Hitachi 5k80 Intermittent Clicking Noises - Page 2

Anyone was lucky with the latest version on ibm web site (A5HA)? I cannot figure out how to modify the .tbl file to upgrade my firmware (currently A53A).
Thanks for your answers

I noticed the cliking in mine has strongly subsided

Resurrecting this thread in hopes of getting some help. Long story short, recently got a Hitachi with the same clicking problem from Dell, had it replaced with another Hitachi, and lo and behold, the same clicking noise. It's amazing how widespread this is.

Anyways, reformatted, tried the Feature Tool, PowerBoost, turned off SMART, turned off an idle HD access feature in XP with Tweakui, and the damn thing still continues to tick, albeit with less frequency.

I tried updating with the firmware in this thread but when the utility loads, it won't work, perhaps thinking that my existing firmware is newer.

I'm not really sure because my existing firmware is "MAA0A71AAD" and this new one ends in "A75A".

I'm not familiar with hexadecimal numbering scheme, but the IBM site, http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-41008 gives the release date of "4/1/05", while my Hitachi shows a manufacture date of March. Either way, I'd like to try the firmware because I'm desperate for a solution.

Looking at Henrik's posts, the original command line in FW.PRO was:
"HFUI12L.EXE IA5DA -pm MG4IA5DA.BIN /U MRLA5DA.TBL"

corresponding to his drive; which was changed to:
"HFUI12L.EXE OA5DA -pm MG4IA5DA.BIN /U MRLA5DA.TBL"

Looking at the FW.PRO in this 4/1 update, the section about my particular drive reads as follows:

"HTS424030M9AT00","MAAIA70A","MAAIA75A","MAAIA75A.bin","hfui13.exe","IA75A","/u MPAA75A.tbl","FWHD3314"

Changing this into Henrik's command line format gives:
"hfui13.exe IA75A -pm MAAIA75A.bin /U MPAA75A.tbl"

Which would be changed to this with the letter change:
"hfui13.exe OA75A -pm MAAIA75A.bin /U MPAA75A.tbl"

My question is regarding MPAA75A.TBL, the file in this update that correponds to Henrik's drive's MRLA5DA.TBL in the older update he was referencing.

Mine is of a different format than his - this is the entire file:


No mention of IBM or OEM, but I'm guessing I should fiddle around with "A7?A -> A75A RAM" to get it to accept the firmware change.

I'm obviously clueless about coding...so any suggestions on how I could get this to work would be appreciated. What should I modify in the above file, and how would that affect my new command line?

Thanks for any forthcoming help.

How I finally applied version A5HA

First off, thanks to the other people that made their knowledge available here.

I have the thinkpad t43p which requires some special versions of HDD firmware to function w/out complaining. Not wanting to pay $300 for the drive from IBM/Lenovo; I elected to purchase the same drive from Tiger Direct for $127.

Anyway, what I first did was flash the drive to version A5BA by using the method Hendrick detailed. (Dont forget it's OA5BA) Now that the drive was at a firmware revision which was recognized by the A5HA updater, I was able to flash it as usual using the A5HA update disk.

I did not experience any problems (other than an hour of frustration), and my Thinkpad is happy now and boots without incident.

BTW: My drive never clicked or made weird sounds. I only updated the firmware to please the "Advanced Hard Disk Protection" stuff in my thinkpad.

Good Luck,

-Vincent

My Silent Hitachi 60GB 7200 RPM HDD

Hope this repost of mine helps someone.....

"I've read a lot of pissing and moaning on this board about the noisy clicking ("It's driving me up the wall!") of the Hitachi 60GB 7200 RPM HDD.

Since I have one of these clickers in my Dell Inspiron i9300, and I'd read about the Hitachi Drive Feature Tool (v1.97) in another thread, I decided to give it a whirl. Here's what I found out.....

1st, I DL'd the Feature Tool ISO at:
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

I burned the ISO to disk with Nero, and used it to boot my i9300.

Selecting 'Change Acoustic Level' from the DOS era GUI runs the acoustic test, with the HDD running constantly. There is a slider switch to select your preferred level of quietness. I put my ear against the keyboard and at level 190 on the slider I could barely hear a thing. Natch, I set the level at 190 and exited the utility.

Finally, I ran HD Tach to compare the quiet HDD results to my previous noisy ones....

Default (Noisy):
Random access: 17.0ms
CPU utilization: 2% (+/-2%)
Average read: 30.8 MB/s
Burst speed: 91.1 MB/s

After Hitachi AAM (Quiet):
Random access: 16.7ms
CPU utilization: 4% (+/-2%)
Average read: 30.8 MB/s
Burst speed: 93.7 MB/s

(Looking at the graph in HD Tach, the average read on my 12 GB OS/Programs partition is around 38-40 MB/s in either case...)

Eh, not much difference, I'd say. Think I'll stick with the queiter drive settings!
Hope this helps my fellow sufferers.

