Samsung Hdd Firmware Update Hd204ui
Verbatim USB 3.0 Desktop Hard Drive 2TB has Samsung HD204UI (reported by operating system).1. D:Temp F4EG /?SFLASH V5.33 SAMSUNG Electronics Co., Ltd. That hard drive needs a firmware update, otherwise data might be lost according to Samsung:Yes, it's a nasty one which I first came across due to using smartmontools.One area where it seems that Samsung have screwed-up IMHO, is that the 'fixed' f/w version reported the same number as the 'affected' one; so without specific testing to try to provoke the bug, I don't know of a way to tell whether your drive has the updated f/w or not.
(I can't say whether that is still the situation regarding f/w version numbering, as I'm no longer involved in that issue, but it certainly used to be.)But again, this is a Verbatim product, they got your money, so they need to be helping you to find out whether your drive has the 'affected' or the 'fixed' f/w version.The good news is that the command which triggers the drive f/w bug (the ATA Identify Device command) can be thought of as an administrative command, which is not issued during normal I/O. However it is issued by various tools, including (but not limited to) SMART monitoring tools - and smartmontools (link already kindly given by fzabkar) is one example of them.Therefore until you have updated the f/w in that drive (or got confirmation from Verbatim that your drive already has the updated f/w version), I would not use any utilities to get the SMART status of that drive (or any other unusual drive monitoring utilities), when there is any possibility of I/O in progress.
Effectively that would mean that you need to have that disk's filesystems unmounted (easy in Linux, I don't know/care about Windows) when you run a SMART check, until the drive f/w is updated. However, it is not possible to apply Samsung firmware fix, because Samsung software (patch tool) does not recognize the drive, when it is in Verbatim USB enclosure.I'm not surprised; since Samsung can't test & qualify their download utility with all possible 3rd-party USB enclosures, they may be (sensibly) trying to limit their support exposure to those (direct-attach) config which can be tested. If I was in your place, I would be dealing with Verbatim - they are responsible for the consequences of the enclosure into which they installed the Samsung drive, they chose the Samsung drive to use, and it is their enclosure which you bought.My girlfriend has the same type of issue with an external enclosure containing a Seagate drive; that USB-to-SATA bridge doesn't support ATA f/w download. Of course I took the drive out of the enclosure to update the f/w using direct SATA attach and then put it back in again but my point is that drive f/w updates in 3rd-party USB enclosures are not under the control of the drive manufacturer. (and SMART status)Yes, some (many?) programs might not work for SMART monitoring the drive in that USB enclosure (depending on the enclosure), but you are making a very bold claim that it is not possible to use any tool to do that! Have you checked every possible program?If it was safe to do so, then as fzabkar suggested, I would start by trying the various USB-related options on smartmontools - but until you have the drive f/w updated, I suggest that you heed my warning above and do not try any such program with a live filesystem mounted on that drive. Last but not least: why is warranty for Verbatim product lasting only 2 years in the European Union (and in most of other places in the world), while in USA warranty last 7 years:?Why do they discriminate Europeans regarding warranty so grossly?Ask them!
The folks here can't tell you why a company has made a commercial decision like that In my experience in the UK, a 2 or 3 year warranty is not unusual for typical external USB enclosures from 'brand names' (although in the UK we are not specifically limited by such a warranty). In fact it is the 7 year US warranty which looks to be unusually generous IMHO.Good luck.
Thank you fzabkar and Vulcan for your replies.Of course I e-mailed Verbatim, before I even posted on the forum. Still waiting for replies.Thank's for the warning. I won't be using smart tools then. Since people on internet report that even currently purchased internal Samsung HDs are Rev. A, then I doubt Verbatim would already contain Rev. B of the Samsung drive.So the only time these problem with f/w can occur, when the disk is in such enclosure, is when I try SMART reading tools, right?
