"Error reading from drive A" during X-25 M firmware update?

[idata]

My system includes: Asus P7P55D-PRO motherboard, Intel X25-M 80GB 34nm SSD, Samsung SH-S223L SATA CD-burner.

Tried updating to the brand new firmware with TRIM support. After changing BIOS-settings to use IDE Compatibility mode instead of ACHI, I got the firmware updater to recognize the SSD. However, after answering yes to all the questions, the program went silent for several minutes, and then blurted out the following error:

Tried (R)etry a couple of times before hitting (A)bort and finally after some more (A)borting, was presented with a simple command prompt (">").

I thought there was something wrong with the CD, so I reburned the ISO image and booted it again. This time it claimed the firmware was already installed. Intel Matrix Storage concures, at least it shows the correct Firmware number for the new version and everything seems to work as usual. Also, when Windows first booted after the attempted update, it said something like "A restart is required to make these changes"; could this mean it detected TRIM capability and enabled it?

Looks like the update did work(?), but the output telling about it didn't. Anyone have any explanations for the behaviour? Some thoughts:

• could it be related to using a SATA DVD-burner (instead of plain vanilla IDE)?
• could it be related to using a re-writable (CD-RW) disk instead of CD-R (which would be odd, as FirstDOS and the update utility seemed to start normally)

Is there any way to check that the actual firmware (as opposed to some text string reserved for the version number) was updated? Did anybody with similar ASUS mainboards and SATA DVD-burners manage to update without hitches, and how was your BIOS configured with regards to AHCI vs IDE Compatibility vs IDE Enhanced?

Best regards,

Alftoo

[idata]

I also have a P7P55D mother board and SATA optical drive. I experienced the same issue after attempting to upgrade with IDE Enchanced mode.

[idata]

If Windows requested a reboot because it recognized a new hardware, at 90% the firmware was changed.

[idata]

I had the same exact issue on my Dell XPS 420 it freaked me out ... I was using a Sata dvd drive and a dvd with .iso on it .. I confused when i woke up and it was stuck on that so rebooted (scared i fried my new SSD) and Win 7 told me it was updated ... So i am guessing and hoping it is in fact updated

[idata]

I don't have an A: drive, (Asus p7p55d Evo doesn't support floppy drives,) and I wonder how many other people with no A: drive are geting the same error.

I got the same error after running the update for about five minutes: "Error reading from drive A: Dos area: General Failure".

hit "r" for Retry, same response. I hit "i" for Ignore", same response. I hit "a" for Abort, same response.

I hit "F" for Fail (the only option left) and got a new error, at least: Batchfile A:\Autoexec.bat not found."

So I let it sit for 10 minutes, nada, of course. .

I called Intel support, the lady was super nice and super helpful, she said they'd escalate this to their engineers. She said try restarting on the CD again since the firmware update was definitely done running. When I did, the utility said it had indeed updated the firmware.

Woohoo!