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Welcome on my WikiBlog! You can find a mixed collection of German and English content here. This website is always work in progress as there is a lot to do and so little time.
Willkommen auf meinem WikiBlog! Hier gibt es eine Mischung aus deutschen und englischen Inhalten. Meistens habe ich zu viele Ideen und zu wenig Zeit und so ist auch diese Website eine ständige Baustelle.
Updating a Samsung SSD (840) Firmware with Linux
If you are lucky and have an (external) CD drive you can burn one of the ISO images provided on the Samsung SSD page. However as I bought the SSD (a 840 non-pro) for my netbook and had already installed the SSD and didn't want to remove it again I didn't have this option.
After some trial and error I succeeded by extracting a part of the ISO image and putting it on the FreeDOS stick that I created using UNetbootin. Neither using the executable for Windows on FreeDOS nor creating a USB Stick using UNetbootin and the ISO image worked for me.
I read that under Windows you can create a bootable USB stick using Magican (can be found on the same download page). I didn't know this before and haven't tried it but if you have a Windows somewhere this might be a safer option than what I suggest here.
For those of you who don't want to repeat the trial and error, here is what worked for me. Updating the firmware is a dangerous procedure, your SSD could be damaged irreparably if the update fails. If you follow these instructions you do that at your own risk.
I have a Samsung 840 (non-pro) SSD but I could imagine that this could work for other Samsung SSDs, too.
The short version
You need the samsung directory from the isolinux/btdsk.img image inside the ISO, copy it on the USB stick. Once you have booted the stick, change the directory to C:\samsung\DSRD\ directory and execute DSRDGUIO.exe.
The long version
- Use UNetbootin to install FreeDOS on the USB stick
- Download the ISO image. I assume it is in
/tmp/Samsung_SSD_840_DXT07B0Q.iso - Mount the ISO image. I've create a directory
/mnt/testfor this purpose:mount -o loop /tmp/Samsung_SSD_840_DXT07B0Q.iso /mnt/test
- Copy
/mnt/test/isolinux/btdsk.imgto/tmp. - Unmount the ISO image:
umount /mnt/test - Mount
btdsk.img:mount -o loop /tmp/btdsk.img /mnt/test - Copy
/mnt/test/samsungon the USB stick - Unmount
btdsk.img:umount /mnt/test - Reboot from the USB stick
- Select one of the live versions of FreeDOS
- In FreeDOS execute:
C:\ cd samsung\dsrd\ DSRDGUIO.exe
- Follow the instructions that appear
Feel free to comment if it worked for you or if it didn't so other people can learn from your experiences.