WD30NMZW Spyglass

[rd-simone]

Hello everyone,

I have here a WD30NMZW (Spyglass family) that was dropped.

Connecting it by USB it remains busy, so I adapted a compatible SATA board and with the help of PC3000 I made some corrections in SA and I managed to get it in ready state and I had LBA access.

The problem is that all the sectors (from the beginning to the end) are BLANK. I could read full speed but all zeroes.

Maybe this is because of some encryption / security? It seems strange to me that all the sectors are blank because the client said he had lot of data on it. Maybe the problem is because of the SATA board?

Thanks,
Simone

[jono-ats]

It's an SMR drive. The secondary translator isn't working, involving modules 189 & 190. Checksum errors are NORMAL for these modules if using the PC3K.

[DR-Kiev]

Hello everyone,

I have here a WD30NMZW (Spyglass family) that was dropped.

Connecting it by USB it remains busy, so I adapted a compatible SATA board and with the help of PC3000 I made some corrections in SA and I managed to get it in ready state and I had LBA access.

The problem is that all the sectors (from the beginning to the end) are BLANK. I could read full speed but all zeroes.

Maybe this is because of some encryption / security? It seems strange to me that all the sectors are blank because the client said he had lot of data on it. Maybe the problem is because of the SATA board?

Thanks,
Simone

That is because you did : I made some corrections in SA
Original translator got changed. Now it is giving you 00 (like sparse).
Say goodbye to the customer's data.

[Dananjaya]

do you have original firmware modules?

just try using original PCB.

did someother person check this HDD before you have?

are you sure all sectors are 00? check again 0 - 10000 sectors again.

what are the firmware errors was there and which modules have you changed?

[Blizzard]

It's an SMR drive. The secondary translator isn't working, involving modules 189 & 190. Checksum errors are NORMAL for these modules if using the PC3K.

This +

We have not recovered one yet that has arrived all zeros, if anyone has, it would be good to know so we can refer those cases. If the drive fails while it's in your possession and you have a backup of the original translator modules referenced by Jon then these can sometimes be recovered. Some of the procedures you may have used on older (non SMR) WD drives could render these drives blank, so be careful.

One more thing, the external version of WD SMR drives support TRIM. Fun times ahead

[DR-Kiev]

It's an SMR drive. The secondary translator isn't working, involving modules 189 & 190. Checksum errors are NORMAL for these modules if using the PC3K.

This +

We have not recovered one yet that has arrived all zeros, if anyone has, it would be good to know so we can refer those cases. If the drive fails while it's in your possession and you have a backup of the original translator modules referenced by Jon then these can sometimes be recovered. Some of the procedures you may have used on older (non SMR) WD drives could render these drives blank, so be careful.

One more thing, the external version of WD SMR drives support TRIM. Fun times ahead

It is possible to do this drives, but fundamental recovery methodic should be comletely changed. Backuping all SA now is not enough and won't much help later.
Replacing heads on them in 90% channces ends up with blank user space (second layer translator automaticaly updating). But this doesnt mean it is impossible to do recovery, just extra significant things should be added to whole procedure.