Hard drive firmware

Trying to install the firmware from a drive with a different number of cylinders and tracks will probably brick the drive.

I have a feeling it's the way the LaCie is currently setup...

Do you know if the the original drives were spanned? If so how?

If the data is expendable (e.g. is available elsewhere as an original file or backup) grab a copy of GParted or an XP portable environment (e.g. BartPE) and format all the drives to their native capacities and try again.

If the data was stored on a RAID0 partition then it's lost away

If the data was stored in an array that used parity it's possible you might be able to retrieve the data using the existing 3 disks - certainly a 4 disk RAID5 setup should be able to recover to 3 disks.

I didn't realise that the cylinder and track differences were physical, don't know nothing about drives, lol.
A bit wierd as the 2009 drive bears the same model number as the other 3 drives.

The LaCie was setup as raid 5+spare which means very little to me. The 3 "good" drives give a solid blue led whereas the "problem" drive gives a blinking red led.
Going with my misguided idea of the firmware, I changed the configuration to concentation.
I have the "problem" drive in bay 4, initially getting all blues before leds' 3 and 4 take turns to flash blue for quite some time before disk 4 eventually blinks red again.

Strangely the concentated drive shows up as just over 3.75tb in disk management so the drive is functioning.
No data was needed from the disks, they have all been formatted.

Try moving one of the good drives to the bay that blinks. Do you get the solid blue or blinking red?

How do you go about configuring the LeCie? Telnet, web etc

As the data is off the drive it might be worth resetting it (assuming there is the facility).

The blinking red follows the drive pob.
Configuration is via a front button and switches at the back for raid type selection.

Changing the raid setting is the only real reset on this machine as initialising and formatting is then required.
The more I look at this thing and read about it, the more I think its' a piece of crap. He hasn't got the original psu and they are around £80.

Think he would be better to change his mind about selling it and sell the 4 drives instead

LeCie doesn't have the best reputation for longevity. But at the same time I've never used the brand so don't know how true that reputation is.

Whilst we're not back at last summer's prices, hard drive prices are falling... to get maximum returns he should sell sooner rather than later.

Thanks for your time and advice little_pob.