Universal drive firmware

[eran70]

Few days ago I asked question about old SCSI drives firmware http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=994175
Now we started to update these drives firmware and detected some problem with drive COMPAQ BB018122B7 called "Universal drive" in ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp19501-20000/SP19682.txt
Firmware for this drive included on diskette 15, but there are no firmware version indication (although we can see firmware version number for ALL other drives in SP19682.txt file). When we boot from first diskette we have message "...no new firmware detected for universal drive BD0xx122..."
It is strange because we use all these drives
(COMPAQ BB018122B7) from year 2000 and we expect that new firmware released for these drives since 2000.
So, the question is what is "Universal drives" (and how them different from other Compaq drives) and where we can found what is last firmware version for these "Universal drives"?
Currently our universal drives have "BD016" firmware version according ACU.
Thanks.

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi,

According to the attached document, the latest firmware for the BB018122B7 drive is B016.

Cheers,

Rob

[e4services · Accepted solution]

The "Universal" term was used by Compaq to differentiate the newer hot plug drives from the older hot plugs. The older drives predate the use of the SCA SCSI connector by the drive manufacturers, and gave Compaq the ability to go hot plug before the rest. At the Proliant 1600 Compaq introduce the Ultra2 "Universal" backplane, which used the standardized SCA SCSI drive connector.

As for the firmware, the ROMPAQ means there is no firmware for the drives because it was never changed. Of course why one would want to flash the hard drive firmware is unknown. HD manufactures have stopped this practice due to the high chance of data loss.

[Wayne Stoll]

Universal Drives, also means that while you
may have a 36.4 gig drive, it may be built by
any number of different manufacturers. The
BB018122B7 Model number will distinguish the
specific Manufacturer. That is why you may
see references to multiple Firmware versions
for 36.4 gig drives. HP still provides Disk Drive Firmware update files when needed and
when released it is recommended to do them.
I can tell you it has reduced disk drive failures.

[eran70]

Thanks