Forum:Blink Blue Light. How to install firmware?

is there any reason why the edit appears on top now?

I've added at the end, to keep the original order.

Hi,

thanks to all contributors to this Wiki and this forum. Great Work.

I am having a problem with my SPP, and I am trying to share my findings, and also asking for advice on the next steps.

I run onto a blinking blue light. My 500G SPP drive is almost 2 years old, and I lost the sales ticket, so I decided to open the case. A Seagate ST350082 was sitting there; this is a model which might had the "bricked" BSY firmware problem, but I did followed Seagate's steps, and with the Serial number, I discovered that this problem did not applied. Do not apply the firmware without first validating the particular disk you own!

My priority was to get back the data. Almost all of it was duplicated somewhere else, but I did not know for sure if something essential wasn't.

I put the disk inside a computer with SATA cabling, and I discovered the physical disk with Windows Device Manager. But since I had the media partition formatted as EXT3, I couldn't evaluate the disk state or anything else.

I tried a Seagate tool called SeaTool for Windows, but it was broken. Later I tried SeaTool for DOS, which is a bootable CD, and I was able to run the DST test, whichever they are. This was an indication that the disk was not broken.

Later, with a knoppix LiveCD I discovered the partitions, mounted them and saw my data. I installed an Ubuntu partition, and finally I was able to recover my data.

I mounted back the HDD and started as USB disk, but I couldn't see a single partition. I decided that it was time for a SPP firmware reinstall, but ... the firmware utility is not able to see the SPP either, so I am stuck now.

Any idea?

Bye now.

NavaDelRey 00:29, December 9, 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I just made some progress and some discoveries, so I adding them here, just in case some else can profit.

I tried several times more, but I couldn't see the drive on the USB. So I decided to connect it again via SATA. There they were the four partitions, laughing at me. Just erased them all, and created a single one, occupying the whole disk which I formatted as NTFS,

I put the HDD back on the SPP casing, and connected via USB. No way. Stirring noises, and some regular clicks, but then after a long while (20 mins?),....( while I was doing some further googling ), I saw a text dialog with the familiar "New Hardware found. USB...". I do not remember now if I started with the USB cable disconnected, ( per indication or the firmware install program ), or connected.

I put latest firmware, and linked it to the TV set, and there it was, completing the firmware installation. It took sometime after the "Disk Error" appeared, 5mins perhaps. I performed basic configuration, and got HDMI, network, AV signal, etc.. all up and running. I played some mp3 files from a Share of my computer, and have programmed some TV recording. Now, I can access the Screenplay from the network, and see some content on the REC / REC1 folder, so I guess it is recording as well.

It is a pity that I got the USB connection after reformatting the drive, and loosing all of my data. I wonder if I ever had waited so long on the other tests I could have got USB connection! No chance now.

Now I will have to enable telnet, several simultaneous smb mounts, and populate the disks again. This time I will try to make sure that all info on the disk is stored somewhere else.

Good luck to all of you suffering from this system with so little resources to perform proper problem determination.

JE NavaDelRey 21:20, December 9, 2010 (UTC)

Bad Luck.

Yesterday I recorded 2hours TV. And I watched it over LAN. Later, I connected it via USB, enabled telnet and reformat partition to EXT3.

But today, It is not working. Blinking again.

I'll try to reformat it back to NTFS.

S.M.A.R.T is reporting 1 sector waiting to be reasigned.

I'll keep posting.

JE NavaDelRey 00:00, December 11, 2010 (UTC)

Back to like again. I performed several tests, scans and low level format with de HDD connected via SATA. Once I formated it to NTFS, an put it on the SPP box, it came bact to life. I loaded the firmware, and installed it.

I am suspecting the second failure might have been due to my formatting it to EXT3 from outside Linux, and not the SPP Linux so it might have left some inconsistencies on the partition table.

JE NavaDelRey 19:55, December 12, 2010 (UTC)

Hi,

RIP. Finally, the SPP did not come back to life, and reported definite errors on the PC SATA connection.

- I've got a new Media Center, ( based on Realtek MIPS Venus, with LAN, DVB-T high resolution, MKV support and NO INTERNAL HDD), and I am planning to build a real NAS with a separate device. I'll plan to get a new HDD and use the SPP for playing around with Linux.

JE. NavaDelRey 12:00, December 27, 2010 (UTC)