USB Mass Storage Drivers for Firmware Update

[Black Hole]

in general, it is just easier to tell the affected person to simply reformat or use another (simple) USB drive

I don't agree: if we can provide a foolproof recipe so that any UPD can be made to work, I think that would be a big step forward (albeit several years late). A quick survey indicates 16GB is currently the smallest that can be picked up at Tesco.

 

[bottletop]

I've updated my post #18 https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/usb-mass-storage-drivers-for-firmware-update.10259/post-156135
after trying various drives - portable hard drive, micro sd card etc

The "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, V2.1.8" (which has rescued uncooperative UPDs in the past) ran a quick format to FAT32 in the blink of an eye, no problem.
....
So here is a possible differentiation: there's something different about UPDs larger than 32GiB which requires special handling.

My test results show this statement is in error, as I've successfully used 64GB drives without issue. Although that HP tool is very handy - I don't know if it can be relied upon nowadays as the last update to it was roughly 2013.

I don't agree: if we can provide a foolproof recipe so that any UPD can be made to work, I think that would be a big step forward (albeit several years late). A quick survey indicates 16GB is currently the smallest that can be picked up at Tesco.

I seriously think just getting people to use another drive is easier - because I don't think there is a foolproof way of getting people to erase/reformat drives without some getting flustered over the hassle or the amount of time it takes to check if a drive works or not.

@BH, next time you're in Linux Mint, try dmesg and sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdX (change X to suit) to verify/check the troublesome flash drive.

Not too sure if you missed that - if you wish to investigate why that particular drive doesn't work as expected.

 

[bottletop]

Is there anything "we" can discover about the mass storage drivers available to read the .hdf file pre-boot? Perhaps we can work out what sticks/drives are supported and which are not.

I've discovered,so far, I can get the FW update to work with drives from 512MB to 512GB. It'll probably work for sizes above that, but I haven't tested it myself.

Details are in the older post referenced here

I've updated my post #18 https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/usb-mass-storage-drivers-for-firmware-update.10259/post-156135
after trying various drives - portable hard drive, micro sd card etc

So anyone struggling to get their drive to work should consider

• how they're creating the drive
• if their drive has hardware or filesystem errors
• just use another drive

 

[Black Hole]

I've discovered,so far, I can get the FW update to work with drives from 512MB to 512GB.

Impressive.

 

[xyz321]

I seem to remember that having a known good device with firmware update in the front port whilst having another drive without the update in the rear port would not work. I don't think I ever tried swapping them over.

 

[Black Hole]

I guess that simply means it only looks at the first device it finds.

 

[bottletop]

I've updated my #18 https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/usb-mass-storage-drivers-for-firmware-update.10259/post-156135 with details of #25 and #23 above.
I've managed to use 2.5 inch 1TB to install CFW, but it requires additional steps and items.

 

[Luke]

I've managed to use 2.5 inch 1TB to install CFW, but it requires additional steps and items.

I've used a 2.5 inch 1TB passport drive with no issue to update the software. Was type of drive are you referring to?

But with the exception of Mach Xtreme MX-ES USB 32GB flash drives, (USB 2.0 as I've had them a few years), I've never had an issue.

 

[Black Hole]

I've used a 2.5 inch 1TB passport drive with no issue to update the software.

How do you make sure it's up and running in time for the 'FOX boot to check for an update file?

 

[Luke]

How do you make sure it's up and running in time for the 'FOX boot to check for an update file?

I didn't do anything extra. I just pluged it in and powered on the HDR.

 

[bottletop]

I didn't do anything extra. I just pluged it in and powered on the HDR.

Does the 2.5 inch 1TB passport drive start up faster than the Mach Xtreme MX-ES USB 32G by any chance?

That reminds me - I failed to mention I observed the devices that worked usually presents the navigable FAT32 partition to the OS in less than, say, roughly 8 or 9 seconds from plugging in (on my laptop - it may be different for other hardware/OS combinations).
That's why for the slower start up devices I tried powering up a (hard) drive ahead of the data USB cable. This gives it a head start, so that some of the initialisation process is out of the way eg a hard drive spin up time.
Note also a SSD placed in one enclosure may initialise quickly compared to the same SSD in another enclosure.

 

[Black Hole]

Not too sure if you missed that - if you wish to investigate why that particular drive doesn't work as expected.

Didn't miss it, no - just not been in a position to do anything about it. Looking at it now (but only for a few minutes)...

 

[Black Hole]

Updated version of Things Every... section 12.

 

[Black Hole]

@BH, next time you're in Linux Mint, try dmesg and sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdX (change X to suit) to verify/check the troublesome flash drive.

dmesg (relevant lines only):

[  767.255211] usb 1-8.1: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
[  767.392819] usb 1-8.1: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=6387, bcdDevice= 1.00
[  767.392823] usb 1-8.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  767.392826] usb 1-8.1: Product: Mass Storage
[  767.392828] usb 1-8.1: Manufacturer: Generic
[  767.392829] usb 1-8.1: SerialNumber: 78BD5A233B9001B7
[  767.431893] usb-storage 1-8.1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[  767.432049] scsi host13: usb-storage 1-8.1:1.0
[  767.432131] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[  767.435519] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
[  768.459899] scsi 13:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic  Flash Disk       8.07 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[  768.460348] sd 13:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[  768.461116] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdd] 121610240 512-byte logical blocks: (62.3 GB/58.0 GiB)
[  768.461752] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[  768.461756] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[  768.462398] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[  768.487571]  sdd: sdd1
[  768.490545] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
[  768.719057] FAT-fs (sdd1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdd:

Disk /dev/sdd: 57.101 GiB, 62264442880 bytes, 121610240 sectors
Disk model: Flash Disk     
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x4c415247

Device     Boot Start       End   Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdd1          63 121610239 121610177  58G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

 

[bottletop]

dmesg (relevant lines only):

[  767.255211] usb 1-8.1: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
...
[  768.487571]  sdd: sdd1
[  768.490545] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
[  768.719057] FAT-fs (sdd1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.

...

The drive formatting looks ok, so it's likely the filesystem (the 'Please run fsck' message) or drive characteristic it doesn't like.
If you wish to test further -

• format the whole thing again, this time make a small first partition eg 200MB instead of the full 64GB. Leave the rest unformatted.
• use long/full format rather than quick format (a size of 200MB will reduce the time it takes to perform this task and long/full format has extra checks)

Another thing to check is the time it takes for Linux Mint to recognise the drive compared to the ones that work. Does it take 9+ seconds for OS to see the drive?

 

[Black Hole]

A significant suggestion in the linked thread is that the firmware upgrade drive should be the only USB storage device connected.

Are you suggesting there is a systematic problem with people disobeying this? Sounds like late night thinking to me.

My purpose in thus thread was to find a solution to the problem of UPDs not working for firmware updating, but that never came to a satisfactory conclusion (life moved on), and as a consequence we have nothing to offer the OP here.

If only the HDR-FOX had a reset button (as per the HD-FOX), it might be possible to reboot without taking the power down. Hmm. I wonder if the problem manifests the same on a HD-FOX...