Make USB WD passport Essential drive a functioning Sata driv

[cyrusfox]

I have a brand new Western Digital my passport Essential Drive(actually 3 of them), see picture below.




I plan on using them as internal drives though and got them for a great price. This is the first time I have ever bought a WD external drive and I was shocked to see no apparent sata connections on the PCB when I tore it apart. See this post to see what I am talking about if you are unfamiliar.

I have read many post on this forum already about people trying to get these drives to work on Sata, and there seems to be a good amount of misinformation mixed in there. I saw this guide from this post which had the most detailed information. Also can be seen on this website.

As for me, experience wise, I have a nice solder station, have made a custom working msata to sata adapter(etched my own board). I have lots of nice motherboard pin adapters that would fit perfectly over the 2x6 pin connecter coming off of this drive, so I would prefer to minimize soldering points directly on PCB(looks like I can get grounds from there). Does anyone know the exact Data port assignments, I am assuming(as this makes the most logical sense to me) that E71=A+ E72=A- E73=B- E74/75=B+ ???
My PCB is slightly different than the one from the guide. See picture below. Also, do I really need to remove all 4 capacitors as shown in the guide? Do have a heat gun for that as well.


I don't mind making a bunch of custom connects if it means I can use this as a speedier Sata drive, I am quite certain the USB is lagging the drive and capping my read/write to 25/20 MB/s. I bought these drives cause they were a steal at $25, would still like to use them rather than hock them on ebay. As for the USB power input, I got plently of Molex connects I could wire to it.

Now there has been a lot said about automatic/transparent encryption, Is this an issue I need to worry about, If I plug the right signals to the right wires, can I use the drive as I intend. I would like to me these boot drives. These are going in a tower, FYI, so not concerned about added dimension after soldering.

Please educate me if I am wrong. This seems like a fun mod to me, any objections/pointers/ suggestions are appreciated.

[rmy]

Hi. I can't answer to you, but will go to buy one and try this funny mod too. So this post is a kind of post subscription

[einstein9]

I plan on using them as internal drives though and got them for a great price.

well why the headache, buy SATA hdd and use it.
u have no idea what ur getting self into with those hdd`s

good luck

[drc]

Now there has been a lot said about automatic/transparent encryption, Is this an issue I need to worry about

No, the encryption is only in play if the drive is accessed through USB. If you skip the USB you can format and then use like a normal drive.

[jono-ats]

Sell the drives on eBay and buy the ones you want with the proceeds. That's by far the shortest path.

[fzabkar]

Does anyone know the exact Data port assignments, I am assuming(as this makes the most logical sense to me) that E71=A+ E72=A- E73=B- E74/75=B+ ???
My PCB is slightly different than the one from the guide. See picture below. Also, do I really need to remove all 4 capacitors ...

I would think that the SATA Tx/Rx pairs would follow the same order on the PCB as in the SATA data connector. This would facilitate a neat PCB layout. Otherwise try the reverse order.

http://pinouts.ru/HD/serialATA_pinout.shtml

And yes, you do need to remove the coupling capacitors, otherwise your motherboard's SATA controller will be competing with the bridge IC. Even if the bridge were quiet, you would still have a double termination on the Tx/Rx pairs.

[Fab79]

I have a problem with the USB connector of my WD My Passport Essential (I'm sure the data are still in the hdd...). It's the new one, with a PCB like the one posted by cyrusfox, and this could be a solution to recover my files.

please cyrusfox, could you tell us if it works?

A question about data recovering: is the encryption a problem when trying to recover data ?

[drc]

this could be a solution to recover my files.

No, it couldn't be

is the encryption a problem when trying to recover data ?

Yes, very much so

[Hyde]

i'm facing a problem with another wd essential, as described in my post here.
Did someone try to bypass the usb interface?

[cyrusfox]

i'm facing a problem with another wd essential, as described in my post here.
Did someone try to bypass the usb interface?

Other people have done this, I have not, and won't be able to attempt till this weekend. I will update with my success/failure.

As for the capacitors, thanks for the info fzabkar. One more question, with those capacitors removed, will the usb access still work, in other words, if I fail with getting the SATA connection to work, forgo the project, will my drive still function in USB mode, or will I have to reconnect the capacitors?

As for suggestions to sell the drives on ebay, no way, The shortest path is for the wise, I know I am foolish. Also, I just found them for $20.98 at a different Target, If/when the drives fails, I'll crack them open and steal the magnets before junking them(what else to do with broken drives?). I have had pretty good luck with HDs, only one Adata external(Samsung IDE internal) 250gb drive has failed on me, and I was able to resurrect it long enough to get my data off it. Now if any data is really important to me it has at least one redundant copy.

This is about modding for the pure fun of it. Thank you for all the useful, especially drc for clearing up the encryption confusion and fzabkar commenting on the capacitors. I hope to return with pictures and a smile!

[Vulcan]

One more question, with those capacitors removed, will the usb access still work, in other words, if I fail with getting the SATA connection to work, forgo the project, will my drive still function in USB mode, or will I have to reconnect the capacitors?

For USB functionality, you would need to reconnect (i.e. refit) the capacitors which you remove, as they are needed to pass the SATA signals from the USB bridge chip, to the rest of the drive's electronics.

[rmy]

I'll crack them open and steal the magnets before junking them(what else to do with broken drives?).

You can offer the platters to your favorite girl, or you can use it as under-glas, you can put it in fruit-trees to make birds away…

[dobrevjetser]

Watch out! The platters are made from glass. They can break!

Dobre

[rmy]

mirroirs are also made from glass… what percentage of girls don't have a mirroir in her bag ?
Platters are really stronger than commercial mirrors…

[dobrevjetser]

Correct, but most people dont know thes platters are made from glass.

[sparky_dcr]

Please can someone tell me where this guide is located?

I am trying to recover from a WD10TMVW via pictures I found on Google to convert it to SATA.

Using the USB for power and removing the 4 caps I can get it to show a 931GB hard disk that needs to be formatted according to Windows.

I have tried to recover data with 'ReclaiMe' but it only gets to 3% and finds nothing. If I use 'R-Studio' I get 4 MP3 songs in the first sector but then it just has data redundancy cyclic errors over and over again.

The disk doesn't click or grind so I assume the heads and platters are OK. The USB connector was fine and nothing is burned out, it just seemed to die overnight for some reason.

Any help from you guys much appreciated.

Phill.

Attachments

[pcimage]

It's encrypted via the USB board, if you convert to SATA all you'll get is garbage (encrypted data)

[data-medics]

Phil,

I've got to give you an A for effort. But you probably should have researched it better before starting to solder on the PCB. You need pro tools to recover data from passports. Unless you're willing to invest $7000 plus a lot of time learning, I'd suggest you find a pro.

[fzabkar]

@sparky_dcr, congratulations on your excellent work. ISTM that you may now be facing the well known "slow responding" issue. If so, then see the following thread:

http://www.alexsoft.org/viewtopic.php?t=998&p=4345

Once you have applied the patch, you will need to return the PCB to USB mode, or you could transfer the contents of U12 to a replacement USB PCB. Some PCB suppliers include such a service for free.

That said, could you obtain a SMART report using CrystalDiskInfo?

Can you retrieve the drive's ROM and SA firmware?

http://sediv2008.narod.ru/Easy3.9Passwo ... 567890.rar
http://sediv2008.narod.ru/Settings.rar