Repetitive issue with Hitachi Z5K320 drives - Solution req

[oblivion1]

Hello everyone,

First of all I want to thank the people that created this site and the forum, I find all the information here very educative, althought a bit overwhelming

This is my first post and I will start with a problem that intrigues me but could also be very beneficial for me if solved.

I deal with notebook, PC and laptop components, and I have gathered lately quite a few (over 50 pcs) Hitachi Z5K320-160 drives that share the same problem:

- all the drives are being detected quickly and appear in good health. HDD Sentinel reports them with 100% health status and they pass the short self test, no problems reported in the SMART tab either
- at the same time all are uinitialized and when I try to initialize them in the Computer Management console it always gives me the same message -> "data error (cyclic redundancy check)", and of course I cannot take the step further and partition them.

Physically they look alright, I disassembled one searching for visible faults but found none.

How can i make use of them and succesfully partition them? Has anyone encountered this kind of issue with this model or Hitachi drives in general?


Surely I appreciate sharing and free information but I also know this is an area where people work and experiment a lot to find solutions, so I am willing to pay for any valid fix.

Thanks.

[fzabkar]

Where did these drives come from? Were they installed in DVRs, STBs, etc?

What does HD Sentinel report for the drives' security status? Are they password protected?

[oblivion1]

Yes, they come from Skybox units as far as I know. Many of them have Elisil tunisia written on the label.
Not all behave like this, even if they are from the same source.

In HD Sentinel the security enable and locked boxes are unchecked, should i look somewhere else too?

[guru]

"Elisil tunisia" Good luck. They will probably be locked(paired) to the STB that they were pulled from.

AFAIK the way to unlock is a current secret and I would be surprised if anyone who knows will sell you the info.

[fzabkar]

My approach would be to allow the STB to unlock the drive, then hotswap its SATA data cable to an appropriate tool. Hopefully this tool can then retrieve the drive's firmware resources and modify them.

[oblivion1]

Thanks for the input,

I could obtain one or two STB units, maybe they share the same locking algorithm and could work with the drives I have now. So a possible solution would be to modify the firmware on one and them flash the rest with it?
Not all have that label on them, and many of those who have work perfectly fine which is means that they were unlocked or never locked in the first place.

Searching for the cinemastar z5k320 I saw that they are self encrypting drives, I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.