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Author Topic: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware  (Read 13550 times)

nbmz

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Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« on: February 21, 2015, 06:17:35 am »

Hey guys,

Long time lurker, probably first post ever, so be patient.  :)

In the office, we have a pair of these printers that are running fine, but I keep hearing these horror stories about the formatter going south due to the hard drives prematurely failing.

With that said, I've cloned many a drive, and the drives on these units have an ATA-based password (making it impossible to copy or clone without mounting the disk and putting in the password). 

So, here are my questions:
- Has anyone been successful at loading the new firmware for any of these printers on a clean blank disk?
- Has anyone been successful at cloning these disks?
- (if so) has anyone used an SSD for replacement?  :D

I just don't want to be in a position in where I have a drive that takes a dive and become unprepared to be back in service...  :)

Many thanks for your answers.
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Garnick

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2015, 11:32:51 am »

Hey guys,

Long time lurker, probably first post ever, so be patient.  :)

In the office, we have a pair of these printers that are running fine, but I keep hearing these horror stories about the formatter going south due to the hard drives prematurely failing.

With that said, I've cloned many a drive, and the drives on these units have an ATA-based password (making it impossible to copy or clone without mounting the disk and putting in the password). 

So, here are my questions:
- Has anyone been successful at loading the new firmware for any of these printers on a clean blank disk?
- Has anyone been successful at cloning these disks?
- (if so) has anyone used an SSD for replacement?  :D

I just don't want to be in a position in where I have a drive that takes a dive and become unprepared to be back in service...  :)

Many thanks for your answers.


I'm not familiar with these printers, since I use Epson products.  However, I suspect that most printers are much alike in may respects.  In that case, I imagine the only way to access the internal printer HDD is through a service program such as would be used by a service tech when replacing the head(s) or any other part that requires an identity code to be activated.  If you can access the HDD, do you have the necessary password to enter and mount it?  If so there should be no reason you can't clone it.  Of course there are a lot of "ifs" to contend with here and unfortunately I have no specific answers for them.  An interesting query nevertheless.

Gary

 
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howardm

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2015, 11:40:07 am »

depending on the firmware you *may* be able to use a 'raw' copier program (sorry but I'm a Unix guy and we'd use 'dd' utility which copies datablock by datablock w/o the need to mount etc etc.

Phil Indeblanc

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2015, 04:07:55 pm »

I was going to suggest, maybe a Unix setup can bypass these steps.
For your Q about SSD drive, some have instructions that may interfere with the HP boot, but maybe worth a try.
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William Chitham

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2015, 10:21:38 am »

Been using Z series printers for 7 years and following the forums and this comes up from time to time. People always have ideas of how it "might" be done but I've never heard of anyone actually doing it. Thinking about it, there seems to be generally less hacking going on with HP machines compared to Epsons - not sure if this says more about the printers or the people who buy them!
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Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2015, 10:36:29 am »

Been using Z series printers for 7 years and following the forums and this comes up from time to time. People always have ideas of how it "might" be done but I've never heard of anyone actually doing it. Thinking about it, there seems to be generally less hacking going on with HP machines compared to Epsons - not sure if this says more about the printers or the people who buy them!

True, I have asked similar questions and did some digging (with an ICT skilled son) in the inward of the printer. Unix based, the Z3100 internally appropriately called Hydra (others reported Troika). Our conclusion was that the HD has a code on a separate bios or whatever you call that on an HD. I doubt copying the HD image block by block helps then. I bought spare HDs for the occassion that someone has the right solution. There was once a message here or in another forum indicating that but no reply came back when I asked for the details. Formatters are sold on Ebay from time to time, maybe there are smarter guys that  have the key.

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nbmz

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2015, 01:03:25 am »

depending on the firmware you *may* be able to use a 'raw' copier program (sorry but I'm a Unix guy and we'd use 'dd' utility which copies datablock by datablock w/o the need to mount etc etc.

I'm a unix guy as well (solaris 10 daily for me) and the problem is, you cannot mount the drive until it's mounted on the controller and unlocked, as there is indeed an ATA password that prevents the drive from being accessed.

I have tried and tried, without any success.  I wanted to see if anyone has attempted this.  Thanks for the pointers though...  :)
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nbmz

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2015, 01:28:18 am »

True, I have asked similar questions and did some digging (with an ICT skilled son) in the inward of the printer. Unix based, the Z3100 internally appropriately called Hydra (others reported Troika). Our conclusion was that the HD has a code on a separate bios or whatever you call that on an HD.

