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 Post subject: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 22nd, 2019, 0:44 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Hi all,

My external usb3 drive has died. Luckily I don't have anything important on it but after reading on data recovery I am now hooked on the topic and want this to be my first try at it. The drive is recognized in windows but no drive letter is assigned anymore. Disk Management says is requires initialization, which I did attempt and it failed. I have run it through crystaldiskinfo and dmde and the results are below. dmde gave an I/O error. I also got an I/O error before when I ran it through Data LifeGuard Diagnostics. Also I took some audio of the sound the drive is making and uploaded it as a zip file here since the forum doesn't allow MP3's. It spins up and after a few seconds starts doing a sound and it never stops and doesn't spin down.

Also I took the USB board off and then the PCB Board off. I noticed that the head contacts looked dark so I cleaned them with an eraser. It didn't change anything though.

Any help and guidance will be greatly appreciated. I'm excited and ready to learn!


Attachments:
CrystalDiskInfo.jpg
CrystalDiskInfo.jpg [ 183.56 KiB | Viewed 11665 times ]
dmde.jpg
dmde.jpg [ 294.06 KiB | Viewed 11665 times ]
Hard Drive Failure Sound.zip [686.21 KiB]
Downloaded 594 times
dmde partition.jpg
dmde partition.jpg [ 57.01 KiB | Viewed 11665 times ]
dmde partition error.jpg
dmde partition error.jpg [ 35.41 KiB | Viewed 11665 times ]
dmde capacity.jpg
dmde capacity.jpg [ 53.02 KiB | Viewed 11665 times ]
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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 22nd, 2019, 15:15 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Thank you very much for your help. I really want to donthis myself for two reasons:1) the data on this drive is not important. 2) im fascinated with data recovery and want to learn how to do it.

So first I need to connect the drive using SATA instead of USB. I was under the impression that I could only do this if I had the encryption key. Are you saying that all I have to do is remove the USB board and connect power and sata directly to my computer?

As for the slow issue fix. Do I need to purchase the WD-Marvel tool mentioned or can I just use the one you mentioned? Also I noticed some screenshots of a tool called firmware modulea spildit. Is this another tool you recommend? Did you write it? If so, where can I get it?


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 23rd, 2019, 15:21 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Hi all

To report back I removed the usb board and hooked up the broken drive directly to power and sata and upon bootup went into BIOS to confirm drive was recognized. After confirmation that drive was present and that my main drive was still first in the bootup order I exited BIOS and let the computer boot but it hung on the windows icon with the loading symbol. After waiting 5 mins when my normal bootup time is less than 20 secs thanks to my SSD main drive I turned off the PC. I unplugged the broken drive and windows gave me this bootup error:
https://www-groovypost-com.cdn.ampproje ... repair.png

Which after restarting again repaired itself.

What can I do to be able to boot with the broken drive connected via SATA and to avoid messing up my PC wih boot issues?

Thanks.


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 24th, 2019, 1:11 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
I was able to connect the bad drive on another PC I had running windows 7 x32. In Victoria 4.68b, the drive was recognized and SMART tested GOOD, much like CrystalDiskInfo, but when I ran a Test on the first 100,000 LBA's and it first gave an "recalibration..... Error" and then it went through the LBA's and they all gave "Error:ABRT". Does this mean the heads are completely dead? Should I open it to take a look? I will let it run though more LBA's but it's not looking good. :shock: :shock: :shock:

Any advice is truly appreciated. I can't find much on google for these errors. People state either FW problems or password, but the security states its "Frozen!".


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 24th, 2019, 15:02 
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Joined: November 29th, 2006, 10:08
Posts: 7843
Location: UK
Quote:
DO NOT OPEN THE DRIVE !!!!


+1

Absolutely DO NOT open the drive!

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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 25th, 2019, 3:13 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Thank you Spildit. I have not opened the drive!!! And more importantly, I have been able to read all 427 modules and the ROM. I have saved them all on my computer. My next step will be to apply the mod2 and mod32 fixes using HDDSuperTool. Do I have to do it via SATA or USB? Do you recommend any other free tool for writing to these modules?


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 25th, 2019, 16:11 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Professor Spildit I am hooked on your amazing site. I have spent hours reading threads and learning about everything from platters to SA to SED and PCB ROM transfers to all the amazing apps out there, learning the purpose of each module and I just can't get enough. In the few days since I joined I have bookmarked over 30 topics and read probably 100's already. Thank you for this wonderful venue to share info and for being someone that actually shares a lot. I see a lot of recovery "experts" on here that are quick to dismiss noobs, like myself, and use fear to convince them to hire someone instead of trying to learn something and doing it themselves. Some have even attacked you or others for sharing knowledge. Totally ridiculous. Without the sharing of knowledge we would still be living in the dark ages most likely without even knowing how to harness fire!

Back to my project....I read the modules with a direct SATA connection, not a USB to SATA PCB Board(ROM transferred PCB board is what I mean here in case I'm not clear), and using WD Marvel Demo. Before attempting to write to them with HDDSuperTools, I just wanted to be sure I wouldn't be messing something up by writing the module with direct SATA when possibly it would require the USB board maybe for encryption or something.


