Samsung 2TB green drives defective firmware?

Justintoxicated said:
Was it the fact that if I had partitioned this drive using WHS it would have set the offset to 63? Is that what is going on or am I still not understanding the issue correctly?
Click to expand...

If you partitioned it in WHS it would have put the first partition on sector 63.
 
drescherjm said:
Didn't you run that in a VM?
Click to expand...

I ran it on win7 first and it does not detect the drive as extended format.

When I ran it in the VM it did not detect the drive (didn't know if it would work since I haven't configured VM's before).

Then I ran the tool again on the WHS server via RDP. Same results as the win7 system.

Thanks for the explanation I was super confused :p Finally in 10TB club...
 
anyone knows why errors keep increasing?
the drive is now unstable, many errors

edit: what does that mean?
Please connect Target HDD to Primary / Mast.
 
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on hd tune i have massive read/write errors and other smart attr keep increasing after i copy some files.
 
Post the smart. Some of the the SMART error rate values increase and are normal or more specifically I have seen them increase for most WDC, Seagate and Samsung drives.. And I have 100s of drives.
 
I got 10 of these drives with flashed firmware in a raid 5 array. I have written 12tb to it straight, and continue to read/write from it daily, and do not have any issues.

I just bought another 4 drives as they are on-sale again.

I've also run HDtune across the array a few times before I put any data on them.
 
I just got one of these drives last week, and I cannot get the patch program to work. I have tried in on both a Crosshair and M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3 motherboard with the same result. All the F4EG program does is dump the usage and exit.

I also got a Fantom 2TB external drive with an 204UI in it and it will not patch that either (through eSATA).

If I run the tool with /DETECT it sees both hard drives but does nothing with them.

Has anyone else seen this?

Thanks!
 
You may have problems trying to patch these using any form of external. Its best to patch using the main motherboard SATA ports (Intel or AMD) and booting from freedos instead of some old copy of msdos.
 
i have posted fotos in a previous page..here is the new ones with very increased numbers as i copied many files..
jLPb9.png
 
Looks totally fine to me.

Here is a 4 to 6 year old drive that has a much higher raw read error rate but is forking fine..

Code: 
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   108   082   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       199745616
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   091   090   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       75
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   087   060   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       556544473
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   087   087   000    Old_age   Always       -       12095
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       95
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   063   045   045    Old_age   Always   In_the_past 37 (Min/Max 35/38)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   037   055   000    Old_age   Always       -       37 (0 19 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   060   055   000    Old_age   Always       -       56175345
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
202 Data_Address_Mark_Errs  0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

Edit: I take that back. The C7 errors mean there is probably a cabling problem. There normally should not be a lot of ECC errors in the data transmission. For me this drive has 0 errors in C7 (199).
 
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drescherjm said:
You may have problems trying to patch these using any form of external. Its best to patch using the main motherboard SATA ports (Intel or AMD) and booting from freedos instead of some old copy of msdos.
Click to expand...

Just tried FreeDOS (Actually just ran ESTOOLS and exited to DOS. I still get the same usage dump.
 
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delvryboy said:
I had no choice but to flash in ACHI, as no other setting would work.
Click to expand...

That's kind of surprising, but I'm not an expert at this stuff. I'm assuming the drive(s) were connected via a SATA cable and not E-SATA or USB (if that would even work). I know that having a standard SATA connection was emphasized in the instructions I recieved.

The first time I patched, I didn't even realize AHCI might be an issue . I patched two drives, but then I discovered that HDTune showed one drive not having all smart features enabled. I can't say for certain whether that was a result of patching under ACHI or not, but I don't recall that being the case prior to the patch. As long as you get one of the two "patch completed" messages I would think you're fine. Hopefully that's the case.

