Note: this guide is for Windows, you may use it for getting an idea of what the requirements are for a successful firmware but don’t expect a guide for any other OS to be made. If you find this guide saving you time and hassle you can thank me here.

Prepare your USB stick

You will need to property format and partition your USB in order for the monitor to detect the files. Let’s wipe all the data in a USB stick below.

• Open a Command Window (cmd)
• Enter diskpart
• Enter list disk (it is important you KNOW which disk is the USB key you are formatting)
• Enter select disk x where x is your USB key
• Enter clean
• Enter convert MBR
• Enter create part primary
• Enter select part 1
• Enter active
• Enter format fs=fat32 label=”firmware” (Label is optional – ensures USB key is labelled as ”firmware” in Explorer etc)

Download firmware and copy to USB

Visit samsung.com support page for the G9 monitor, grab the .zip file containing the update. It should look like something like “M-T9549GGAA-1016.0[1109]” (1016.0 is the current version as of this posting).

1. Download .zip file from samsung.
2. Unpack .zip
3. Grab the single file “M-T9549GGAA-1016.0[1109]” and put it on the USB stick on the parent (never put inside a folder inside usb stick).
4. Connect USB to back of monitor; ensure all other USB plugs are unplugged and only the USB stick is connected.
5. Turn on monitor (if not already on), go to MENU > Support > Software Update and hit enter.
6. Monitor should detect the update file/usb stick and apply the newest firmware.

Validate a successful update

Before and after a firmware update do these steps to check your firmware version on the monitor.

1. Turn on monitor (if not already on).
2. Go to MENU > Support > Information
3. Your Model, Serial Number, Software version is displayed. Take note of it.

If samsung.com says your current version is equal or higher than their download then your firmware does not need to be updated.

Important notes (read this!)

• DO NOT RENAME the .img files after unzipping. Just copy them to USB as it is named.
• SAMSUNG ARE IDIOTS. Upgrading a very old firmware to latest version may not be detected as an update; regardless of the proper naming and format in the USB stick. If you face errors of ‘no update files detected’ then find the next firmware release after your current running firmware. I was forced to upgrade from 1008 firmware to M-T9549GGAA-1012.1[984C].img before I was able to flash the latest version downloaded from samsung’s website.

If this guide / tips / how-to saved you time consider thanking me here.

I spent the past 48 hours researching and trying different things. I unpacked the official HP firmware and tried to find the binary/firmware dump from within the .scexe file provided by HP on their website to no avail.  I even contacted HP for help and they would not be willing to help if the drives were not connected to HP hardware.

After some research I discovered that the HP MB2000EAMZF 2TB drive I had was almost exactly the same (part number) as the official Seagate ST32000644NS  drive after failing to be able to flash HPs firmware using HP’s bootable Firmware Update 8.3 (injecting the .scexe files inside this live CD) – I decided I really had nothing to lose but try the method I will explain below.

The tale of two drives

*Seagate original* Constellation ES ST32000644NS has part number: 9JW168-039

*HP enterprise* MB2000EAMZF has part number: 9JW168-280

It is possible that these two drives have different PCB control boards (basically what controls the disk heads and communicates to the physical disk). If I load a firmware that is written for a different PCB – my drive will most likely be bricked.

The part numbers were too close to eachother, only the last three digits were different. I did not find any other information online from anyone trying what I was about to attempt. HP had issued a *Critical* firmware update for these drives and my only choice was to take the risk now or put this drive on my ZFS array and wait for it to fail short term.

Tools needed and where to get the firmware

1. I had another ST32000644NS drive around and used it’s serial number on seagate’s website. It provided me with firmware version SN12 (ConstellationES1-Muskie-StdOEM-SATA-SN12.zip). Download to your desktop, unpack the zip and look inside the firmware folder SN12.lod file.
2. Download and make a bootable CD of system-rescue live cd – or if you have a Dell iDRAC like me boot from the .iso remotely
3. Ensure that only the hard drive to be flashed is connected to the server/system.
4. Boot into the linux live CD, once in console check drive smart data to see the current model and version with smartct -x /dev/sda (or whatever the /dev/ name of your drive is)
5. Once you have verified the smart data of the drive you want to flash (it will have a name of /dev/sda or /dev/sdb or /dev/sd$)
6. Make sure to have a USB thumb drive with the SN12.lod file from step one – plug it in and mount the drive (if its linux formatted it will be as simple as mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/windows)
7. Now we have the files and we’re ready to flash. Make sure disk is idle (no smart tests running in background). Push the firmware with hdparm  –fwdownload SN12.lod –yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing –please-destroy-my-drive /dev/sdb
8. Reboot the server.

You can repeat steps 4 to 5 and check smart data report and you should see the drive running the firmware you just flashed. In my case here you can see my firmware changed to SN12 on my HP hard drive.

Good luck!

The disk actually is a Seagate ST32000644NS that HP calls it its own model MB2000EAMZF. Once the disks arrived and I was ready to test them I noticed a fatal flaw. Their firmware was very out of date and HP made a critical update that is mandatory for these drives to avoid them from failing due to 24/7 usage.

To my surprise although these drives are Seagate and the internals are exactly the same they run different firmwares, and Seagate’s tools or utilities will not flash or work on HP branded drives thus forcing you to grab the firmware updates from HP.

Seagate makes these firmware updates available for free and HP does as well but with one gotcha – you must run the firmware update tool in Hewlett Packard hardware or the firmware will not flash and there seems to be no workaround. Thumbs down to HP for locking down a critical firmware update to only run on HP Proliant server hardware (I have Dell but a SATA hard drive is recognized as a normal hdd on any brand computer thanks to computing standards).