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From: Paul DuBois <dubois@primate.wisc.edu>
Message-Id: <199608300352.WAA29674@night.primate.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: strange error with WD family disk
To: dyson@freebsd.org
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 22:52:56 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199608300310.WAA01078@dyson.iquest.net> from "John S. Dyson" at Aug 29, 96 10:10:10 pm
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>> Sort of dumb question, but you are kidding right?
>> 
>> If not then  how does someone get the updated microcode?  Or do we have 
>> to return the drive to Western Digital?
>> 
>I have an RMA about to ship 2 of 'em back now (a 1.6GB, and a 2.5GB) that
>have completely failed.  They do have a download with which you can effect
>the microcode update (their term for it is an "overlay".)  Before applying
>the patch, you need to scan the disk for bad spots (and I guess it does
>bad block forwarding.)  Unfortunately, you need to run MS-DOS to perform
>the update :-(.
>
>Again, this is not definitive, but WD appears to know about the problem,
>and there is "something" wrong.

Do you have the URL for this update?  I just went poking around on
ftp.wdc.com but I'm not sure what I'm looking for, and there weren't
any obvious clues that I saw.