Apple Hard Disk Update 1 For G4s: Not For Everyone

by , 10:30 AM EDT, July 7th, 2003

Apple has released a hard drive firmware update. Hard Drive Update 1.0 is intended to help your drive last longer, though as we discuss in the Spin below, some are reporting problems. This from the Hard Drive Update Read Me file:

The Hard Drive Update 1 improves the longevity of some hard drives shipped in certain Power Mac G4 computers, including:

Most drives do not need this update. You can check the drives in your computer by running this update. If the update is needed, a message will appear which says that "one or more hard drives in your system need updated firmware. " You will be allowed to quit (cancel) at this point in order to complete backup prior to the actual update.

Important: It is strongly recommended that you back up the data on your hard drives to an external drive or removable media before running this update. Do not reset, shut down, or turn off power to your computer while updating the firmware. If an error occurs during the update process, your hard drive(s) may become unusable. In that case, all data on the drive(s) would be lost.

To back up your data, copy all important information from the hard drives to an external drive (such as a USB, FireWire, or SCSI hard drive) or to CD-R or DVD-R media. All important data should be backed up before continuing with this update.

You can get the OS 9 version, or the OS X version of Hard Drive Update Version 1 at the AppleCare Knowledge Base Web site, or you can use the Software Update Control Panel in OS X.

The Mac Observer Spin:

It's always good to see Apple keeping the updates current on older equipment, but we wonder exactly what this update really addresses. A quick look through the discussions at Apple's support site yielded some interesting, and disturbing tidbits.

There are some people who, after they updated the firmware, found that they could no longer access information on the updated hard drive. Apparently, the drives in question were IBM/Hitachi Deathstar models, and many of the posters were able to get some resolution with the drive manufacturers.

We suggest that you do the following:

If you decide to hold off on performing the Hard Drive Update Version 1 you might want to uncheck the automatic option in your Software Update Control Panel.