HPE LTO5 HH drive in Fujitsu Eternus LT20 S2 library

[tssmith2002]

Hello,

I have recovered a HPE AQ284A LTO5 HH tape drive from a Fujitsu Eternus LT20 S2 library and the Fujitsu download site has drive firmware Z6AB. HPE in the same drive supports firmware Z6MW. The drive from the Fujitsu library doesn't recognize the HP firmware. Does anyone with Fujitsu experiencing know if Z6AB is just the last firmware supported by Fujitsu or if there is way to flash the OEM HP firmware to the drive.

The Fujitsu file if available will look something like HP LTO5 SAS HH Drive FW, for ETERNUS LT20 - LT40 - LT60 and S2 Series Version Z6MW

LTO5 is really nice and the use of LTFS makes it even better since it shows up as a removable media device under Windows or Linux, just drag and drop files to it. No special tape software needed and it is universal among windows, Linux and MAC OSX

Thanks for your time
Todd

 

[mwroobel]

Cross flashing LTO drive firmware is a voodoo science and often just cannot be done without some significant effort (soldering TTL serial lines to JTAG connectors and the like.) I can tell you from personal experience, from the 3 times I tried I am 1-1-1 (returned the third drive to HP (I was flashing it to fit an older Exabyte library) and they replaced it.