I know that you can run the patch for more than one drive at once and even keep other drives connected (incl. other Samsungs). I just decided that after wasting so much time on this needlessly, :mad: I'd rather just follow the RMA center's directions to be "safe." BTW, I say "RMA center" because it's not part of Samsung, but a seperate company. They were actually very helpful vs. NOTHING from Samsung other than "RMA if you have a problem." :rolleyes:
 
Justintoxicated said:
lol, this was way easier than I was making it out to be. Simple mistake early on was not letting me change to drive C:. I already had freedos on there too...
Click to expand...

I tried a CD boot disc and had the same problem (I got an "A:\" prompt, but couldn't get it to change to "C:\" in order to run the patch).

Just curious - what was the mistake?
 
almanati said:
edit: what does that mean?
Please connect Target HDD to Primary / Mast.
Click to expand...

Just ignore that. It means that Samsung tech support is clueless. Even I know that "primarly/master" is something that applies to the old ATA interfaces (remember the big ribbon cables & pin jumpers? See PATA explained), NOT SATA!
 
I need to flash my drives but have no idea what I'm doing. I downloaded the file from here

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=386

Now I have an application that wont boot in windows. From what I understand i need to boot to dos, but have no idea how to do that. I need to put freeDOS on a stick? and then i need to set my drives to master? I thought ata doesn't have master? im in ahci do i need to set my bios option to IDE? could someone make a mini tutorial? I'm sure it would help me and many others

UGG sorry for being such a noob at this, I just don't want to mess anything up. Why the hell couldn't samsung have just made it a windows .exe?

damn you samsung!!!

thank you hardocp!
 
SoxFanNH said:
Just tried FreeDOS (Actually just ran ESTOOLS and exited to DOS. I still get the same usage dump.
Click to expand...

Drescherjm right about using a direct SATA connection to the motherboard rather than try E-Sata - though I don't know why FreeDos is recommended over using Win 98 boot files. recommened FreeDos over Win 98 boot files.

I'm not sure what you mean be "useage dump." Are you getting a "download completeled successfully" message followed by "S/N: xxx" and the return to C:\ prompt? If so then it's patched according to Samsung. Just make sure you power off instead of restart. I'd also patch one at a time to be safe.
 
goesto11 said:
Drescherjm right about using a direct SATA connection to the motherboard rather than try E-Sata - though I don't know why FreeDos is recommended over using Win 98 boot files. recommened FreeDos over Win 98 boot files.

I'm not sure what you mean be "useage dump." Are you getting a "download completeled successfully" message followed by "S/N: xxx" and the return to C:\ prompt? If so then it's patched according to Samsung. Just make sure you power off instead of restart. I'd also patch one at a time to be safe.
Click to expand...

I have both an internal and external so it didn't make a difference over SATA or eSATA. As for the usage dump it just lists out all the options available for the program SFLASH
/SCAN
/DETECT
and a bunch of other random stuff.

I never get a message about "download complete or anything along those lines".
 
drescherjm said:
Looks totally fine to me.

Here is a 4 to 6 year old drive that has a much higher raw read error rate but is forking fine..
Edit: I take that back. The C7 errors mean there is probably a cabling problem. There normally should not be a lot of ECC errors in the data transmission. For me this drive has 0 errors in C7 (199).
Click to expand...

yes but my disk is on power only 3-4 days..and not 4-6 years..

goesto11 said:
I tried a CD boot disc and had the same problem (I got an "A:\" prompt, but couldn't get it to change to "C:\" in order to run the patch).

Just curious - what was the mistake?
Click to expand...

goesto11 said:
Drescherjm right about using a direct SATA connection to the motherboard rather than try E-Sata - though I don't know why FreeDos is recommended over using Win 98 boot files. recommened FreeDos over Win 98 boot files.

