N4000 Disk firmware update

[rccmum]

Hello,

I am attaching a W/U SE external drive to this box which has ST336706LW 36GB drive with firmware HPS1. I want to update the firmware to HP04. Is this something can be doable using
dfdutil2 ODE utility.

Per my information one has to have firmware in the same series.

I have another same type of driver with firmware 010A. Can I update this with HP04?

Thanks in advance.

[Andrew Rutter]

hi,

firmware and disks is a bit of a minefield at times.

it really depends upon where the disks came from in respect of system? are they hp9000 system disks or pc workstation disks?

not all disks can be updated to a particular version. the firmware patches are written for certain mech types and manufcturers.

The latest I can see for the ST336706L is HP05, dont recognise the HPS1 f/w. this maybe a pc based system f/w.

ftp://ftp.itrc.hp.com/firmware_patches/hp/disk/PF_D36ESHP05.txt

ftp://ftp.itrc.hp.com/firmware_patches/hp/disk/PF_D36ESHP05

what makes you think you could update it to HPO4? It may work, may not?

only hp disks with hp firmware can be updated to a later version of hp firmware, not oem disks.

the details for updating are in the txt link, either by tftp or bootable tape

Andy

[rccmum]

The disk was used on a HP Netserver. Maybe HPSx series of firmware is meant for HP Netservers.

I guess since the model/make is the same, there has to be a away to update firmware but I guess it needs a proper tool or utility to do that.

I do think that on a HP 9000 box, you got to have disk with proper HP firmware and non-HP firmware disk won't work.

[Andrew Rutter · Accepted solution]

hi,

in my opinion on hpux 11.00 and above the firmware is not as much of an issue as it used to be.

basically most disks will work together, providing the correct specification. The firmware do not need to be the same on all disks.

for example you have a seagate disk mech and for the same HP product number and part number you could have a fujitsu drive. This would have completely different f/w to the seagate drive as its a different disk.

The netserver disk will work fine. There was a different line of disk firmware for the netserver disks and these can be updated with the f/w off the web for that particular disk product number, or via a bootable cd on a windows(intel)machine.

cannot seem to loctae the cd download page anymore but they are available individual here

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=19319&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=65146&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=54

Also I have not tried to update a netserver disk, with a f/w version from a 9000srs on a 9000srs, in theory if its the same disk mech it should work, but I think it will probably look at the f/w on the disk and say it is the wrong prefix to update? create a bootable tape as the instructions and try it?

Andy

[rccmum]

I do think all HP supplied Disk firmware utilities might be checking the exiting firmware version prefix to able to detect at first place let alone allowing firmware update.

Earlier I had a IBM disk with IBM firmware. I connected it to N4000. The mapper2 would detect it but dfdutil2 or BCH search wouldn't.
When I booted off HP-UX 11.11 and running ioscan later, I saw bunch SCSI controller/bus errors in syslog and it didn't detect the disk.