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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 21st, 2012, 5:04

Hi,

Could anybody send me geometry data for Western Digital disk WD5000BMVV?

I got some donor PCB for this HDD, but it recognizes 2.00 TB intead 500 MB.
I hope that I can define geometry manually and then it start to working, properly.
unfortunatelly I can't find suc specyfication in internet.

That's tricky, because Disk is phisically visible but no any recovery software can find his partitions.
I know, thats USB issue. Could somebody give me some tips regarding this problem?
Disk with new PCB sounds good, running without dengerous klicking.

I dont want to repair this drive, but I need to get some pictures from this disk back

best regards
Michał

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 21st, 2012, 6:15

Hi Michal,

Your name reminds me with a very good friend of mine :wink:

about your case here

changing pcb will not fix your drive here, provide more details about the hdd with its own pcb here!
but for me looks like FW issue maybe

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 21st, 2012, 6:49

szczur.de wrote:I got some donor PCB for this HDD, but it recognizes 2.00 TB intead 500 MB.

You need to transfer the original board's serial flash memory chip, or its contents, to your donor PCB.

BTW, is the drive (or USB-SATA bridge IC) reporting a capacity of 2TB (= 1.8 TiB) or 2TiB?

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 21st, 2012, 15:46

It's seen as 2tb because the ROM version doesn't match the fw on the platters.

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 21st, 2012, 15:51

fzabkar wrote:BTW, is the drive (or USB-SATA bridge IC) reporting a capacity of 2TB (= 1.8 TiB) or 2TiB?


2TiB
PC Inspector shows
"Phisical drive" 2047,34 GB

patient (broken PCB)
disk WD5000BMVV-11GNWSO
PCB 2061-701675-604 10P

donor
disk WD50000BMVV-11A1CSO
PCB 2061-701675-002 04P

is there any FW difference?
If yes, is it possible to download and flash right software?
I need to bring flash original software to the donor disk after recovery.


thank you for any answers

Michał

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 21st, 2012, 16:36

It looks like that:

http://postimage.org/image/6najz2nn5/
http://postimage.org/image/6rh50t8l3/

thx

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 23rd, 2012, 7:56

Hello once more...

I hope, I can get any tips...
It's my first time trying to recover data from hardware broken HDD.

Pls give me some software name or links for FW changing software for WD HDD, or safe sites/forums where I can get any tips.

What I need to take care of flashing FW?

I stucked... I have no clue what do to next...

best regards

P.S. I would buy a new PCB (thera are plenty of offers on internet) if I'm sure it will works
Which number on PCB indicates FW version? how I can be sure for that?

Michał

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 23rd, 2012, 8:11

Michal,

really and honestly with those tools do not gamble with clients hdd`s - my advice

better buy some bulk hdd`s and try to fix them

and

There is no such websites for tips, the best place is this forum, the problem is you need more time (dedicated) for those tools
in addition to get the basics my dear.

no such step 1,2,3 and so ever

good luck

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

May 23rd, 2012, 23:00

szczur.de wrote:P.S. I would buy a new PCB (thera are plenty of offers on internet) if I'm sure it will works
Which number on PCB indicates FW version? how I can be sure for that?

It's more than just firmware. Each board also contains unique, drive specific "adaptive" information in an 8-pin serial flash memory chip (aka "ROM"). This chip, or its contents, needs to be transferred to your donor PCB.

You can find this chip near the SDRAM.

I haven't checked his stocks, but there is one valued forum member (porthas) who offers a free "PCB adaptation" service:
http://www.donordrives.com/blog/pcbswapguide

Alternatively, your local TV/AV repair shop should be able to do this simple job for you.

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

July 15th, 2013, 7:58

Hello everybody,

Hi Michał, I'm from Poland too.
Unfortunately I have the same problem with my Western Digital WD5000BMVV as you had. I'm curious if you were able to recover the data by swapping PCB. Did you replace serial flash memory chips on it? I found on the Internet that chips U12 and U14 stands for ROM.
I will be grateful for your response.

Dominik

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

July 15th, 2013, 8:11

Dominicur wrote:Unfortunately I have the same problem with my Western Digital WD5000BMVV as you had.

IMHO it is not really clear what the OP's problem was, because he started part-way through his story after he had already replaced his drive's PCB. Therefore I don't know how you have decided that you have definitely got "the same problem". Remember - "same symptoms" does not mean "same problem".

Therefore I suggest that you don't continue in this old thread. Instead start a new thread and include the following details: Fully describe your original problem, including all symptoms and describe whatever you have already done (tests, replacements etc.) and the results of each step. Also describe the value of the data to you, and how much risk you are prepared to take that you might lose your data completely during your DIY recovery attempts.

Re: WD My Passport - WD5000BMVV

July 17th, 2013, 5:06

If you are not familiarized with DataRecovery I thisnk the best option if your data is important is to send to a datarecovery compatny from Poland

if your data is not very important, you can test FW, PCBs and so on
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