I'm not sure what you mean be "useage dump." Are you getting a "download completeled successfully" message followed by "S/N: xxx" and the return to C:\ prompt? If so then it's patched according to Samsung. Just make sure you power off instead of restart. I'd also patch one at a time to be safe.
Click to expand...

mine also said A:\> and not C:\> but i just wrote f4eg or .exe on the end i think its the same, and it said update completed + SN followed

i think you have to put the sata cable directly to your motherboard and not in a controller cause it wont work[this is primary/master propably]

also check here
http://code.kliu.org/.etc/samsung_f4eg_flash/
it seems easy to do
i did my usb bootable with winspy[enabled ms-dos tik] ..and formated..then put the exe inside
 
llmercll - no worries. I can emphathize. :D

I suggest creating a USB flash drive boot "disk". Assuming you already downloaded the patch (if not get it here F4EG patch), download HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool and Windows 98 System Files. You can substitute FreeDos for the Win 98 files if you want as others have suggested using that.

1) Install and run the HP USB tool to create a "bootable USB" by selecting that option and target the Win 98 files (or FreeDos). Check the quick format option as well. NOTE: - you will lose any files already existing on the USB drive so back up your data before doing this! Optional - back up the data on your F4. I've patched several times and so far it has not affected the data on the hard drive, but you never know.
2) Unzip the patch and copy it to the USB drive (don't put it in a folder - just copy it to the drive).
3) Turn off the PC.
4) Make sure that the F4 is conected to the motherboard directly via a SATA cable (using a front bay hotswap rack is fine as long as it also connects directly to the motherboard via a SATA cable). I recommend disconnecting all your other hard disks from the motherboard just to be safe as well as patching one F4 at a time.
5) Power on your PC and enter the bios: (A) Set the bios to "IDE" or "SATA" if you have ACHI enabled or RAID, and (B) change the boot priority so that it boots from the USB drive (FYI, on my Asus board the USB flash drive shows as hard drive on the boot priority section, not a "removable device").
6) Save/Exit the bios & restart. You should now boot into DOS.
7) At the ">C:\" prompt type "F4EG". The patch should now run. After a minute or two you should get a message "download successfuly completed" followed by a serial number and then back to the C prompt. Alternatively, according to Samsung though I haven't seen it, you could get something like "poweroff system after patch sucessful..." instead.
8) Power off PC via the power button - do NOT restart!
**If you have more than one F4 and are patching one at a time, replace the patched F4 with the next one to patch, turn on the PC, and repeat steps 7 & 8. Repeat until all drives are patched.
9) Reconnect any previously disconnected hard drives and remove the USB flash drive.
10) Power on PC, change bios settings back to where they were, save, exit, and boot up as normal.

If you can't get it to boot into DOS (a) substitute FreeDos files for the Win 98 files (or vice versa), and/or (b) try another USB flash drive - especially if the one you used was older. That happened to me even though when I bought the drive it specifically stated it was "bootable." :rolleyes:
 
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goesto11 said:
llmercll - no worries. I can emphathize. :D

I suggest creating a USB flash drive boot "disk". Assuming you already downloaded the patch, download HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool and Windows 98 System Files. You can substitute FreeDos for the Win 98 files if you want as others have suggested using that.

1) Install and run the HP USB tool to create a "bootable USB" by selecting that option and target the Win 98 files (or FreeDos). Check the quick format option as well. NOTE: - you will lose any files already existing on the USB drive so back up your data before doing this! Optional - back up the data on your F4. I've patched several times and so far it has not affected the data on the hard drive, but you never know.
2) Unzip the patch and copy it to the USB drive (don't put it in a folder - just copy it to the drive).
3) Turn off the PC.
4) Make sure that the F4 is conected to the motherboard directly via a SATA cable (using a front bay hotswap rack is fine as long as it also connects directly to the motherboard via a SATA cable). I recommend disconnecting all your other hard disks from the motherboard just to be safe as well as patching one F4 at a time.
5) Power on your PC and enter the bios: (A) Set the bios to "IDE" or "SATA" if you have ACHI enabled or RAID, and (B) change the boot priority so that it boots from the USB drive (FYI, on my Asus board the USB flash drive shows as hard drive on the boot priority section, not a "removable device").
6) Save/Exit the bios & restart. You should now boot into DOS.
7) At the ">C:\" prompt type "F4EG". The patch should now run. After a minute or two you should get a message "download successfuly completed" followed by a serial number and then back to the C prompt. Alternatively, according to Samsung though I haven't seen it, you could get something like "poweroff system after patch sucessful..." instead.
8) Power off PC via the power button - do NOT restart!
**If you have more than one F4 and are patching one at a time, replace the patched F4 with the next one to patch, turn on the PC, and repeat steps 7 & 8. Repeat until all drives are patched.
9) Reconnect any previously disconnected hard drives and remove the USB flash drive.
10) Power on PC, change bios settings back to where they were, save, exit, and boot up as normal.

