atacontrol might help "probe" that ata channel.

 

[wblock@]

How did the on-drive firmware get corrupted? What will keep it from happening again?

The ROM-based firmware may be very minimal and require special software or hardware, or both, to load the disk firmware image. Like a "bricked" WRT54 router, where building a JTAG cable lets you download firmware. But that special-use software or hardware may only be available to the manufacturer, and they may not want it getting out.

Until the disk firmware is loaded, the drive is missing most of the brains that make it able to react like a drive, so the BIOS doesn't recognize it. Even if the BIOS is forced to believe the drive is present, the drive itself is probably not up to responding.