Re: PL-3507: Firmware erased while flashing

Previously wmaster.spider@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Hi,
> I don't know if my problem has a solution... Well, my problem is, I was
> flashing the rom of my external hdd (Iomega hdd 250gb, with the pl-3507
> chip) and it failed. now the drive doesn't appear on the pc anymore,
> and the flashing prgram doesn't recognize it. I thought of making
> windows believe, the drive's there, so i could run the flashing
> program. I think the first part is possible, but I don't know if the
> flashing tool would work with an imaginary drive. If someone thinks
> this could work, could you please explain to me how to make windows
> believe the drive's there? And if you've got another idea, please, tell
> me. I'm really desperate. The other idea I had was sending the hex file
> with the firmware directly through the usb port with a homemade
> program. I don't know how this chip works, but I could try...

There is a good chance the drive cannot be flashed without a
functional ROM, unless you flash the chip directly. You see
the flashing-routine itself is likely in that ROM. (ROM usually
gets copied to RAM on boot-up for speed reasons, so you can use
code from the ROM to modify the ROM.) Alternatively, essential
hardware initialisation routines (like the USB driver on the device
side) is in the ROM and the device will not start without it.

The usual way to fix this problem is to remove the flash-ROM chip
and flash it in an external flasher. If the ROM is not in a socket,
removing it is very difficult and usually not worthwhile. If it is
in a socket, there are numerous small companies that will flash you
a matching new one for a reasonable fee if you can provide the ROM
image. Usually these images are just verbatim, in-order flat copies
of the ROM so no special knowledge or equipment is needed to flash
them. Also the flash-ROMs are usually standard industrial types.

Look for companies offering BIOS chips, they usually will flash
pretty much everything for you and they usually have instructions
on how to identify the correct chip on the web.

Arno
.

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