Is it possible to get these SAS Hitachi drives to work on a "normal" system?

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mzfk

New Member
Feb 11, 2019
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Now im working with HGST DKR5D and DKR5C.

Has anyone analyzed the civil HUС1090 or HUС1060? What is the amount of flash?

I tried to write the MBR directly to disk. The command is executed, the data is recorded, the disk even becomes visible to the operating systems. Even it turns out to write something to disk. But after a while, the MBR mysteriously disappears and the disk becomes inaccessible again.

I am trying to put a controller board from a similar drive for EMC. With firmware CD0A202, which works great. On it, too, 512kb flash. Does not help. It looks like the differences are very deep.

Can you try to reflash firmware from EMC drive to this?
 

Forvator

New Member
Feb 6, 2019
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Yes. I dumped flash from EMC and write dump to the flash of DKR5C controler board. It not working.
This will not work, the data in the flash only for the initial download main firmware is stored on magnetic disks.
 

mzfk

New Member
Feb 11, 2019
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I watched all the encryption settings. There is no encryption on my disk. TCG settings are also not active.
Confirm this! i also can't find any flags that reports about active encryption!

Also this HDD's perfectly can reformatted with any bytes per sector - 512, 520, 528 - look like drive is not read only mode.
 

BeTeP

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2019
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Out of roughly a hundred of CobraE (HUC1090) drives I have bought on ebay there was maybe a dozen that I had to send back for a refund because of this specific problem where the drive could be successfully formatted and self-tested but could not be written to.

I had no reason to investigate any further since it was easier to return the problematic drives and buy working ones at the same price ($15-20 for 600Gb model depending on the order size) instead.

Even if I were to find those drives available for much lower price (let's say under $5ea) I would not bother because I moved on to higher capacity drives now. I mean I like to tinker as much as the next guy but in the end I would like to be able to show something for it.

So my question to people still looking to solve this problem - how many drives like this are you still sitting on?
 

Haywire

New Member
Mar 30, 2019
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New to the site. I've been led here by google due to having just received 6 of the HUC106060CSS600 EMC drives from Ebay for my Dell R610. Sadly, they aren't seen at all by the PERC H200i controller (or BIOS for that matter). You guys are talking WAY over my head, but it sounds like this is a complete "no go" in spite of Dell owning EMC? I was hoping a simple firmware update would do the trick.
 

BeTeP

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2019
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Everyone else's drives are fully functional (if used in their intended system) whereas yours might be just plain dead. As there is no reason for a non broken drive not to get recognized when connected to a plain HBA.

The thread is about getting otherwise functional OEM drives to work outside of their intended ecosystem.

I was hoping a simple firmware update would do the trick.
How were you going to update firmware on a device not being recognized by the system if you do not mind me asking?
 
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Haywire

New Member
Mar 30, 2019
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The drives are not in their intended ecosystem. I believe they would work if plugged into an EMC Isilon system. I do not have an EMC system; or at least I did not think I did. They were working pulls from EMC. The thought of flashing them was the part I was hoping there was an answer to. How to hook them up somehow in a manor they will be sensed. I cannot just connect them to a normal PC since they are SAS. Any suggestions?
 

bustedtyre

New Member
May 11, 2019
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I've found someone who'd try connecting directly to the 25U4032E to reflash the drive. If anyone's got standard firmware - please share. Normal versions seem to be A440, A5B0, B5B0
 

BeTeP

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2019
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I've found someone who'd try connecting directly to the 25U4032E to reflash the drive.
This is not how it works. The HDD firmware updates are not just raw images ready to be flashed to the EEPROM chip. But you are more than welcome to ask your friend to dump the existing contents of the chip and post it online.