Dell forum: Unable to Update Firmware on Inspiron 518 Samsung SATA Drive

Hi Osprey:

Thanks for the response. The drive I used to make the CD was the factory-installed Optiarc DVD drive, and I booted from the CD in that. I also tried to make a DVD, with exactly the same results.

The instructions Dell gives explain how to use your burning software to make a bootable CD. I use the Roxio package that came with the PC, and followed its instructions for creating a bootable drive from Dell's .ISO file. That apparently did not work. I'm thinking of using Nero instead to see if that works.

Interestly, the steps I took exactly mirror those of someone else on the Dell forum who was able to accomplish the update for an older, smaller Samsung drive on his/her Inspiron 530. So, I don't think I'm missing anything with respect to Dell's instructions.

I'd like to give one more shot at this using a bootable USB drive, but I haven't found easy instructions for how to create that using Vista. If you know of a good site for creating a bootable Vista USB thumb drive, I'd love to check it out.

All of this is really odd, because I've never had a problem with this kind of thing before, with either Dell or HP PCs. I think there may be something wrong with Dell's ISO file, and it just hasn't been tried by that many people yet. The file is only about a week old.

The issue was inadvertently solved by downloading and installing a trial version of Nero 9. The problem is very clearly with Dell's instructions, and I wasted a great deal of time trying pointlessly to create a "bootable CD/DVD" based on this step in Dell's instructions:

4. Refer to your CD burning application instructions to create a bootable CD using the provided file "C:\DELL\Drivers\R220045\CD Image\Samsung Utility.ISO".

All I had to do was what I always do with a .ISO file, that is, simply burn it to a DVD and restart booting from the drive. And, the only reason I tried to do that was that I couldn't figure out how to make a "bootable CD/DVD" with Nero the way that Roxio so easily allows you to select.

Suggestion to Dell: Change the text to say "create a CD/DVD using Samsung Utility.ISO disk image file". That would avoid a lot of confusion.

Hi rranger1:
After making your bootable CD/DVD disk, what were the next steps that you carried out?

Nero 9, on my older Dell computer, made a bookable DVD when I double clicking on the "Samsung Utility.ISO".file.

My question is: How does one deal with the other four files included with Dell download: 1)AUTOEXEC.BAT 2)BACKGRND.COM 3)F1_FW_17.exe 4)UPDATE.BAT.

(The file examples are for my XPS 435T computer and download R220314. A similar situation with Samsung HDD's, just different computers).

Does one burn a second, normal, DVD containing the four files 1)AUTOEXEC.BAT 2)BACKGRND.COM 3)F1_FW_17.exe 4)UPDATE.BAT and load this DVD after the bootable DVD?

Or does one somehow append these four files to the bootable DVD created by "Samsung Utility.ISO"?

Thank you Rranger1. I installed the Samsung firmware upgrade, as per your suggestion. It worked exactly as you stated.
To correct Dell's instructional step 4, one needs to modify step 4 as:

4a) Perform a normal "burn", of "Samsung Utility. ISO" to a CD.
4b) Not required to make a bootable CD
4c) Not needed and not used are the other files, such as Autoexec.bat, Backgrnd.com, F1_FW.exe, and Update.bat

And then follow Dell's procedure, Steps 5 to 12, inclusive.

Again, Rranger1, thank you for the solution. Upgrading the firmware to one's hard drive is a stressful operation and clear upgrade instructions are vital.

having the same problem. i thought i was doing something wrong until i read your forum. good luck.