Microsoft's Sector Inspector and surface scanning software I can try to use safely? AFAICT, the documentation for the bug suggests that data corruption can occur if an ATA Identify Device command is issued during a concurrent write access. Therefore, ISTM, that you need some way to ensure that no application writes to the drive while it is being analysed by your SMART application. To this end you could temporarily hide the drive's partitions with a disc editor. For example, the partition type byte for an NTFS partition is 0x07, so you could temporarily change it to 0xD7, and then reboot.List of partition identifiers for PCs:HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor:Examination of Windows 2000 ( NT5.0 ) and Windows XP ( NT5.1 ) MBR:As for Vulcan's statement that 'in the UK we are not specifically limited by such a warranty', I can say that the same applies in Australia. Here we have two warranties, the manufacturer's voluntary warranty, and a statutory 'implied warranty of merchantability'.
For example, there was a case where a manufacturer warranted a TV for one year, but a consumer whose TV failed within two years successfully challenged this on the latter grounds. So the only time these problem with f/w can occur, when the disk is in such enclosure, is when I try SMART reading tools, right?No - that's just the best example.
Anything which causes the USB-to-SATA bridge chip to send ATA Identify Device commands to the drive, while SATA NCQ Writes are also in progress, is a potential risk.Has that bridge chip enabled SATA NCQ (i.e. Is it sending SATA Write FPDMA Queued commands, and not PIO Write commands, to the drive)? No idea - those chips are not my specialist area.
Ask Verbatim. (although in the UK we are not specifically limited by such a warranty).What do you mean?Very similar to what fzabkar kindly explained applies in Australia. In the UK, the consumer's contract is not with the manufacturer; it's with the retailer. So any warranty from the manufacturer is in addition to (and not instead of) the consumer's rights for merchantable quality & 'reasonable' durability, against the retailer. IANAL so I won't go into more detail here - you can see the various revisions of the UK 'Sale of Goods & Services' Acts if you are interested.
In fact it is the 7 year US warranty which looks to be unusually generous IMHO.There is often lifetime warranty over there for some products.That just shows that the typical expectations are different in different countries. To me, here in the UK, a 7 year warranty for an external USB drive would be very, very generous, as I said before. This difference in length of warranties isn't a 'Verbatim thing', it's a 'different countries thing'. Here is a link to the (now discontinued) external 1TB USB disk which a friend of mine bought a little while ago, here in the UK - again a 2-year warranty, this time from Hitachi:I hope that explains why I'm not getting excited about Verbatim 'only' offering a 2 year warranty alsoSo in summary, your Verbatim-branded USB enclosure might not create the conditions to trigger that disk f/w bug, if it doesn't use SATA NCQ commands. IMHO the best people to answer that question are Verbatim, unless you can find enough details on the bridge chip to completely eliminate that possibility of it using NCQ yourself, from its datasheet.Have you considered collecting the USB bridge chip VID & PID, and attempting to identify the bridge chip? You might succeed in identifying that chip, but you might not (depending on whether Verbatim use a custom VID/PID or leave it at the manufacturer's default). Very similar to what fzabkar kindly explained applies in Australia.
In the UK, the consumer's contract is not with the manufacturer; it's with the retailer. So any warranty from the manufacturer is in addition to (and not instead of) the consumer's rights for merchantable quality & 'reasonable' durability, against the retailer. IANAL so I won't go into more detail here - you can see the various revisions of the UK 'Sale of Goods & Services' Acts if you are interestedI wonder how do they interpret 'reasonable' durability? A computer chair broke after one year warranty given by the UK retailer, but it should have lasted many, many years more to come, and it didn't. So how can one convince retailer that they should exchange it?
A computer chair broke after one year warranty given by the UK retailer, but it should have lasted many, many years more to come, and it didn't.(a) Any warranty from a retailer is in addition to, and not instead of, the rights under the Sale of Goods Acts. Some retailers offer more than a 1 year period (e.g. Therefore this period is not a hard limit to your rights (see below).(b) During that period, it is easier to get the retailer to repair/replace an item, since there can be no argument about how long their responsibilities last. However last time I checked, it is not actually required for them to offer a warranty (it's just that they all do, due to commercial pressure of competition from the retailers who do offer one).(c) This leads onto the final part - your statutory rights are the Sale of Goods Act, irrespective of any warranty from a retailer (or manufacturer), and that Act (and related ones including Services etc.) only specifies a maximum period in which to take legal action (6 years in England). The problem if you come to relying on this statutory protection (i.e.
