C1537A firmware HP01 won't upgrade

[Leif Harcke]

We have a C1537A which v3.2 of Library & Tape Tools under Windows XP says has version HP01 of the firmware. All of the available firmware upgrades start with Lxxx where xxx is a three digit number. Tape Tools complains "There is no matching firmware for this device, it cannot be selected." But we have all of the Lxxx series firmware downloaded from the web and available locally. Any suggestions as to how to upgrade the firmware in this DDS-3 drive would be helpful. The drive was acquired in 1999 as part of a HP9000 system (D380 server) running HP-UX, and now is attached to a Windows XP machine.

[Leif Harcke]

Some additional information: the "Local Firmware Files" tab of the Library & Tape Tools application lists "wrong prefix" for all of the Lxxx series firmware we have downloaded. This may be obvious from the fact that the current firmware begins with HPxx wheras the firmware files begin with Lxxx. Perhaps this is a very old firmware which must be upgraded at an HP service center?

[Steve W · Accepted solution]

HP01 firmware is for HP Enterprise model of DDS drives whereas Lxxx is for the reseller version of the DDS3 drive. The hardware is identical, but the firmware is not interchangeable without factory intervention and the use of special "bridge" code. You should still be able to use the drive, but L&TT won't be able to upgrade the firmware.

[Leif Harcke]

We called HP support on the afternoon of May 22, but the gentleman on the telephone did not know where HP01 firmware came from. He authorized the factory override in Library & Tape Tools, and the drive has now been loaded with L111 firmware. The drive was subsequently removed from the Windows XP machine and installed in its final resting place, a Pentium III with an Adaptec 2940 PCI card running Red Hat Linux (kernel 2.4.18-27.7.x, soon to be 2.4.20).

Under Linux, the command line Library & Tape Tools show that the drive passes the Connectivity, Device Analysis, and Read/Write tests that ship with L&TT. Should we be concerned that this drive might fail when doing long streaming backups that span multiple tapes, as it does not have the "bridge code?"

[Eugeny Brychkov]

No. The only drive needs is its firmware.
Bridge code can be either intermediate code which you load to the drive which loads (or allows to load) final firmware image at its place or special tool loaded at programming device to load firmware image to the drive
Eugeny

[BR732038]

DDS3 (DAT24) drives came in two flavours. One lot with HPxx firmware code and one lots with Lxxx firmware code.

Towards the end of 2001,we united the two firmware streams into the Lxxx versions starting from firmware version L105.

Don't be concerned; compatibility should be fine.