how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

wolfdogg · 2013-09-29 23:48:45

im haivng a problem figuring out how to upgrade the hd firmware via command line. since i see the kernel message in journalctl, i would suspect there is an easy way to upgrade it.

Sep 29 08:28:07 falcon smartd[3549]: Device: /dev/sda [SAT], WARNING: A firmware update for this drive is available,
Sep 29 08:28:07 falcon smartd[3549]: see the following Seagate web pages:
Sep 29 08:28:07 falcon smartd[3549]: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/207931en
Sep 29 08:28:07 falcon smartd[3549]: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223651en

i went to the url, its only got windows and mac files, im guessing i need to boot via usb flash, since my main problem here is i actually dont want to burn a cd with the iso, and i dont have a floppy. i do have a 256mb usb stick already formatted as fat16. I copied the .isos file contents directly onto the usb stick, but i cant seem to get that to boot. Should it be usb-fdd, usb-hdd, or usb-cdrom, or usb-zip in bios? maybe its not flagged as boot?

then i tried this https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fl … Unetbootin to see if i could get freedos onto the drive incase it would somehow miraculously help(probably wont help any more than first attempt since i think the real problem is the system booting from the usb), so after the drive was formatted, i didnt mount the usb stick, i just ran

[root@falcon dev]# unetbootin
unetbootin.elf: cannot connect to X server

and im getting this error message, is this a gui program?

So, am i going about this wrong? why cant i find any good information on google about "upgrading firmware on a hard drive" for arch, linux, or unix? i must have my search terms wrong.

any suggestions on how to do this?

edit, i have hirens, should i boot to dos with this then run the flash exe from the usb drive assuming the system mounts it?

Last edited by wolfdogg (2013-09-30 21:35:42)

cfr · 2013-09-30 00:18:15

wolfdogg wrote:

i actually dont want to burn a cd with the iso

Why not? This is what you need to do. The firmware update is available as a bootable iso - you are in luck! That is, it is not just a Windows executable which would force you to either install Windows or use an unsupported method. No, you have a bootable iso. All you need to do is burn it to a CD, boot it and proceed.

This is a firmware update. I wouldn't mess around with this stuff - it isn't the time to find experimental workarounds unless you have no choice.

If for some reason you really don't want to burn a CD, the safest option is to not install the update.

EDIT: Ideally, I would burn the iso following their instructions i.e. either in Windows or Mac OS X. However, if you burn the iso in Linux and it boots, I would guess that you are probably fairly safe.

Last edited by cfr (2013-09-30 00:19:40)

wolfdogg · 2013-09-30 01:21:41

Thanks for your reponse. i dont have a cd, i only have dvds, i have been through about 3 cd's in teh last year and im flat out, i just done use them enough to warrant buying any.

cfr wrote:

This is a firmware update. I wouldn't mess around with this stuff - it isn't the time to find experimental workarounds unless you have no choice.

they dont just offer the iso, they also offer the .exe, see this url http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/e … Q/223651en thats why i thought maybe i could run it using dos.

and to my understanding, there is no difference between putting an .iso on a cd, or a usb device, so long as its set to boot.

any suggestions?

Last edited by wolfdogg (2013-09-30 01:23:25)

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-30 01:44:36

I have found pre-made FreeDOS images in the past, and used it to update the firmware of my Samsung 830 SSD before I found out that there are hidden bootable ISO's. All you need to do is make a bootable USB with it, then either make a small partition to stick the exe (and firmware), or stick it in the image itself. Then run said exe from the command line.

wolfdogg · 2013-09-30 01:51:58

WonderWoofy wrote:

I have found pre-made FreeDOS images in the past

so is this an "iso"?

WonderWoofy wrote:

hidden bootable ISO's

ahh, like hirens?

WonderWoofy wrote:

All you need to do is make a bootable USB with it

does this mean i have to flag it bootable with a partition editor? i already have the usb with the iso from the download source, which is bootable i believe, i just didnt flag the drive as bootable.