After the end of a retailer's warranty period), is that you have to prove what is reasonable, if necessary, by going to court (e.g. Small Claims Court).In deciding what is a reasonable time for a product to work, a court will take into account things like the price paid, how the item was used, the report of an independent repairer confirming the fault and its likely cause (which you will normally have to pay to obtain, if the item is over 6 months old, but this cost can also be claimed against the retailer as part of your court action).The more something costs, and the less it has been used, and if it has not been mistreated, then the greater the chance that a court might agree it should have lasted a longer time. So how can one convince retailer that they should exchange it?Often just the threat of going to court will encourage a retailer to enter into negotiations with you.
(You also potentially have a claim against the credit card company, if the item was bought on a credit card and cost over £100 - see the Consumer Credit Act, section 79). However you are not entitled to an exchange after a period of time like a year (after a shorter time, then you'd have had a much better case) - see the webpages below.You are now entering into the realm of 'contract law' and IANAL (did I say that already? ), but in essence the product has to conform to the terms of that Act - and it did for a year; so you have had a year's use from the chair, and cannot now demand an exchange for a new one.
That would be unreasonable against the retailer. Instead, it is more likely that you would claim damages for the cost of a repair, and they might instead offer you an exchange if that is likely to cost them less than paying for the repair.Although they've changed the website and now archived this one, this page is one of the best official summaries of UK consumer's rights that I have seen:Notice the link to Consumer Direct on the right side of that page - those are the people who I recommend you should contact for more (free) advice; that government organisation are specialists in advising UK consumers on their rights.
Or, before many are shut down due to lack of cash then a CAB (Citizens Advice Bureaux) office would give you (free) advice too - see an example of their advice on this subject here:You'll see it's the same basic information on your rights, as on that (archived) BERR page I linked above.Hope that helps. Now can we get back to hard disk drives? Hope that helps.idVendor: 0x18A5idProduct: 0x022A.Since I don't believe that Verbatim make any such chips, this just hides whatever the real chip identification is, and hence prevents further investigation of what functionality it might be using, specifically NCQ. Without you doing lots of Google work (to see if anyone else has found which bridge chip is really used in that enclosure), or without you opening it yourself to look at the chip's markings (and even then you aren't guaranteed to find enough public info about how the bridge chip is being programmed in that enclosure, even if you can read its part number), I can't think of how you will be able to eliminate the possibility of that enclosure allowing the circumstances which would trigger the Samsung f/w bug. Of course someone else on the forum might think of a way - but I can't at the moment.
I will PM you the result of Sector Inspector.Hmm, I'm not quite sure why you did that - I didn't ask for it, did I? If someone else asked, perhaps you should either send it to them, or attach it to another post as a file attachment (zip'd first) to make it publically available.I've got to rush now. So in summary - unfortunately for you, the only route I can see for you to get the confidence of not being able to trigger that Samsung drive f/w bug (which depends on finding intimate knowledge of whichever USB-to-SATA bridge that they have used), or to be able to update the drive f/w while leaving the drive in that Verbatim enclosure, you either have to do lots of searching to try to find that bridge chip (which might be a waste of time if you don't find the original manufacturer & chip), is for you to rely on Verbatim to answer your questions. If only they hadn't chosen to hide the original bridge manufacturer, then further investigation would have been possible, but they aren't the only 'enclosure brand' to do soI think you are back to a position of: Ask Verbatim - unless you are willing to open the enclosure and upgrade the drive via direct SATA attach, or unless someone else can think of a way to get that Samsung f/w file across the unknown bridge chip and into that drive, along with the risks which performing that untested process would carry.Good luck. I will PM you the result of Sector Inspector.Hmm, I'm not quite sure why you did that - I didn't ask for it, did I? If someone else asked, perhaps you should either send it to them, or attach it to another post as a file attachment (zip'd first) to make it publically available.I thought you'd be curious to know.
I sent it to both of you i.e. To you and fzabkar. Actually I have some troubles interpreting those results, because they are not that obvious - where is what; how to check if the boot sector is located at LBA 2048 rather than 63? There are obiously two HDs in the results, and I can see LBN 0, LBN 63, LBN 20964825, LBN 20964888, LBN 2048, LBN. I believe that LBN 2048 is for the extrenal HD, so it suggests that it is aligned.