If you can't get it to boot into DOS (a) substitute FreeDos files for the Win 98 files (or vice versa), and/or (b) try another USB flash drive - especially if the one you used was older. That happened to me even though when I bought the drive it specifically stated it was "bootable." :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You are a lifesaver!! I've been trying freedos but it wasn't working well for me. After following your guide I updated the firmware on both drives sucessfully, at least i think so, considering samsung doesn't update the firmware number (grrr samsung)

I didn't have any other way to read your instructions once my pc was off so I had to memorize them =(

I accidentally did a few things differently, and wondering if that might have messed anything up. First off, I accidentally applied the fix to my drive while it was still in AHCI mode (only for the first drive). Once it was done I shut of the computer, turned it back on, went and changed the bios into IDE mode and reran the patch. Everything seemed normal.

Second, I didn't shut off my PC after the install. I pressed control alt del, but my monitor went black, then I did a hard shut down. I made sure the computer was doing a "cold boot" each time though.

Everything seems fine now that ive rebooted. no data loss, no issues, and no way to verify if it worked. Could any of the above mistakes I made had a negative impact on my drives or botched the update?
 
Hmmm, did this a while back but I believe (will have to check when I get home) my system is in ACHI mode - I have a Fileserver where these drives reside, but used my 'everyday' PC to flash them as it was alot easier.

My question is, how vital is switching ACHI to IDE to flash them successfully - I saw no errors, and it SEEMED everything went fine?
 
I flashed all 3 of mine with AHCI mode enabled on my i7 board. And the flash did work. I tested the drives with the "how to reproduce" from the first link on this post before and after the flash.
 
I think my internal drive may have more issues than just the firmware. The read speed graph for the internal drive jumps from ~ 100 MB/s to ~50 MB/s about 20 times across the drive instead of the smooth downward curve from the external eSATA drive. Has this kind of performance been noted before? Looks like I may have to RMA it anyway...

Internal Drive:
Min Read: 28.4 MB/s
Max Read: 150.1 MB/s
Avg Read: 101.6 MB/s
Avg Seek: 19.7 ms

External (Fantom Green Drive w/ HD204UI)
Min Read: 66.7 MB/s
Max Read: 137.6 MB/s
Avg Read: 108.7 MB/s
Avg Seek: 15.3 ms

Internal
sata.png


External
esata.png
 
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Has this kind of performance been noted before? Looks like I may have to RMA it anyway...
Click to expand...

I have two questions about that graph.

1. Do you have SMART monitoring software monitoring the disk every few seconds. I have seen a case where some program was asking for the smart result every 2 seconds causing this behavior.

2. If the answer to 1 is no. Can you post the smart raw results,
 
drescherjm said:
I have two questions about that graph.

1. Do you have SMART monitoring software monitoring the disk every few seconds. I have seen a case where some program was asking for the smart result every 2 seconds causing this behavior.

2. If the answer to 1 is no. Can you post the smart raw results,
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, I used smartctl to turn off smart on the hard drive, same result with the benchmark. Here are the SMART Attributes:

Code: 
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0026   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0023   067   067   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       10111
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       37
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   252   252   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0024   252   252   015    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       21
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       36
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       6820
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0022   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0022   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   064   064   000    Old_age   Always       -       23 (Lifetime Min/Max 18/29)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   252   252   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0036   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x002a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
223 Load_Retry_Count        0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
225 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       37
 
I expected something in ID# 5, 197, 198 or 199. From the SMART data this drive does not appear to be bad.

