WD Essential stopped working after firmware upgrade

[fzabkar]

I prefer to help people publicly, whenever I can, so that more than just one individual may benefit, and so that others may contribute to the discussion, pointing out my errors if need be. That's the purpose of a forum, as I see it. It should not be a fishing pond for clients.

In this case I can't help, except to point out several threads where it was an Initio chip that was the culprit, not the drive. However, in those cases the chip was on a separate bridge board, and the issue wasn't complicated by encryption.

[BlackST]

A guy's car didn't start, no money in the pocket, he calls some friends in the street, one starts taking apart the engine, the other one starts a lesson in mechanics like speaker's corner in Hyde Park , another one gets a stash of car magazines (in internet times : gets his notebook / netbook / smartphone and starts googling) .... meanwhile it's time to go to work, the car didn't move a millimeter from its position, finally the guy asks "well, after dismantling the car, what's the fault ?" and the friends... "eh.. uhm, don't know, it takes a mechanic ! "

[hehaaj]

I'm kind of speechless. After these remarks, and i' sorry but i wont be coming back to this form again considering the fact that the people here are mean and materialistic (sorry but no offense). I've been using forums for so many years and just to learn and doing thing by myself, but i guess this forum is different. People here try to make their self feel important and knowledgeable in not sharing their information of making X4 money with exploitation.

I'm a moderator of 4 IT based forums, and all the time me and my team have been helping and fulfilling the user's requirements making the forum more and more busy and popular (i guess this is one big reason why i see this forum rating, rank and PR no where).

@ jono-ats: I apologize for not replaying but sending a quote of £ 600 made me helpless to say anything at all, however same work is deliverable in market under £ 200

Anyway, i thank you all for being so generous in replying and you've been very helpful to me.

Thanks a lot once again.

[BlackST]

Do you get revenue from ads ? If not, how do you cover the hosting / domain costs ? I have used forums and they are - except few - all photocopies of other, and the users usually copy and paste links or 3rd party info, often unchecked, and is blind leading the blind. This is a confirmation of the difference of this forum. Sorry if your experience was not as expected, but that's it.

[jono-ats]

OK, here were my PM exchanges with Junaid (hehaaj). Surely no good deed goes unpunished? I don't know why I bother sometimes, but I think I'm going to be bothering a lot less with folks like him.

I never quoted him a price, but he claims I did, and our pricing is much less.

So here are the facts:

From hehaaj:

Good day hope you're enjoying the best of your life.

I've a little problem, i've WD 500 Gb external portable, tried to upgrade the firmware of the drive, and it stopped appearing anywhere in system (my computer, device manage, disk management).
I've gone through the post,
wd10tmvv-t16204-60.html

And found it really helpfull, my question is,

i definitely have firmware issue, so making a sata connector will solve give me access to drive's data or not?

or is there any alternative way to get the data.
The drive is spinning, normal, with light indicator. Only the firmware upgrade didn't go very well

I'd be extremely thankful if you can give me a possible solution. as i'm student and cant afford hiring a recovery company, and have all studies data and family data in drive
Sent: 5/9/2010, 03:53

My reply:

Hi, do you have a name?

What compelled you to update the firmware in the first place? I can't recall ever needing to update WD ROMs, but it's not unusual for Seagate .. .

To effect a solution, you have to understand the problem and diagnose it accurately.

In reference to the advice that you've already received on the forum, if you totally corrupt the WD ROM, the drive won't spin up at all. It can spin up if some non-critical part(s) of the ROM are damaged, but without the ability to access to your data.

Or -- less likely -- maybe the USB chip is damaged, and the ROM is OK.

1. The ROM is the heart of the firmware, and you cannot simply bypass it by making a SATA connection if it is corrupted. You'll need pro service to get it repaired so that the data can be accessed.

2. If the USB interface IC is damaged, you can bypass it with the SATA connection scheme. But any data that you obtain from the drive (when you bypass the IC) will be encrypted. How will you deal with that problem?

I doubt there is anything that you can do yourself, unless you're "lucky enough" to have a bad USB port and you have a solution for the encryption issue.

Jon

His reply:

Thanks for your replay,

yeh sure i do have a name and it's Junaid.

I've updated the post with image from USB Device viewer, i hope that give some more idea about the problem.

essential-stopped-working-after-firmware-upgrade-t16866.html#p112579

As i told already, i'm a student and can't afford much of the data recovery company. On a side note what do you think how much it can cost?

Thanks in advance.
Junaid

My reply:

Hi Junaid,

I'm unfamiliar with the polling software and have no frame of reference as to what the output portends.

I don't have any magical answers; did you understand what I wrote to you earlier?

Here is a link with some pros in your region:

looking-for-someone-recover-data-preferred-t12125.html?hilit=scotland#p78738

Good luck.

Jon



View message

[HeadCrash]

Ohh man, you guys have too much time replying all these bullshits......."Bullshit Talk Money Walk"

[einstein9]

Ohh man, you guys have too much time replying all these bullshits......."Bullshit Talk Money Walk"

then why are u replying here

When Talking is Silver, Silence is GOLD - my friend

[HeadCrash]

Who? Me? Are talking to me? Just passing......Gold? Yeahhhhhhhh.

[hehaaj]

Hey all, some of you might be little disappointed to know that i've fixed my hard drive and its working BRAVO, i've got all the data as well as the hard drive in 100% working condition.

That proves certain points i guess. So chears to all for your support.

Any one have the same problem plz do pm me, and get your stuff fixed within 2-3 days (Y)

Chears

[fzabkar]

Hey all, some of you might be little disappointed to know that i've fixed my hard drive and its working BRAVO, i've got all the data as well as the hard drive in 100% working condition.

That proves certain points i guess. So chears to all for your support.

Any one have the same problem plz do pm me, and get your stuff fixed within 2-3 days (Y)

Chears

Why not post the solution?

Congratulations BTW.

[dsalazar1983]

Hey all, some of you might be little disappointed to know that i've fixed my hard drive and its working BRAVO, i've got all the data as well as the hard drive in 100% working condition.

That proves certain points i guess. So chears to all for your support.

Any one have the same problem plz do pm me, and get your stuff fixed within 2-3 days (Y)

Chears

I'm recently update mypassport firmware, after that the drive is not accesible, neither showed in device manager; the pc reconoize it as Initio Defautl Controller. There a way to rewrite the firmware? how you solve it?

Thanks in advance.

[guru]

A free spelling lesson->

it's "Cheers" not "Chears"

[fzabkar]

I'm recently update mypassport firmware, after that the drive is not accesible, neither showed in device manager; the pc reconoize it as Initio Defautl Controller. There a way to rewrite the firmware? how you solve it?

Have you tried applying the same firmware update a second time?

[shanchenhao]

i have the same problem now ,pls do tell me how to fix it....i can't compose a message yet,wish you will check this reply