Samsung Hd204ui Firmware Update
Nevertheless I am simply guessing. The internal disk on the other hand is not aligned, but it shouldn't be a problem, should it?This article, however, seems to suggest that also not aligned disks in non Advance Format also would cause worse performance. I think you are back to a position of: Ask Verbatim - unless you are willing to open the enclosure and upgrade the drive via direct SATA attach, or unless someone else can think of a way to get that Samsung f/w file across the unknown bridge chip and into that drive, along with the risks which performing that untested process would carry.I'll wait for Verbatim's reply, but in the meantime I have a question: has anyone tried to remove that sticker from Verbatim enclosure and attach it again, so that they could not tell that the sticker was removed?
From another forum:'Here is the reason from the Samsung HDD department for the firmware number staying the same:I just wanted to let you know the firmware version will not change after flashing. The version did not change because it takes a long time to get customers approval for change notices. It would have taken over a month before we could have released the fix.Please make sure that for each drive the flashing process is successfulWe have already implemented the fix to our production.
So drives available on the market in 2 months time will have the fix applied. To be sure check the manufacturing date on the drives, January 2011 would be safer'. Master Boot Record B FS TYPE START END F (hex) C H S C H S RELATIVE TOTAL 07 0 32 33 1023 254 63 2048 07 1023 254 63 1023 254 63 There are two NTFS partitions (type 0x07). They begin at LBA 2048 and LBA, and their sizes are and, respectively. Both boot sectors (LBA 2048 and LBA ) report 8 sectors per cluster.Since all these numbers are divisible by 8 (4KB = 8 sectors), then both partitions are 4KB aligned.
There are two NTFS partitions (type 0x07). They begin at LBA 2048 and LBA, and their sizes are and, respectively. Both boot sectors (LBA 2048 and LBA ) report 8 sectors per cluster.Since all these numbers are divisible by 8 (4KB = 8 sectors), then both partitions are 4KB aligned.Good. Thanks.Is aligning non Advanced Format drives beneficial in some ways? Or shouldn't I bother (particularly if they already contain data, so it is better not risk loosing it)? Is aligning non Advanced Format drives beneficial in some ways?I don't think so.The reason you need to align an Advanced Format drive is that, if you wish to write to one particular sector, you first need to read its entire 8-sector block, modify the block's contents, recompute the ECC bits, and then write the whole block to the platters on the next rotation.
The above happens when an 8-sector cluster is not aligned to an 8-sector block. OTOH, if the clusters are aligned, then the data can be written on the first pass.
Is aligning non Advanced Format drives beneficial in some ways?I don't think so.The reason you need to align an Advanced Format drive is that, if you wish to write to one particular sector, you first need to read its entire 8-sector block, modify the block's contents, recompute the ECC bits, and then write the whole block to the platters on the next rotation. The above happens when an 8-sector cluster is not aligned to an 8-sector block. OTOH, if the clusters are aligned, then the data can be written on the first pass.Then why this guy:was writing about aligning HDs even before Advanced Format disks appeared?
The holiday season is a great time to relax and take some time off. That is, until something goes wrong and then you have to attend to it. This was one of those situations where potentially, things could have gone a lot worse. The Call – The SituationJust before Christmas, bad signs began to brew in the HP Microserver N36L that runs the services at my other house. I began to get some SMART alerts that the boot drive, a Samsung HD204UI was beginning to show signs of potential failure.It was no big surprise. In fact, that server was a bit of an experiment to see just how long these mechanical drives would last.
The N36L was purchased in 2011 (seven years old) and replaced a floodwater damaged server, with the Samsung HD204UI migrating into the N36L along with two other drives, the “brother” HD204UI that was bought at the same time but used elsewhere, and a Western Digital WD30ZRX 3TB drive which was incidentally my first 3TB class drive. All have been running 24/7 nearly non-stop, which is not easy for mechanical drives.The drive that was in trouble was the younger HD204UI, having 49,257 hours (or about 5.6 years of operation) under the clock when pending sectors began to appear.
This indicates data which could not be read back but hasn’t been reallocated yet. My first stop is to try and read the drive back to see if they could be self-cleared with an automatic drive rewrite.When discovered, the pending count was five.