Could there be some other program accessing the disk when you are running the benchmark?
 
VenomousDesigns said:
Hmmm, did this a while back but I believe (will have to check when I get home) my system is in ACHI mode - I have a Fileserver where these drives reside, but used my 'everyday' PC to flash them as it was alot easier.

My question is, how vital is switching ACHI to IDE to flash them successfully - I saw no errors, and it SEEMED everything went fine?
Click to expand...

Mine wouldn't flash in IDE mode.
 
drescherjm said:
I expected something in ID# 5, 197, 198 or 199. From the SMART data this drive does not appear to be bad.

Could there be some other program accessing the disk when you are running the benchmark?
Click to expand...

Tried a benchmark with HDTune in Windows as well with the same result. Also tried updating the Crosshair BIOS with no changes. Guess I can try a different motherboard tomorrow (have the ASUS M4A89GTD as well).
 
llmercll - I'm glad I could help. I don't know why Freedos didn't work for you (it didn't for me either o_O). Same for why I could patch with the bios set to IDE as well as ACHI (first patch attempt) while others can only patch with ACHI enabled. According to drescherjm’s post above, patching with ACHI enabled works just fine. What I wrote was what seemed to be the most commonly recommended procedure I found after reading this thread and threads in a few other forums. It's also the same procedure given to me by the RMA center.

llmercll said:
Second, I didn't shut off my PC after the install. I pressed control alt del, but my monitor went black, then I did a hard shut down. I made sure the computer was doing a "cold boot" each time though.

Everything seems fine now that ive rebooted. no data loss, no issues, and no way to verify if it worked. Could any of the above mistakes I made had a negative impact on my drives or botched the update?
Click to expand...

I can't say for certain, but pressing control, alt, delete and then powering off might cause an issue. Before I spoke with the RMA center, I actually powered off via the power button and then turned off the PSU as well. I was told not to turn off the PSU so I re-patched my drives just to be safe.

Hope this helps.
 
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SoxFanNH - those access times are higher than what I would expect from this drive. Does HD Tune give you the similar results? I don't have any F4 HDTune benchmark test results saved, but I do have test results saved for both of my two F3EG 2TB drives. HDTune gave an access time of 12.9ms for both drives. 12.9ms is pretty slow and since the F4 is a three platter driver vs. four platters for the F3EG, I can't image why a properly working F4 would have a significantly higher access time.

JMO, but unless you absolutely need the drive right now, I would RMA - especially if you can return it for a new one. It seems pretty clear that Samsung has no issues with RMAs. When I spoke to Samsung tech support (not the RMA center) for help with patching, the tech expressly stated that if I had any doubts about a hard drive, RMA back to the retailer in exchange for a new one (if possible) or back to Samsung.

If you bought it from NewEgg and are within the 30 day return period, I suggest you call NewEgg customer support. Recently, I had to RMA an F4 the day after I received it. The drive was very loud regardless if it was in use or not (literally drowned out everything else). I explained the problem to the customer support rep, and not only did he process the RMA request immediately, he also e-mailed me a free USP return shipping label. Great customer service.
 
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almanati said:
what do u mean by that?
Click to expand...

Look at the C7 line in his output or the 199 line in my or SoxFanNH's output. This line indicates the number of ECC errors in the data transmission between the PC and the hard drive. Having a few hundred in the raw column for this value usually means there is a connection problem between the SATA controller and the drive. It can be the SATA cable or the SATA card or the daughter board on the hard drive causing this.
 
I bought one of these drives in November for storing movies and music, I recently ran HD Tune on it and it wont read past 1099gb, The random seek test fails... But when I run the Samsung Estools diagnostic, it doesn't find any problems at all :S. I really do not want to lose all my media, have I got a bad drive???
 
Manufacturer tools do not rigorously test drives. The best test is to cause disk activity and look at the SMART data.

Please post raw SMART data.
 
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