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Subject: Re: IBM Desktar disk problem?
From: Daniel Egger <degger@fhm.edu>
To: Anton Altaparmakov <aia21@cantab.net>
Cc: Thunder from the hill <thunder@ngforever.de>, venom@sns.it,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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Am Fre, 2002-07-05 um 16.29 schrieb Anton Altaparmakov:

> Um, the solution is already known. Upgrade the firmware on the drive, low 
> level format if the drive thinks there are bad sectors, and be happy. At 
> least it worked for me...
 
> The very first question when making a support call for my broken deathstar 
> was "Have you installed the firmware update?" "No." "Download it here and 
> install, come back if it still doesn't work."
 
> I never thought it would work but it did! It seems there is something wrong 
> in the firmware the drives are shipped with and some suppliers obviously 
> know this considering my experience... When I was running the DFT test 
> utility it was telling me my drive is broken and needs to be returned. 
> After the firmware update the same test utility passed all tests repeatedly!

This is unacceptable; if my problem is really fixable by a firmware
upgrade IBM should have pushed this very upgrade publically after they
started to learn about the problem. Saying "Hey, BTW: if you had this
firmware version you would never have experienced your data loss" is
a very strong argument to never buy any IBM hardware again.

Still, the techsupport insisted on a software problem and didn't mention
a firmware upgrade; up to now I didn't even knew such a thing exists.
And letting customers lowlevel-format a drive, restore their data,
and experience the same problem again a week later is anything but
professional.

Though the timespan makes me curious: Why is there a magnitude
difference in runtime between the first problem on a fresh drive
and after a lowlevel format?

-- 
Servus,
       Daniel

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