HD Tach:
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public...request=HdTach"


http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...t+feature+tool

Do you happen to have a link to the older firmware?

It seems the newest firmware can't be edited by Henrik's method to accept the update on OEM drives, but your method sounds good.

Does anyone have the older firmware? I'm kinda stuck wihtout it as well.

I just got it to properly flash from the stock A53A up to A5HA. It was mostly trial and error, so it took quite a bit of time.

Anyways, I modified the file (MRLA5HA.tbl) to the following (Note: This is for the Hitachi 60GB 5K80 Drive):

The parts I modified are: A53A -> A5HA RAM and the checksum table (I deleted everything except the first non-zero line). After this load up the firmware on your laptop and exit to the command prompt (press Esc multiple times). Once you're there, you'll need to issue the command for your respective hard drive. For the 60GB Hitachi, it's the following:

The /F switch forces the upgrade and gives you an interface with a bit more information. If all goes well, you should see that microcode being downloaded and then it will say that it failed and the upgrade didn't work. (This is a good thing.) The reason it's declaring failure is because the current firmware will be MGBOA5HA and the program was suppose to make it MGBIA5HA. As you can see, the only difference is that one is an OEM firmware whereas the other is the IBM firmware. Upon reboot, the 2010 error should be gone (if you have an IBM T43) and restarting the firmware upgrade program will show that your current firmware is indeed the latest (A5HA).

Hope that helps.

goh

Nice detective work, goh! How did you figure out that deleting everything except the first non-zero line would do the trick? And the existance of the /F switch? I wouldn't have ever been able to figure those out on my own.

By the way, what happened when you tried the firmware upgrade with the /F switch and the full checksum table? Did it just spit out an error not letting you upgrade?

Hitachi Deathstar...

It was a lot of trial and error, I just kept messing around with the binary files until I found the switches that were available. If I had anything but the checksum table I outlined above, it would spit out an error declaring that it was expecting another checksum and the firmware upgrade would fail.

One more question for you...
Even though the firmware version stays as the OEM MGBOA5HA instead of MGBIA5HA, it still has the "advanced hard disk protection" stuff that keeps IBM laptops from complaining, right?

Yup, before flashing the firmware, the hard disk protection kicked in with the 2010 Error complaining that the HDD needed a firmware upgrade. Once the drive was flashed, the error no longer appears and checking the BIOS confirms that the advanced hdd protection is still enabled.

A5EA is @#%4ing useless

I have just received a Dell D510 no more than 2 days ago (14'th Aug or so)

I have the A5EA firmware, or rather the full string is MGBOA5EA
The hard disk model according to device manager is HTS548060M9AT00

It's clicking non stop, I seriously don't think I've ever heard anything more annoying in my life....... (I've got really really good hearing.... god it's annoying)

both the IBM and the Dell flash tools say "no flash required, your drive is up to date" - that doesn't really help me much.

Drive has been full formatted, no bad sectors etc so it's not re-mapping bad sectors.

What the @#% do I have to do to make this thing stop?
Goddamnit Dell this problem is a known one and they still don't ship laptops with it fixed, jesus.

update: I just said screw it and got a replacement hard disk from dell - the bios said my hard disk was already up to date (MEH)

Anyone with this problem who doesn't have the extended dell coverage - i feel sorry for you, it drove me batty.

Dell only has firmware up to A5EA, which you already have. To get to the latest version (A5HA), you need to use the IBM flash utility and modify a text file as outlined by goh in the previous posts - the IBM utility won't flash non-IBM drives unless you modify the appropriate file.

Did they send you another 5K80, or a different brand/model drive?

Mods for 80 GB 5K80

Great posts. If you have a 80 GB drive (or any others), heres what to do:
1. For 80 GB, the file is MG4IA5HA.bin Use this file
2. Checksum first and only line is: 9AAA3CF1H.
You can see this line in the MRLA5HA.tbl file.
3. In general, when you run this and find that the program bombs with the wrong checksum, there will be a place in the screen where it says: ACT:9AAA3CF1H EXP:16DE2347H
This means that actual checksum was 9AAA3CF1H and the expected (one that was edited in the tbl file) was 9AAA3CF1H. So all you do is in the tbl file, put in the actual and it will work!:

SO I DID THIS WITH MY 80GB 5K80 AND IT WORKED!!! The awful clicking every 2 seconds driving me batty went away!!!! WAY TO GO. My drive was a paperweight and now it is in a laptop.

I just updated my A53A to A5HA, the clicking went away.

All I did was edited MRLA5HA.TBL, changed A55A to A53A and removed all checksums but 9AAA3CF1. Then ran HFUI12L.EXE OA5HA -pm MG4IA5HA.BIN /U MRLA5HA.TBL

But now my HDD is recognized as HTS548080M9AT00 but it is 60GB and HTS548060M9AT00 actually. May it have something to do with the checksums, like different size has a different checksum?