Hi James,

this URL:
https://files.hddguru.com/download/Firmware%20updates/Hitachi/, while
looking dodgy, lists A4GNWD05.zip.

this URL:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=hfkcx&lwp=rt
does not list a version similar to A4GNW907 at all, but claims to be
for model HUH728080ALE604 and fix a pointer error.

I suppose you considered either site already?

We have a NAS with 60 12TB disks HGST HUH721212AL4201, and after about
5 years, they are dying faster than I can purchase new disks,
especially now with prices rising in parallel with the AI hype (climate
change? who cares when you can get rich).
I started replacing them with Toshibas SAS disks, a recommendation of a
colleague.

Cheers,
Tim

On Thu, 27 Aug 2026 13:49:21 -0700
James Holton <[email protected]> wrote:

> Greetings all,
> 
> I have something of an odd request: does anyone have an recent
> firmware file for an HGST HUH728080ALE604 (8 TB SATA 512e) hard drive?
> 
> The existing firmware is A4GNW907.  Dell distributes a patch for
> exactly the same HUH728080ALE604 product ID, firmware called
> WE70GP46. I have this file, but after unsucessfully trying to flash
> it for a week all I managed to do is brick my spare.
> 
>   Symptom is that the drives power up just fine. I can mount the 
> filesystem. Everything works, but only for ~28 minutes.  After that, 
> five of the 16 drives in my RAID6 array go offline within miliseconds
> of each other. No media errors, but rather every command rsults in
> random, nonsensical messages. The Dell patch mentions a "pointer
> error" in the usage log.  After another cold restart I get another
> ~28 min, etc. Doesn't matter if I move the drives to another computer
> either. They still lose their mind after 28 min of power-on time. And
> 28 min is not enough to even list my 60 million files or copy 70 TB
> to somewhere else.
> 
> Yes, I have backups, but I was in the middle of a lot of things when
> it went down.
> 
> HGST got bought out by Western Digital years ago, I reached out of 
> course, and they were happy to provide me with the program for
> flashing the firmware, but not the firmware itself. Yes, that's
> right. I can have the software but not the firmware. Said my drives
> are "out of warranty". I was absolutely gobsmacked by this. There is
> a fix. Dell has it. But WD just won't provide it. And here I always
> thought that if a product is out of warranty you were allowed to try
> and break it. They seem to have a remarkably draconian policy on
> firmware now.
> 
> So, public service message: if any of you out there have HGST 8 TB 
> drives (or, IMHO any Western Digital product), I recommend you
> replace it with a competing product right away.
> 
> But I digress. If anyone knows how to fix this problem I would love
> to hear from you. On or off-list is fine.
> 
> Thank you for reading this far into my rant,
> 
> -James Holton
> MAD Scientist
> 
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-- 
--
Tim Gruene
Head of the Core Facility Crystal Structure Analysis
Faculty of Chemistry
University of Vienna

Phone: +43-1-4277-70202

https://ccsa.univie.ac.at

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