All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 26 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2
Author Message
 Post subject: Re: Toshiba 4TB 3.5" - PCB - which is ROM IC ?
PostPosted: May 20th, 2019, 18:05 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 15463
Location: Australia
@befreetech was able to get the donor PCB to work after transferring IC10 only:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/x300-toshiba-firmware-identify-and-swap.3259107/

This thread contains ROM dumps (some are corrupt):
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2712

Here is a tool which I wrote to analyse the ROM contents:

Toshiba ROM-CPs tool :
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?t=1724
http://www.hddoracle.com/download/file.php?id=8958

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Toshiba 4TB 3.5" - PCB - which is ROM IC ?
PostPosted: May 21st, 2019, 11:50 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: September 5th, 2010, 12:29
Posts: 1038
Location: South Africa
I find that odd as I had swapped IC10 only, as I said, and drive did not intialise.

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Toshiba 4TB 3.5" - PCB - which is ROM IC ?
PostPosted: May 21st, 2019, 16:53 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 15463
Location: Australia
Nick_CT wrote:
I find that odd as I had swapped IC10 only, as I said, and drive did not intialise.

A proper ROM dump would have been informative ...

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Toshiba 4TB 3.5" - PCB - which is ROM IC ?
PostPosted: October 10th, 2019, 16:38 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 15463
Location: Australia
The 3 additional "ROMs" appear to constitute the nonvolatile memory (Persistent Write Cache) which forms the basis for power loss data protection.

https://www.storagereview.com/toshiba_mg04sca_enterprise_hdd_review

Quote:
Toshiba also offers what they call "persistent write cache technology" with the drives, which delivers gains in performance and data reliability.

Persistent Write Cache (PWC) basically means that data in the write cache that hasn’t yet been completely written to the media will “persist” in the event of a sudden power loss; this is very useful for Advanced Format drives supporting emulated 512 (512e) sectors. When a non-aligned write occurs, it may cause a “read-modify-write” operation, in which an extra rotation of the disk is needed to write the modified sector to the storage media. As such, when a power surge or loss occurs, the back EMF energy of the spindle motor is used to power the write data loss protection circuitry and is also able to power the transfer of the RMW data to NV memory. When power has been re-established, the RMW data is restored from the NV memory to the write cache and the RMW operation is completed. This functionality helps to curb any inconsistency between write data the host has transferred and write data the drive has committed to the storage media.

ISTM that care must be taken not to inherit the PWC from a donor PCB, as any cached data could be written to the patient's UA.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Toshiba 4TB 3.5" - PCB - which is ROM IC ?
PostPosted: October 10th, 2019, 16:48 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 15463
Location: Australia
Nick_CT wrote:
I find that odd as I had swapped IC10 only, as I said, and drive did not intialise.

What would happen if the donor PCB came from a drive with a larger capacity, and whose PWC contained pointers to LBAs which exceeded the capacity of the patient HDD?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Toshiba 4TB 3.5" - PCB - which is ROM IC ?
PostPosted: February 28th, 2020, 20:02 
Offline

Joined: May 4th, 2016, 1:42
Posts: 15
Location: Seattle, WA USA
I got a Toshiba X300 series, model HDETS10GCA51, capacity 6Tb, firmware version FS2A. It also has 4 ICs.

In this case, just transferring the Macronix ROM IC in IC10 location to donor board and clearing the SMART module made it work.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 26 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: ddd123 and 55 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group