WonderWoofy wrote:

make a small partition to stick the exe (and firmware)

just the exe? in this case i would need something like hirens to boot to dos first right?

WonderWoofy wrote:

or stick it in the image itself.

and to boot this, what setting am i looking for in my bios(usb-hdd, hsb-floppy or usb-hdd, or which one specifically? those are the usb choices), because what i thought i knew, didnt work, unless its because i didnt flag the drive as bootable in a partition program.

WonderWoofy wrote:

Then run said exe from the command line.

you mean a "dos" command line right?

im thinking i can just boot hirens(boot cd which i do have) select the dos command line option, and have the .exe on the flash drive (fat16) and run it directly from there... would that work?

Last edited by wolfdogg (2013-09-30 01:56:21)

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-30 03:15:13

I didn't say anything about hirens, and have never actually used hirens boot cd. I was able to find premade FreeDOS bootable USB images that I could then just dd to a usb stick. This should use very little of a decent size USB, so the rest can be used to store the file in question. You might be able to mount the then written image and write it to that partition as well, though I didn't try this.

What I am trying to tell you is fairly straight forward and I'm not sure how you were able to analyze every last word of my last post. It was not supposed to be coded or complex.

Basically a simple windows binary, like a firmware updater, can be run from a FreeDOS environment. It should be as simple as figuring out how to boot the FreeDOS first, then going about making that update file accessible to yourself in that environment. (Then of course run it from FreeDOS).

wolfdogg · 2013-09-30 03:54:17

ok, ill look into freedos, just like your not sure about hirens, im not sure about freedos. although you didnt say anything about hirens, i read up on the term that you mentioned "hidden bootable ISO's" and i had no idea what that was. guess what was the first google result for that, hirens, you guessed it. in fact its the first 3 results on google. And from the way i read it was since you mentioned you used freedos "UNTIL" you found hidden bootable ISO, that bootable isos was the way to go. I assumed you were familiar with hirens, since most linux users are and its a bootable iso, my apologies. Earlier in this post i already asked if someone know if i could use Hirens.

I was hoping since you seem to know a bit about bootable iso's, and booting from flash drives you could answer some of the other questions i have been asking, since i still dont have enough information to go on, unless i choose freedos, which as i mentioned i already had a problem with this, but i will admit i didnt try to find a stand alone freedos images as you mentioned.

before i embark on this freedos mission, can you tell me logically if using hirens boot cd simply to get me to a dos prompt in linux(lets assume its a legitimate dos prompt in linux), then putting in my usb stick and running the exe was a similar operation to what your referring to?

otherwise ill try to find a free dos image, which will prompt the other questions i was asking, when i get that image, how to i go about putting it onto the usb, and getting my system to boot from it, because as i mentioned i tried putting a bootable iso file base onto my usb stick, and setting my bios to boot from usb-hdd, then i tried to boot from usb-floppy, then i tried a few others, but i couldnt get it to boot. And i still dont know maybe its because i simply didnt go into a partition program and flag it bootable, can you tell me if you think this is needed? can you also tell me what type i need to select in bios?

So first i would like to know in yours/or anyones opinion if the hirens option is worth a try?

Last edited by wolfdogg (2013-09-30 04:00:03)

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-30 04:51:36

Oh, no Samsung just officially supports windows SSD firmware upgrades only. But if you do some really heavy searching you can find mac compatible ISOs, which turned out to actually just be FreeDOS and the windows firmware updater. So since I don't have any windows machines in the house, I had to take the this route, once manually with my own FreeDOS image, and now once with my 840 with the (un)official Samsung images.

I think you are understanding the concept of FreeDOS interly wrong. You cannot get to a FreeDOS prompt from within Linux. FreeDOS is its own operating system. So you could actually probably spin something like a virtual machine or other container like thing up from within Linux, it would be a terrible terrible idea. Firmware should be updated from a system running on the bare metal only, as it may work from a VM… but it also may not. It is probably not a good idea to try to find out if it will or not.