Now this makes sense.  I think its safe to say that the boot portion is on the disk itself as well as the OS for the printing system.  I just wonder if there is a BIOS that is accessible via front-panel that allows to prep the disk and to set it up for ingestion of a firmware file, similar to the larger 5500 series printers...but indeed it must be some sort of unix based OS on these drive, just for the fact that an FSCK is done on startup of the printer when powered down incorrectly.

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Printers-Designjet-Large-Format/Installing-a-new-blank-hard-drive-in-a-DesignJet-5500-or-5500PS/td-p/2350749#.VO1nQMYQKvI

(I was hoping someone was keen enough to have found a way, heheh)

Quote
I doubt copying the HD image block by block helps then. I bought spare HDs for the occassion that someone has the right solution. There was once a message here or in another forum indicating that but no reply came back when I asked for the details. Formatters are sold on Ebay from time to time, maybe there are smarter guys that  have the key.

Somehow, I think that these guys have found a way to rewrite the drives, either by using an alternate formatter in a printer that allows for firmware writes (maybe using a formatter for the designjet 5500 and others)  I sure don't see a USB port option...and the service mode won't be accessible until the printer/OS is successfully loaded.

It's more for peace of mind.  That's really the only reason I would want a clone, as drives have a finite timespan.  These printers will eventually die once the drive gives up the ghost, and will render the printers useless. I think HP should have used a flash-based OS/firmware and a hard drive for job storage...

This article was promising as well...might have to try that, but need to figure out whether the IP is still accessible after the printer is powered back on.
http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=436089&docId=emr_na-c01768718

Thanks for the help and advice guys.  :)  If anyone has any clues on what the ATA password could be on these drives, that would go a long way to having access and being able to clone the drives.
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zerodata

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #8 on: May 30, 2021, 01:13:14 pm »

Now this makes sense.  I think its safe to say that the boot portion is on the disk itself as well as the OS for the printing system.  I just wonder if there is a BIOS that is accessible via front-panel that allows to prep the disk and to set it up for ingestion of a firmware file, similar to the larger 5500 series printers...but indeed it must be some sort of unix based OS on these drive, just for the fact that an FSCK is done on startup of the printer when powered down incorrectly.

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Printers-Designjet-Large-Format/Installing-a-new-blank-hard-drive-in-a-DesignJet-5500-or-5500PS/td-p/2350749#.VO1nQMYQKvI

(I was hoping someone was keen enough to have found a way, heheh)

Somehow, I think that these guys have found a way to rewrite the drives, either by using an alternate formatter in a printer that allows for firmware writes (maybe using a formatter for the designjet 5500 and others)  I sure don't see a USB port option...and the service mode won't be accessible until the printer/OS is successfully loaded.

It's more for peace of mind.  That's really the only reason I would want a clone, as drives have a finite timespan.  These printers will eventually die once the drive gives up the ghost, and will render the printers useless. I think HP should have used a flash-based OS/firmware and a hard drive for job storage...

This article was promising as well...might have to try that, but need to figure out whether the IP is still accessible after the printer is powered back on.
http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=436089&docId=emr_na-c01768718

Thanks for the help and advice guys.  :)  If anyone has any clues on what the ATA password could be on these drives, that would go a long way to having access and being able to clone the drives.

The ATA password is "MartaLaiaDesiree".


Once you have that you can mount the drive on Linux by passing that via hdparm to the disk:

# hdparm --user-master u --security-unlock "MartaLaiaDesiree" /dev/sdb

 and then you can use fdisk to get the partition table:

# fdisk /dev/sdb

Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdb: 298.9 GiB, 320072933376 bytes, 625142448 sectors
Disk model: [redacted]
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: [redacted]

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *           63    273104    273042 133.3M 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2          273105   2281229   2008125 980.5M 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3         2281230  18298034  16016805   7.7G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4        18298035 156296384 137998350  65.8G  5 Extended
/dev/sdb5        18298098  20306159   2008062 980.5M 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6        20306223  62316134  42009912    20G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7        62316198 120326849  58010652  27.7G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb8       120326913 156296384  35969472  17.2G 83 Linux

As you can see, even if your formatter has a 300+GB drive, the machine only uses 80GB for partitions, the rest is unpartitioned space.

