Problem upgrade C1533A DDS2 tape drive firmware

[Miles Athea]

I have been unable to upgrade the firmware on a C1533A DDS2 tape drive. The drives current firmware is 9401.

I am using LTT 3.4 SR1a. I have downloaded all the C1533A firmware revisions.

In LTT all the firmware revisions for the C1533A are flagged as having the wrong personality.

[Jan Klier]

There are two versions of the C1533A drive, which require different firmware personality.

The latest firmware for the drive you have should state revision 9608. The revision for the other drive personality start with A, such as A907. Make sure you have the file with 9608.

[Miles Athea]

I have downloaded all the firmware revisons available 9608, A708 and A907. All are flagged by LTT as having the wrong personality for my C1533A.

Are you able to advise the firmware revision that has the correct personality for my C1533A and where I might obtain it from?

Are you able to email me the factory password so that I may upgrade the firmware on my C1533A?

[madoc]

with that firmware it's one of the earlier DDS2 drives and should like the right version of 9608 code.

Where did you get it as it might be recovered from an autoloader, in which case the personality would be different.

[Miles Athea]

I bought the drive at an auction. I have downloaded all C1533A and C1557A firmware revisions including autoloaders. Still the wrong personality.

[David Ruska · Accepted solution]

Generate a support ticket, and post it here. I need to look at the device hardware/firmware personality codes. There were some early DDS firmware revisions that didn't report their firmware variant correctly. We might be able to confirm that one of the other images (e.g. 9608) is an appropriate firmware image, and we can then give you a password to override the personality mismatch.

[Miles Athea]

Many thanks.

I have attached the support ticket file.

Regards

[David Ruska]

Miles,

The personality is reported as '0 by He', which is actually part of a copyright message in the inquiry response (something like 'copyright 1990 by Hewlett Packard'. The old firmware doesn't return the fimrware variant string that LTT is expecting in particular offset in the inquiry data.

You have a first-generation DDS2 drive. It should be able to use the 9608 firmware. Send an email to ltt_team@hp.com, mention this thread, and they can send you a temporary password. Select ONLY the 9608 firmware.

[David Ruska]

The LTT team sent you the override password. You'll need to set the password from the options menu, and then within the firmware tool click on the 'options' button and select 'allow any drive firmware to be selected'. Then carefully select the 9608 firmware image.