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Does anyone dump hard disk firmware?

Al Kossow

Al Kossow

Documentation Wizard
Joined
Sep 1, 2006
Messages
3,513
Location
Silicon Valley
I've been working through some backlog of 80s and 90s hard disk information and was wondering if anyone has been dumping drive firmware.
Right now, I'm particularly interested in WD Caviar series drives from the early 90s.
I try to archive this stuff because technical information is so difficult to find.
Something fun I found. A russian book on IDE drive repair from 1997 that I ran through a translator. Not perfect, but understandable
 
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For the MFM drives where many have the storage is in the processor is it practical to dump? I was assuming they had security fuses or mask programmed and not readable. Haven't looked at the later drives I have to see how the firmware is stored.
 
Good question !
Up to now i did not do this, but it makes sense !

F.e. DEC scsi drives who were used in those different array controllers like HSJ / HSZ / HSG / HSD style ones did have another firmware which reserved more spare blocks.
And the controllers sometimes do not accept drives with standard manufacturer firmware.
Also newer controller firmwares wanted minimum drive firmware versions to run properly...
 
Spent the morning digging around on eBay for drive pcb pictures and picking up a bunch of cheap maxtor/miniscribe <300mb drives.
I also remember going on a tear when covid started and dumped the firmware from a bunch of 80s small scsi drives.
I would sort of like to find a WDAC140 40meg drive (or pcb)
 
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