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Attempting to scrub the drive provoked the pending sector count to climb to 19, before self-rectifying back to two. This seems to indicate the drive isn’t in good health – any more “remote” interventions could make things worse.Of note is that its brother drive has 65,559 hours or 7.5 years of operation under the clock and still reads relatively healthy. It’s now on failure-watch as well as I don’t expect it to have too much longer to live.The other drive in the box has 51,927 hours under the clock, or 5.9 years of service, making all of the drives in the box more long lived than I had ever expected. In fact, the whole computer itself seems to have lived longer than expected. A Little Ingenuity?I decided to attend to the drive when I went over to the house on a visit to attend to other things. In order to do the data migration, I decided to bring a spare drive that was larger (that I could image to). Unfortunately, as the machine is strictly BIOS boot, it doesn’t support 2TB boot drives, so I had to bring a spare drive that was smaller.
While I could upgrade it to SSD, I saw no reason as it was infrequently booted (mostly idling/serving) and the amount of data was just over 600GB. I found a relatively “young” Seagate 7200.12 1TB hard drive and decided to have that step in – even though both were manufactured in 2010.To do the transfer, I bought along my laptop and two USB 3.0 to SATA bridge boards, hoping to make a straight ddrescue clone.
Unfortunately, I didn’t check and was caught out by the power supplies. I bought supplies with a 2.1mm tip, but the bridge boards had 2.5mm pins, so now I was on location without the right tools.I then thought I would use the existing Microserver to do the recovery and clone. But I had only a monitor and mouse attached to the unit – no keyboard, so no access to BIOS, etc.There was nothing too special about the offending drive, but I was keen to take it out of service as it seemed to be physically related to the in my brother’s computer without much warning, taking some data with it.Using a little daring ingenuity, I shoved my bootable Ubuntu USB key into the internal USB port and removed all hard drives from the internal non-hot-swap rack, forcing it to boot using the USB key.
As soon as the BIOS finished detecting the key, I hotplugged the drives (against manufacturers’ claims that it was a non-hot-plug bay) so that they would be detected. From there, I would use the accessibility on-screen keyboard in Ubuntu to enter commands.
Unfortunately, I found the special keys to be missing and the shift key not to work, which made working with the terminal slightly more of a chore.The first hurdle was that there was no ddrescue, so I had to install gddrescue. To do that, I had to and download it over the internet.After a bit of scrubbing by ddrescue, no data was lost and a clone was made. I then used gparted to shrink the partitions to 700GB, then cloned that using dd across to the 1Tb drive, then re-expanded the partition to fill the drive.After a reboot chkdsk, the unit came back to life on the Seagate hard disk, but there was still some tidying up that needed to be done. IME, when a drive becomes flaky, it is advisable to check for oxidisation on the HDA contacts. These are the PCB pads which connect to the preamp and voicecoil inside the drive.Oxidisation on Western Digital PCBs:Oxidisation on Samsung HD103SJ:One WARNING:The HD204UI appears to have a firmware bug which can render the drive inoperable.
Specifically, when one enables Power Up In Standby (PUIS), the drive goes to sleep and never wakes up again.This poor fellow lost two such drives when a Windows 10 update enabled PUIS. I’ve seen oxidation on HDA contacts, but in theory, this should not matter.
The reason is that the pogo-pin/spring contacts should maintain enough pressure that the contact point is gas-tight, thus should not oxidise. The use of inert metals on the contact point itself (gold flash commonly) should help. However, if the PCB has been physically warped, then the connection may be affected, but I’ve not had any drive exhibit any miraculous recoveries even though I have tried cleaning them on some problematic drives in the past.The HD204UI is also victim to a much earlier firmware bug – namely attempting an ATA IDENTIFY during a write would cause data loss – This drive famously had the firmware patch that didn’t change the firmware version so it’s not obvious whether the firmware is updated or not. But given that there was one bug, it wouldn’t surprise me that there is now another. That being said, my remaining HD204UIs are all in Win7 boxes, so we should hopefully stay safe. I’ve not seen much use of PUIS as a feature so that seems rather interesting to hear that Win10 updates are potentially more sinister than I had realised.– Gough.
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Samsung Hd204ui Diagnostic Software
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