If you mount the third partition you can find an /etc/fstab which looks like this:

/dev/disk/disk0/p1      /boot   ext3    async,atime,auto,dev,exec,rw,suid,nouser        1       1
/dev/disk/disk0/p3      /       ext3    async,atime,auto,dev,exec,rw,suid,nouser        1       1
/dev/disk/disk0/p5      swap    swap    defaults        0       0
/dev/disk/disk0/p6      /vpm    ext3    async,atime,auto,dev,exec,rw,suid,nouser        1       1
/dev/disk/disk0/p7      /data   ext3    async,atime,auto,dev,exec,rw,suid,nouser,data=writeback 1       1
/dev/disk/disk0/p8      /plots  ext3    async,atime,auto,dev,exec,rw,suid,nouser,data=journal   1       1
none    /proc   proc    defaults        0 0
none    /sys    sysfs   defaults        0 0
none    /dev/shm        tmpfs   defaults        0 0

The bootloader is lilo, so altering partition size/location is somewhat problematic.  I assume partition 2 is a recovery partition and the partitions you'd really want to tweak to do anything useful in terms of running bigger jobs or storing more jobs or whatever are p5 (swap), p6 (vpm), p7 (data), and p8 (plots). 


Ideally you would first want to unlock the drive and then run a straight dd clone or clonezilla.

Note that the formatter is based off the Intel ICH4 southbridge which is natively PATA, there is a PATA to SATA converter chip on the board, so even if you go to a 7200rpm disk or a SSD you're not standing to gain much in performance because you're still limited to the max of ATA/133MB/s speed even though the slowest SATA spec is 150MB/s.  So don't feel the need to put in the world's fastest SATA SSD thinking you'll save minutes off your next startup.

P.S.: This is for a Q5670-60021 Rev A formatter, but probably works for anything with the 50X15CR formatter, I would assume since the ATA password has to lurk in the BIOS and the BIOS ought to be the same for the boards that the password is the same.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2021, 01:39:51 pm by zerodata »
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nbmz

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #9 on: May 30, 2021, 06:14:28 pm »

Well,  This is interesting!

I still have access to the Z3200 printers.  Will try and see about accessing the disk.  :)

An SSD would still be ideal, as it would not crash as quickly as a platter ATA drive.  At the very least, I'd be tempted to see how it works out.

Thanks so much for the help with the password!  Will keep you all posted if I can actually clone a copy. 
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zerodata

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #10 on: May 30, 2021, 07:52:18 pm »

Well,  This is interesting!

I still have access to the Z3200 printers.  Will try and see about accessing the disk.  :)

An SSD would still be ideal, as it would not crash as quickly as a platter ATA drive.  At the very least, I'd be tempted to see how it works out.

Thanks so much for the help with the password!  Will keep you all posted if I can actually clone a copy.

The real problem IMHO is that these machines use ext3 file system type, so they have a Y2K-type bug, specifically the 2038 bug.  So these machines are going to have issues with that unless a solution comes up (such as moving the kernel and filesystem to ext4).  Or keeping the clock set back...

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GST

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2021, 01:07:28 pm »

wow, thanks for revealing that password, opens up a whole new world!
My printer now runs fine on an SSD without password, the 10-year old disk stays in the cupboard for safety.
Already gathered interesting infos from the logs:

Linux version 2.6.10_mvl401-pc_target (root@(none)) (gcc version 3.4.3 (MontaVista 3.4.3-25.0.70.0501961 2005-12-17)) #8 Fri Jun 30 11:54:22 UTC 2006

CPU: L1 I cache: 32K, L1 D cache: 32K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
CPU: After all inits, caps:        a7e9fbbf 00000000 00000000 00000040
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor          600MHz stepping 05


also that disk seems to contain software for all possible models, like
Q6718A
Q6720A
Q6719A
Q6721A
My guess would be its possible to convert non-PS to PS models just by doing settign some things in software, as on my non-PS version all PS stuff seems to be included.

regards
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zerodata

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2021, 02:49:27 pm »

wow, thanks for revealing that password, opens up a whole new world!
My printer now runs fine on an SSD without password, the 10-year old disk stays in the cupboard for safety.
Already gathered interesting infos from the logs:

Linux version 2.6.10_mvl401-pc_target (root@(none)) (gcc version 3.4.3 (MontaVista 3.4.3-25.0.70.0501961 2005-12-17)) #8 Fri Jun 30 11:54:22 UTC 2006

CPU: L1 I cache: 32K, L1 D cache: 32K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
CPU: After all inits, caps:        a7e9fbbf 00000000 00000000 00000040
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor          600MHz stepping 05


also that disk seems to contain software for all possible models, like
Q6718A
Q6720A
Q6719A
Q6721A
My guess would be its possible to convert non-PS to PS models just by doing settign some things in software, as on my non-PS version all PS stuff seems to be included.

regards

How did you clone the disk to SSD (method/process)?  I have not yet had success cloning to a SSD.  What model SSD did you use?