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 25th, 2019, 18:49 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Thanks for letting me know it was safe. I connected using direct SATA and downloaded the HDDSuperTools in a boot Linux CD on the HDDSuperTools website. Chose the drive and patched mod02 and mod32. Read the modules again afterwards and they are indeed patched in accordance with your slow issue fix link above. Mod02 had the section 00'ed out between the 4F 44 44 and the 01 00 28 64. Mod32 was 00'ed out as well.

Then I unplugged power to the drive and then replugged. Ran the Smart info from HDDSuperTools and I still have the same pending sector count and the drive is still doing the same sound I reported earlier. I can't clone it yet until I get the new drive in the mail. Any other test I can do to see if it will work? Will the slow issue fix come back if I try to read it prior to cloning?


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 26th, 2019, 1:16 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
I did a compare of the mod32 changes and it's pretty extensive. I'm attaching the before and after. Does it look ok?


Attachments:
mod32.zip [2.74 KiB]
Downloaded 599 times
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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 26th, 2019, 10:28 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Spildit,

Attached you will see the CrystalDiscInfo after the mod. Any suggestions if this will be a problem for cloning or if I can test the drive prior to cloning somehow? Should I do an LBA read test with Victoria like before? Maybe on the 1st, last and middle 1%.

The data is not important to me...I'm here trying to learn with a drive and data that I don't care about.


Attachments:
after_mod.jpg
after_mod.jpg [ 184.5 KiB | Viewed 11253 times ]
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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 27th, 2019, 12:19 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Spildit

I reread the mod02 and mod32 and did a hex compare against the patched versions and they were identical. Did another SMART info and indeed there are still pending reallocations. So the modules are slow issue fixed but as you state the drive seems to be looking somewhere else for the re-lo list. I also tried to read a few LBAs and got the same errors as before. I understand that I have made it to the end of the available free solutions. What are my options to continue learning and diagnosing but while not having to spend a lot of money. Im really enjoying this and would really like to solve it.


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 27th, 2019, 21:40 
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Joined: January 29th, 2012, 1:43
Posts: 982
Location: United States
Spildit wrote:
The patched 32 looks ok but i can't understand why are you getting pending re-located sectors on S.M.A.R.T. ... Maybe the drive is reading copy 1 of the module ? Strange ...
I only have limited experience, but from what I have seen the mod 32 patch (clearing the RELO list) has no effect on the SMART results. Also, from what I can tell, it really doesn't do anything. The mod 02 patch is what fixes the slow issue. I made the mod 32 patch in HDDSuperTool because of information provided in forums (probably your HDD Oracle) that other tools did that for the slow issue. @Spildit, I am somewhat surprised you are not aware of this.

datarulestheworld wrote:
I was able to connect the bad drive on another PC I had running windows 7 x32. In Victoria 4.68b, the drive was recognized and SMART tested GOOD, much like CrystalDiskInfo, but when I ran a Test on the first 100,000 LBA's and it first gave an "recalibration..... Error" and then it went through the LBA's and they all gave "Error:ABRT". Does this mean the heads are completely dead? Should I open it to take a look? I will let it run though more LBA's but it's not looking good. :shock: :shock: :shock:
Any advice is truly appreciated. I can't find much on google for these errors. People state either FW problems or password, but the security states its "Frozen!".

datarulestheworld wrote:
Spildit
I reread the mod02 and mod32 and did a hex compare against the patched versions and they were identical. Did another SMART info and indeed there are still pending reallocations. So the modules are slow issue fixed but as you state the drive seems to be looking somewhere else for the re-lo list. I also tried to read a few LBAs and got the same errors as before. I understand that I have made it to the end of the available free solutions. What are my options to continue learning and diagnosing but while not having to spend a lot of money. Im really enjoying this and would really like to solve it.

Are you sure the drive is not security locked? That would cause the LBA aborts that you report from Victoria. Maybe the drive is locked by the USB bridge. Try putting it back in the USB enclosure and seeing if it can read. Read aborts are usually caused by two things, either the drive is security locked, or the translator has issues. The other possibility is that it was trying to read and failing, then the drive locked up due to a fatal device error, and all reads (and likely commands) would fail after that. Try to clone with HDDSuperClone for a minute and see what happens. Try both connected direct as SATA and also in the USB enclosure. If you don’t have a destination drive yet, use NULL (no destination) as the destination. You only need to run it for a minute to get an idea of what is going on. I can help diagnose from the HDDSuperClone log and output messages.

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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 28th, 2019, 1:10 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Spildit wrote:
I would go for a paid license of WDMarvel and test with the SATA PCB to see if it's possible to write cleared RE-LO to ALL COPIES of SA ... Same for module 02.


