Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 08:48:43 -0800 (PST)
From: John Anderson
Subject: Updating Two Drives with a 'Brute Force Disk'

Thank you very much for the information you have
posted on your website. As you have requested,
I am writing to tell you about my success on updating
the firmware on two of my drives.  First, I should
explain I had a lot of unneccessary frustration with
my scsi card.  I was using an old Symbios 53c416
chipset card, which worked fine in windows/linux but I
couldn't flash the firmware over it.  It took me a lot
of tries to realize this.  Each time I'd try it would
hang on 'converting hex to binary'.  I dont know if it
is because if doesn't have a boot bios or it doesn't
handle int13 interupts or what.  I guess the lesson
is, be sure you have the right dos aspi drivers for
your card, the appropriate line in your config.sys and
make sure you have a card you can flash over.  When I
moved the tape drives to my Adaptec 29160 card, they
flashed fine.

Ok, here's what I had:
***************************************************************************
Drive 1:
External Conner CTD8000 ES.  The label also had
4356XP. 
The firmware reported ARCHIVE Python 28388-XXX5.72

Drive 2:
External Seagate CTD8000 ES.  The label also had
4356XP. 
The firmware reported ARCHIVE Python 28388-XXX5.AC
***************************************************************************

Both drives are external drives, but really they are a
CTD8000 HS model (it even has the HS on label) housed
in an external case. They are exactly the same drive,
only the logo was different.  I found the email from
Jos Heemskerk helpful, so I'll use that format.

STEP:
PROGRAM:
FILE:
FIRMWARE REPORT AFTER:

***************************************************************************
MY FIRST DRIVE (CONNER) - ARCHIVE Python 28388-XXX5.72

1
FUP 1.6
V5acb-15.hex
ARCHIVE Python 01931-XXX5.AC

I got lucky with this one.  I thought I'd go for broke
and update right to the audio firmware and it worked. 
I tried the demo of VDAT and got some audio from an
old band tape I had. The Seagate drive took an extra
step:
***************************************************************************
MY SECOND DRIVE (SEAGATE) - ARCHIVE Python
28388-XXX5.AC
1
FUP 2.5 with /force switch
ARC80000.BIN
ARCHIVE 4326XX 27871-XXX0316

2
FUP 1.6b with /force switch
V5acb-15.hex
ARCHIVE Python 01931-XXX5.AC

Of course, I would not have known about the update
path using the Compaq firmware, were it not for Jos
Heemskerk, so thanks to Jos.  For step two on the
Seagate, I tried fup version 2.5 and the audio
firmware but it failed (even using the /force switch)
with an error like 'the model does not match the
firmware'.  Using fup version 1.6b with /force, I was
able to burn the audio firmware.  I tested this one
and it reads audio as well.
***************************************************************************

Along my quest to update the drives, I collected fup
versions 1.4, 1.6, 1.6b, and 2.5.  I also collected
six firmwares; v5ac-0.hex, v5aca-52.hex, v5acb-15.zip
(the audio one), V5aq-0.hex, arc80000.bin (compaq),
and the one from Seagate V6610500.bin for their
Scorpion drives. I don't know if the Scorpion firmware
would work at all, so I didn't try that one.  I ended
up creating a boot disk that contained 4 version of
fup and 5 of the firmwares zipped down all on one
disk.  I then created some menus that allowed me to
choose a FUP/firmware combination upon boot.  I found
this especially helpful in a brute force sort of way. 
I just would use the proccess of elimination to try
different combos until I was able update.  Feel free
to give my email to anyone who can't find a firmware
or wants a copy of the files/menus I created to make
the 'brute force' disk.

Thanks again for the support on the site and excellent
information.

John Anderson