kern/97208: [firewire] System hangs / locks up when a firewire disk is attached

[Dieter]

>  Also, there do appear to be some kind of "updates" for this Maxtor
>  series drive.
>  
>  Have you updated it with the s/w on the Maxtor website?

If it is one of these:

	Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 (SATA), DiamondMax 22, FreeAgent Desk,
	Maxtor OneTouch 4, Pipeline HD, Pipeline HD Pro, SV35.3, SV35.4

	(Barracuda ES.2 SAS drive is not affected)

and manufactured before 2009-01-12 it may need a firmware update.
If FreeBSD's firewire can't access cache control or SMART info, I suspect
it can't update firmware either.

Seagate's solution only works on x86 pee-cee.  People are working on
a way to update the firmware from Unix (any CPU arch) but nothing yet.

Try to avoid reboot/reset/power cycle, or the drive might "brick" itself.
Getting the drive unbricked requires a TTL to RS-232 adapter (e.g. MAX232)
and running a dangerous procedure.  (This is certainly how Seagate does it,
but we don't know what commands they use.) Or sending the drive to Seagate
and potentially letting their techs sell your data on the black market.

Solution:

	1) buy some non-buggy drives
	2) find a way to connect them without rebooting
	3) copy your data to non-buggy drives.
	4) copy /dev/zero to the drive (in case something goes wrong and
	   you want to have Seagate fix it)
	5a) update firmware (if you have an x86 pee-cee available, and don't
	    mind risking the drive bricking when you boot their update program)
		or
	5b) work on software to update firmware from Unix

Are we having fun yet?