Good evening,

I just got my hands on a big lot of used HGST 12TB SAS drives and I have big trouble to get them working.
After several days with AI back and forth I stumbled over this forum and hope you could help me.

Drive
HGST Ultrastar DC HC520 HUH721212AL5204, 12TB SAS 12G, decommissioned datacenter pulls (OEM unknown, plain HGST label)
Firmware revision HA22; vendor VPD page 0x03 decodes to: LEFJC3G0, 2101HA22000, build 10/04/17 17:54:38, project LHC4K, ENC_12G_RELEASE
Serial of the unit in the logs below: 8DJZYPRH
I have 13 of these drives from the same lot – every single one shows exactly the same symptom

Symptoms

SAS link comes up at 12G, INQUIRY / VPD pages / REQUEST SENSE answer normally
TEST UNIT READY always returns 02/04/01 (LU becoming ready), progress indication stays at 0.00%
Drive performs an internal reset every few seconds from the moment power is applied, independent of any host commands (mpt3sas logs device_block / device_unblock, drive reports "Power-on or device reset occurred"). First reset already 7 s after power-on.
START STOP UNIT fails with Unit Attention (bus reset) every time because a new reset happens between attempts
LOG SENSE, MODE SENSE, READ CAPACITY all refused with Not Ready; smartctl gets nothing beyond the INQUIRY section
WRITE BUFFER mode 7 (dmc_offs_save) → HBA transport error / DID_NO_CONNECT (drive reset mid-command)
Audible: heads click repeatedly during each cycle, no real spin up sound

Ruled out
HBA: LSI 9300-8i, FW 16.00.12.00 IT, mpt3sas 54.100, command_retry_count=2000, issue_scsi_cmd_to_bringup_drive=0
Power: 11.9 V on 12V rail measured during spin-up, Seasonic 550W, single drive on the cable
Cable / port / PWDIS: HUH721010AL5204 (He10, FW C384) from the same lot spin up and read fine on the same port, cable and Molex
Same result on a second machine

Question:
Has anyone seen this before and knows what actually causes it? With 13 identical failures I find it hard to believe it is 13 independent head crashes – is there a known firmware state, factory mode or vendor command that can get these past the spin-up self-test, or is this a mechanical/preamp failure and the drives are done?

Could it be firmware locked?

https://support-en.wd.com/app/warrantystatusweb

Serial Number -- 8DJZYPRH
Model Number -- 0F29545
Description -- LHC Drive ASM, 12.0TB, 512e, SAS, P3_PWDIS_Support, Fujitsu Storage, Secure Erase

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

It could be. I really dont know to be honest, but after all these days I think this is really possible. If yes - what is possible to get it working?

Hmmm my last reply did not came through, still pending for review.

@fzabkar I mean it could be firmware locked, after all these days trying differting things, I guess so.
Is there any solution to it?

Member @E123 offers paid solutions for such cases.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.