System and method for reflashing disk drive firmware

• US 20060259756A1
• Filed: 05/12/2005
• Published: 11/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Flash Uplink LLC (Quest Patent Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Thompson, Mark J., Harris, Mark B., Fry, Peter C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,426,633 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57

Abstract

There is provided a system and a method for reflashing disk drive firmware. Specifically, there is provided a method comprising storing a firmware flash image in a storage area on a disk drive, initiating power-on self test operations for the computer, and reflashing firmware associated with the disk drive using the firmware flash image stored on the disk drive, wherein the reflashing occurs during the power-on self test operations.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

storing a firmware flash image in a storage area on a disk drive;

initiating power-on self test operations for the computer; and

reflashing firmware associated with the disk drive using the firmware flash image stored on the disk drive, wherein the reflashing occurs during the power-on self test operations.

2. The method, as set forth in claim 1, comprising storing instructions for reflashing the firmware in the storage area, wherein the instructions are employed to reflash of the firmware.

3. The method, as set forth in claim 1, comprising storing data indicative of a pending status in the storage area, wherein the firmware of the disk drive is only reflashed if the data indicative of the pending status is stored in the storage area.

4. The method, as set forth in claim 1, comprising storing a status indicator indicative of the result of the reflashing in the storage area.

5. The method, as set forth in claim 4, wherein storing the status indicator comprises storing at least one of a completed, aborted, deferred, or failed status indicator.

6. The method, as set forth in claim 1, wherein storing the firmware flash image on the storage area comprises storing the firmware flash image on the storage area of a hard disk drive.

7. The method, as set forth in claim 1, wherein reflashing firmware associated with the disk drive comprises reflashing firmware of a second disk drive that qualifies to be reflashed with the firmware flash image stored in the storage area.

8. A computer system comprising:

a disk drive comprising firmware configured to be reflashed;

a host computer coupled to the disk drive and configured to copy an update request package to the disk drive before a reboot; and

a disk drive controller coupled to the host computer and the disk drive, wherein the disk drive controller is configured to reflash the firmware using the update request package while the host computer is rebooted.

9. The computer system, as set forth in claim 8, wherein the update request package comprises a firmware flash image and instructions for the disk drive controller to use to reflash the firmware.

10. The computer system, as set forth in claim 8, wherein the disk drive comprises a redundant array of inexpensive disks (“

RAID”

) coupled to the disk drive controller.

11. The computer system, as set forth in claim 10, wherein the disk drive controller comprises a RAID controller and wherein the RAID controller is configured to reflash one disk drive from the RAID at a time.

12. The computer system, as set forth in claim 8, wherein the disk drive controller comprises an option ROM that contains instructions that when executed enable a user to abort or defer the reflashing of the firmware.

13. The computer system, as set forth in claim 8, wherein the host computer is configured to determine whether the disk drive qualifies based on a predetermined qualifying criteria before copying the update request package to the disk drive.

14. The computer system, as set forth in claim 8, wherein the host computer is configured to stored a pending indicator on the disk drive and wherein the disk drive controller is configured to only reflash disk drives that contain the pending indicator.

15. A method comprising:

identifying a subset of disk drives with a pending status from amongst a plurality of disk drives;

determining whether fast mode reflashing is enabled;

if fast mode reflashing is enabled, simultaneously reflashing all of the disk drives from the subset of disk drives; and

if the fast mode reflashing in not enabled, simultaneously reflashing a recoverable number of disk drives from the subset of disk drives.

16. The method, as set forth in claim 15, wherein simultaneously reflashing a recoverable number of disk drives comprises reflashing one disk drive per RAID 5 set.

17. The method, as set forth in claim 15, wherein simultaneously reflashing a recoverable number of disk drives comprises reflashing two disk drives per RAID 6 set.

18. The method, as set forth in claim 15, comprising aborting the reflashing if a reflashing failure is detected.

19. The method, as set forth in claim 15, comprising updating a status indicator to indicate the success or failure of the reflashing.

20. The method, as set forth in claim 15, wherein reflashing a recoverable number of disk drives from the subset of disk drives comprises reflashing each of a recoverable number of disk drives using a firmware flash image stored on a storage area of each of the disk drives.

21. A hard disk drive comprising:

a processor;

a read-only memory storing firmware; and

a disk having a storage area configured to store a firmware flash image, wherein the processor is configured to use the stored firmware flash image to reflash the firmware on the read-only memory.

22. The hard disk drive, as set forth in claim 21, wherein the processor is configured to reflash the firmware after the hard disk drive is restarted.