If I buy a 1, 3 or 6 month license and decide to upgrade to lifetime, are you aware of they do this? Also about the SATA PCB do I just buy another one of the same model. Mine is 2060-771698-002 REV A. I did see a few posts here and HDDOracle about this PCB board getting fried or bad TVS chips with overvoltages and damaging the board and/or the preamplifiers on the headstack. Once I know which SATA PCB Board I need do I just write the ROM from mine over to new one with WDMarvel? Also to be clear my drive has the SATA PCB Board above and then has a piggybacked USB Board connected to the SATA connectors of the SATA Board. The model of my USB Board is 4060-705059-003 REV. P1. If the encryption is on the USB Board how do I transfer the key over to the SATA Board?

maximus wrote:
Are you sure the drive is not security locked? That would cause the LBA aborts that you report from Victoria. Maybe the drive is locked by the USB bridge. Try putting it back in the USB enclosure and seeing if it can read. Read aborts are usually caused by two things, either the drive is security locked, or the translator has issues. The other possibility is that it was trying to read and failing, then the drive locked up due to a fatal device error, and all reads (and likely commands) would fail after that. Try to clone with HDDSuperClone for a minute and see what happens. Try both connected direct as SATA and also in the USB enclosure. If you don’t have a destination drive yet, use NULL (no destination) as the destination. You only need to run it for a minute to get an idea of what is going on. I can help diagnose from the HDDSuperClone log and output messages.


Thanks for the great tools you provided and your willingness to help. I especially love the Linux bootable CD which allows to me use Linux on the fly without having to install it. Truly awesome!

I ran HDDSuperClone with destination NULL with the bad drive connected via the USB Board and with the drive connected directly to SATA. All the other settings were the default. I have attached both logs. In both instances the cloning failed pretty quickly, less than 30secs. But if I am reading the logs correctly, it seems that the USB connection made it a little further.

Also regarding security locking I believe that the chip that is important for locking the drive is on the USB Board and mine is initio inic-1607E. In a paper I read about this chip it seems we can extract the key. Still trying to understand how.


Attachments:
Data recovery.zip [6.47 KiB]
Downloaded 291 times
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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 28th, 2019, 9:37 
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Joined: January 29th, 2012, 1:43
Posts: 982
Location: United States
datarulestheworld wrote:
I ran HDDSuperClone with destination NULL with the bad drive connected via the USB Board and with the drive connected directly to SATA. All the other settings were the default. I have attached both logs. In both instances the cloning failed pretty quickly, less than 30secs. But if I am reading the logs correctly, it seems that the USB connection made it a little further.

Yup, all aborts with no other status bits set, so you have no LBA access. I have read somewhere that on WD drives a bad head(s) can cause the translator not to load properly. You will definitely need a firmware tool to be able to read from the good heads. I am sure @Spildit is pointing you in the right direction.

It is interesting that it made it twice as far with the SCSI passthrough than the ATA passthrough, but that must be something in the program that I should look into. It should have stopped at the same spot for runaway skipping, but it allowed a second run with the SCSI passthrough.

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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 28th, 2019, 19:19 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Well thank you both for all your help. I will purchase lifetime wdmarvell and play with it to see what I can do with my drive. This is too much fun to stop here and call it quits.


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 29th, 2019, 15:14 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Need some advice. I was going to buy the wd marvel lifetime but I have learned the MRT has low initial cost and then a monthly option which is reasonable and seems like a nice way to learn as you go. I have done a lot of reading and it seems to have most of the beginner level options that PC3000 and its much cheaper especially with this payment plan option. This way I can play with it. Learn as I go. See if I like this line of work so Incan assess if this might be something I would like to do as a career. I know I have a long way to go but you gotta start somewhere.


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 30th, 2019, 0:35 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Thanks spildit. Cant wait to hear your opinion. Btw, in md marvel demo when checking sa modules i just realized I am getting a crc invalid on 6F. All the others are fine. According to
https://forum.dolphindatalab.com/thread-390.html
Writing a good 6F module is recommended.


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: January 30th, 2019, 4:46 
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Joined: November 29th, 2006, 10:08
Posts: 7843
Location: UK
6F is almost always “bad” and not required.

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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: February 1st, 2019, 1:25 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Thanks pcimage. I will not touch 6F.

I was playing with WD Marvel Demo while I decide what I'm going to do about MRT and I found this great article by Professor Spildit http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=1498

I tried the RAM Edit Head Map and tried all 6 heads one by one. Each one continued to give the clicking noise. Each head and all of them together upon hitting the soft reset gave the AMNF error. I think this means that the heads crashed and the device probably needs a head swap.


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 Post subject: Re: external WD My Book WD20EARX not working
PostPosted: February 3rd, 2019, 17:40 
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Joined: January 22nd, 2019, 0:21
Posts: 21
Location: United States of America
Thanks Spildit but Im going to the end. Im also considering building my own clean room like Larysabo did. I have a lot of the materials already. I wont start with this drive though. Ill take apart a drive with no data but will scan the drive before and after and will remove the heads and reinstall them. Im also purchasing a head combs suite. I own a lot of electronics equipment already since I do Pcb rework on the side. I havent stopped researching the topic so I am confident that when I solve this drive I will get the data extracted. This forum, data-medics and hddoracle have reading to keep me busy for a long time.


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