I'll say again, that I have never used Hiren's Boot CD before, though I have heard many a windows user tell me it is magic. So I don't know what is on it, nor do could I recommend it to anyone with any kind of confidence.

I found FreeDOS images that were specifically meant for USBs. Though many ISOs will work with a USB, they are not all designed that way. This is the case for the bios updates for my machine, as I have to break out the CDs for those updates (really it is the easiest way, as I have also done it with FreeDOS before). Honestly, I think you're just making this far harder than it needs to be by trying to make something work, about which you have no idea. If there is anything I could wholeheartedly suggest here, it would be that you don't want to fuck around with workarounds for firmware updates. Otherwise, it is very possible you could end up with a nice paperweight.

wolfdogg · 2013-09-30 04:59:38

ok so basically updating firmware for hard drives on linux systems falls down to the mercy of the manufacturer, and if they put out an iso and a windows exe, which is my case, then linux users best bet is just to burn the darn thing to a cd and get it over with? Am i hearing you guys correctly?

what a waste of a cd, one time throw away plastic, just doesnt seem right these days in age, fuck why cant they just have a usb iso on their seagate site for goodness sake, or at-least some blurb that tells you its valid for both cd and usb flash drive.

and you were right about freedos for mac, see this url http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/e … Q/004301en its my firmware image, it does have freedos on it.

. i want to try to do this with my flash drive first, its not a workaround, its simple putting the iso i downloaded form the website onto a bootable medium. So can someone please suggest to me setting the bios for usb-floppy, or usb-cd more likely since its intended for cd, or usb-hdd since thats kind-of what the usb stick is? i just dont book usb sticks enough to remember whats proper. And with that answered, can someone tell me if i would need to flag the usb stick bootable with a partition program, or is putting the iso on there with its image files, and the bios pointing to it enough?

Last edited by wolfdogg (2013-09-30 05:07:42)

R00KIE · 2013-09-30 12:51:20

Before you do the firmware update you should read what the update fixes, just because smartd/smartctl says there is an update doesn't mean you should install it.

If the update doesn't fix any problem you are experiencing I'd say you should think carefully if you really want to do the update, if you do make sure you backup everything, and I really mean everything.

cfr · 2013-09-30 20:45:03

Why is this marked solved when no solution is given? Any user with the same question will have no idea what worked in the end.

wolfdogg · 2013-09-30 20:51:08

yeah i didnt have to back up anything, it is an empty drive. and i unplugged all other drives before running it. it wasnt smartctl reporting it, it was journalctl.

i suspect the answer is this

basically updating firmware for hard drives on linux systems falls down to the mercy of the manufacturer, and if they put out an iso and a windows exe, which is my case, then linux users best bet is just to burn the darn thing to a cd and get it over with.

I was hoping for a solution to get image bootable on usb, and i see a post on seagate forums wiht another user asking them the same thing, it went unanswered. then i found a tool somewhere that made a usb stick bootable, dont know how different it was from any other tool, but i dont recall the url.

i managed to find an empty cd laying around mixed up in another stack, was apparently the last of the mohicans in the dvd stack, and the firmware upgrade failed. i have version CCH4 firmware on the 2tb drive, and apparently the firmware upgrade doesnt handle that firmware, there is another firmware as well that it cant upgrade either. So im stuck with a big ugly red error in journalctl that my firmware needs upgrading it looks like.

note, if anybody needs to see the actual drive model#, use the link in the 3rd post https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p1331183.

Last edited by wolfdogg (2013-09-30 20:55:56)

cfr · 2013-09-30 21:15:57

So why mark it solved?

wolfdogg · 2013-09-30 21:19:13

its marked solved because i figured out "how to upgrade firmware on a command line", do it at your own risk using freedos. Or just burn the iso to a cd, which incidentally contained freedos.. :-) are you not seeing that? Also, i marked it solved so users dont have to feel that help is still needed, its not needed, so i that manner it is solved as well. Do you want me to take the [solved] away? i can unmark that, if you think its warranted, without a problem.