As far as Postscript upgrade goes, I would guess that's not determined by the firmware (else there'd be different packages for PS and non-PS to download) and that there's either a chip on the Main PCA that determines this or a software flag set by the Main PCA.  As the Main PCA has 2 serial headers and 2 JTAG headers I'd guess that's where to look (the JTAG would allow programming at the factory) and if the formatter board is universal barring what firmware is on the drive that would pretty much guarantee it.  Alternatively there ought to be something in the firmware that allows reading and writing of NVRAM and therefore if someone gets sufficiently clever (by say enabling the SSH service that's present in the firmware to get a shell) we ought to be able to start reading and dumping NVRAMs for comparison.  But I would not want that turned on if the device is on an insecure network or can be accessed from the public Internet.
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zerodata

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2021, 04:07:45 pm »

How did you clone the disk to SSD (method/process)?  I have not yet had success cloning to a SSD.  What model SSD did you use?

As far as Postscript upgrade goes, I would guess that's not determined by the firmware (else there'd be different packages for PS and non-PS to download) and that there's either a chip on the Main PCA that determines this or a software flag set by the Main PCA.  As the Main PCA has 2 serial headers and 2 JTAG headers I'd guess that's where to look (the JTAG would allow programming at the factory) and if the formatter board is universal barring what firmware is on the drive that would pretty much guarantee it.  Alternatively there ought to be something in the firmware that allows reading and writing of NVRAM and therefore if someone gets sufficiently clever (by say enabling the SSH service that's present in the firmware to get a shell) we ought to be able to start reading and dumping NVRAMs for comparison.  But I would not want that turned on if the device is on an insecure network or can be accessed from the public Internet.

Ah.  Here we go:


/home/atlas/ettools/troja/TCLTests#

-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001   5653 Apr 13  2011 ITTCPBconfigurePostScripttoBasic.tcl
-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001   8501 Apr 13  2011 ITTCPSconfigurePostScript.tcl


It's NVRAM-based and there's some TCL magic and other stuff that checks for/copies PS fonts to /plots/camelot and then sets values in NVRAM.

So probably very easy if you have a copy of the fonts to put in the proper partition/folder and write the appropriate NVRAM settings.

TROJA.ini looks to be very helpful.
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GST

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #14 on: June 07, 2021, 03:30:56 am »

cloning was actually quite easy, I just did a simple
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdc bs=32M
after unlocking on my Desktop using a Linux USB stick.
Did not fiddle around with any partitions, the Hitachi disk happens to be exactly of the same size as my Intel SSDSC2BB160G4 where I copied to.
Will try to enable ssh (not sure about the root password yet) and have a look at troja.ini.

regards
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zerodata

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #15 on: June 07, 2021, 11:44:40 am »

cloning was actually quite easy, I just did a simple
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdc bs=32M
after unlocking on my Desktop using a Linux USB stick.
Did not fiddle around with any partitions, the Hitachi disk happens to be exactly of the same size as my Intel SSDSC2BB160G4 where I copied to.
Will try to enable ssh (not sure about the root password yet) and have a look at troja.ini.

regards

It looks an awful lot like there is no root password.

I had tried a direct dd but I also set security on the SSD after the dd finished, I guess the machine didn't like that fact though.
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GST

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #16 on: June 08, 2021, 07:27:38 am »

Found no reason why sshd is not listening, looks quite OK for me. What am I missing?
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zerodata

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #17 on: June 08, 2021, 03:13:31 pm »

Found no reason why sshd is not listening, looks quite OK for me. What am I missing?

Is sshd set to start in runlevel 3?  sshd_config configured properly?  I'm not great at initscripts stuff but it'd have to be started.  Also there's a lot of nologon in the initscripts that might also be preventing login if it is running.  Should also be configured to allow root access.
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GST

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #18 on: June 08, 2021, 03:51:16 pm »

created a symlink in rc3.d to start ssh, but that didnt help so far. I guess I should try to get serial access...
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zerodata

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Re: Z3100/Z3200 drive cloning/backup/firmware
« Reply #19 on: June 08, 2021, 05:07:35 pm »

created a symlink in rc3.d to start ssh, but that didnt help so far. I guess I should try to get serial access...

Let us know if you figure out the pinout for the UART on the formatter.
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