SB850 and Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ issue

[morabors]

I bought a new Mobo yesterday (ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3). I went to put my existing/known working Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ in and it is not recognized. This appears to be a well known issue that requires a patch (F3)from Samsung to be installed (http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=308)
Couple of questions,
1-Has anyone done this and does it resolve the issue?
2-Can I run this patch on my drive even though the drive is fully functional? In other words, I dont have to format the drive first? Hopefully if completed properly all my info on this drive remains intact?
Does anyone know step by step what needs to be done as I have never messed with DOS before? I think I may be able to create a bootable medium (stick drive or CD) but from there is there anything I need to know?

Thanks for your help.

 

[fzabkar]

I would think that a firmware update would be data safe. However, it would good practice to backup your critical data just in case something goes wrong.

My reading of the instructions, plus my indirect experience with a different Samsung firmware update, suggests that you should configure your SATA controller in your BIOS for IDE legacy or compatibility mode. This is because Samsung's flash updater is hard coded to apply the patch to the master drive on the first IDE port.

You need to extract all the files from F3.zip and then copy them to the root directory of your bootable medium, eg a USB flash drive. Many people use HP's USB flash drive utility for this purpose.

Ensure that your HDD is connected to the first SATA port, and disconnect all other storage devices. Reboot the machine and wait for the DOS prompt. Now type "Patch". After the firmware download is complete, power off the drive. Reconfigure your SATA port for normal operation, and reconnect the other storage devices.

When you next power up the drive, it will load its new firmware from the platters. Until you do this, the drive will still be executing the old firmware code in its SDRAM cache.