Last edited by wolfdogg (2013-09-30 21:22:41)

cfr · 2013-09-30 21:33:07

It's just that people use that not just to see if help is still needed but also to find solutions to problems. It is not clear to me that there is a solution here for somebody with the same problem. So, in that sense, it seems odd to mark it solved. That is, the purpose of the thread is not supposed to be just to solve a problem for the person who starts the thread. It is also to solve that problem for any user who has it. Given that you are stuck with the problem you started with, it doesn't seem to do that.

Last edited by cfr (2013-09-30 21:33:36)

wolfdogg · 2013-09-30 21:35:33

ok no problem, ill remove it. sorry about that.

alphaniner · 2013-09-30 21:41:30

wolfdogg wrote:

I was hoping for a solution to get image bootable on usb,

FFR, Syslinux can boot to Seagate f/w upgrade iso:

LABEL sd1a
MENU LABEL Seagate SD1A
KERNEL memdisk
INITRD /bootdisk/Seagate-SD1A.iso
APPEND iso

That menu entry is taken from my SystemRescueCD USB.

Pse · 2013-09-30 21:47:31

wolfdogg wrote:

what a waste of a cd, one time throw away plastic, just doesnt seem right these days in age, fuck why cant they just have a usb iso on their seagate site for goodness sake, or at-least some blurb that tells you its valid for both cd and usb flash drive.

Though I agree manufacturers should provide easy tools for flashing (i.e. an image for USB flashing, or Linux tools alongside Windows and Mac tools), I keep a couple of CD-RWs and DVD-RWs for this purpose, so I don't need to throw the disc away after flashing.

Edit: grammar.

Last edited by Pse (2013-09-30 21:48:15)

R00KIE · 2013-10-01 11:21:04

wolfdogg wrote:

yeah i didnt have to back up anything, it is an empty drive. and i unplugged all other drives before running it. it wasnt smartctl reporting it, it was journalctl.

Sorry but no, the journal is only where all messages end up.

Sep 29 08:28:07 falcon smartd[3549]: Device: /dev/sda [SAT], WARNING: A firmware update for this drive is available,

Note that it says *smartd* so it is smartd issuing the warning, you get the same warning if you use smartctl on that drive. I have one seagate HD where smartctl also issues that warning so I'm not just guessing.

I don't know if you checked the pages with information about the update but I did, to me it seemed that the version of the firmware that was going to be installed by the update was _older_ than the one already on the disk. I'm not sure if at the time I checked the source for smarctl/smartd but it probably issues that warning when it finds the specific drive and model without checking firmware versions.

Now I can't find what the firmware was supposed to fix, maybe seagate doesn't provide that information now, but at the time I checked the issues it fixed didn't seem to affect me, so if it isn't broken don't fix it I also had lots of data on the disk too so I didn't want to risk losing it all.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-09-29 23:48:45

how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#2 2013-09-30 00:18:15

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#3 2013-09-30 01:21:41

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#4 2013-09-30 01:44:36

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#5 2013-09-30 01:51:58

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#6 2013-09-30 03:15:13

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#7 2013-09-30 03:54:17

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#8 2013-09-30 04:51:36

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#9 2013-09-30 04:59:38

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#10 2013-09-30 12:51:20

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#11 2013-09-30 20:45:03

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#12 2013-09-30 20:51:08

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#13 2013-09-30 21:15:57

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#14 2013-09-30 21:19:13

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#15 2013-09-30 21:33:07

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#16 2013-09-30 21:35:33

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#17 2013-09-30 21:41:30

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#18 2013-09-30 21:47:31

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

#19 2013-10-01 11:21:04

Re: how do i upgrade firmware on hard drive via command line

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