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
June 28th, 2012, 12:50
Hi All,
New on here, got an issue with a WD10TMVW, it is not recognised in my computer, but shows up elsewhere (device and printers). The issue happened after a windows re-install and WD support have informed that they can replace the drive but not recover data without pro help. I have taken it apart and can see that the disc is not being read, please see attached, is it corrupt software or broken heads, does anyone know where I can get spare parts, help is much appreciated, I must recover the data on a tight budget.
- Attachments
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- WDVW.zip
- Pics & Video
- (8.96 MiB) Downloaded 1745 times
June 28th, 2012, 13:42
I expect you won't like my comments, but anyway...
seamuscostello wrote:I have taken it apart
Bad plan

You've now caused contamination in addition to whatever the original problem was. I suggest you don't power-up the drive (to prevent HDI due to the contamination), prepare for increased recovery fees due to the extra work that your opening of the drive has caused, and engage professional help.
I know you said that you have a "tight budget" - unfortunately you blew your chance of that when you opened the drive outside of a cleanroom.

There are members in Eire (like
CK) and in the UK (like
pcimage) who you could contact for a quote; or put the drive aside until you can afford professional help; or go ahead and risk the data by continuing DIY etc. Your data, your choice.
June 28th, 2012, 14:01
Hi vulcan, where I appreciate your comments please note that I was very careful no to contaminate the disc, I had at hand a lint free cloth (that I used to use to clean projectors in a non-clean room environment) and a can of compressed air. My question still stands, is the problem with the heads or firmware, do you know where I can get spare parts? I do not have experience in debugging this type of device, but do have skills in repairing electronic devices
June 28th, 2012, 14:24
Hi,
Unfortunately your described precautions were not enough to prevent contamination. Since you are insisting on DIY, I politely decline to spend time on further replies. I've seen this type of thread before here, where someone insisted on doing DIY in a non-DIY situation - it usually ends badly, after wasting lots of everyone's time.
diy-what-the-big-deal-t12671.htmlI'll just say that IMHO you won't have the tools or experience to attempt to correctly diagnose & repair either firmware or head problems - they need very different skills & tools to electrical repair. Perhaps other members will assist you. Good luck, but don't say that you weren't warned.
June 28th, 2012, 15:47
seamuscostello wrote:Hi vulcan, where I appreciate your comments please note that I was very careful no to contaminate the disc, I had at hand a lint free cloth (that I used to use to clean projectors in a non-clean room environment) and a can of compressed air. My question still stands, is the problem with the heads or firmware, do you know where I can get spare parts? I do not have experience in debugging this type of device, but do have skills in repairing electronic devices
Have you read this thread page by page? Not that I recommend it, there are plenty of inspiring DIY steps to try.
June 28th, 2012, 16:01
Was hoping that someone will diagnose the issue by looking at the videos, I'm sure that a professional could quickly diagnose same by looking at the videos and I would then make the necessary diy fix
June 28th, 2012, 16:47
Broken heads. Hopefully no firmware damage.
June 29th, 2012, 7:14
Thank you labtech, do you perhaps know where I can get spare heads for this unit?
June 29th, 2012, 8:02
Will someone please send me the password for HDD-1.rar, thanks in advance.
June 29th, 2012, 9:13
You have powered it on with no lid screw to keep head stack in alignment, in an unclean environment.
90% + certainly have damaged the platters with your DIY attempts so far, and definitely contaminated it.
Forget about DIY
June 29th, 2012, 9:22
seamuscostello wrote:Thank you labtech, do you perhaps know where I can get spare heads for this unit?
The heads themselves are not available anywhere as they are not sold as parts themselves. Have to search for the drive model and so on.
This is no easy task and it is expensive. The ratio of chances of successful recovery/(damage+investment) in time spent searching for the compatible part, cost of part(s), the necessary tools and the recovery time from here on will be a major loss in terms of DIY.
Google and phone are your friends, BUT you clearly indicated you do not like to read and search, so it will be tough.
Best wishes.
June 29th, 2012, 15:29
seamuscostello wrote:Will someone please send me the password for HDD-1.rar, thanks in advance.
Its more
fun trying to bruteforce it
89,000,000 passwords tried in a day & a half on my spare pc.
loki
July 10th, 2012, 10:15
Hi!
I read through all the posts in the thread.
I have an external WD10TMVW external USB 3.0 drive and it fails to work any more. When I connect it it appears as an unrecognized WD [...] device with a (?) mark.
I tried different cables, machines. This is my second failed device so far, (4th counting all WD passports).
I couldn't manage to unsolder the USB3 connector, it is too hard to remove.
I think I found the SATA wires (2 pairs running from the controller to the USB chip), having coupling capacitors in series.
I removed the capacitors, connected the lines by wires to an external SATA-USB2 bridge just to the SATA connector where the HDD goes (should be connected).
Didn't really get much results by connecting both devices to USB. I think the disk didin't even spin up. (Not sure)
I connected the WD hdd to USB using a power only cable, the SATA wires to the SATA-USB2 bridge. Now it did spin up, bu I heard clicking sounds. I tried different permutations of the SATA wires also, in case I was wrong.
I also tried the eSATA connector of the SATA-USB2 bridge (SATA-eSATA) and the LED on the bridge did blink, but with the same clicking sounds.
I resoldered the capacitors, connected the drive to USB, no clicking sounds. Same as before, not recognized.
I removed the flash (EEPROM maybe?) ROM (SO8) of the USB chip, now it shows "SYMWAVE SES USB Device" and/or "SYMWAVE Generic USB Device", also with the yellow "?" icon, driver is not found. I'm still not convinced that the USB chip works perfectly.
Any suggestions?
Btw, I'm a HW, SW engineer, I usually get around with these stuff.
I really need to get data off this drive...
Thanks!
edit:
USB chip is:
SYMWAVE SYM6316-3VB14
July 10th, 2012, 10:44
I cleaned the connector pads that connect the disk.
I also checked UVC view.
A 931.48GB uninitialized disk appears.
It seems that the USB is OK. (?)
I don't want to format the drive just to test it. Is there a tool that tries to read (rescue) from RAW disk?
edit: Winhex shows: Cannot read from Sector 0...1 of WD My Passport 0730. drive is write protected.
This is UVCview:
---===>Device Information<===---
English product name: "My Passport 0730"
ConnectionStatus:
Current Config Value: 0x01 -> Device Bus Speed: High
Device Address: 0x02
Open Pipes: 2
===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x84 -> Direction: IN - EndpointID: 4
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00
===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x03 -> Direction: OUT - EndpointID: 3
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00
===>Device Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x12
bDescriptorType: 0x01
bcdUSB: 0x0210
bDeviceClass: 0x00 -> This is an Interface Class Defined Device
bDeviceSubClass: 0x00
bDeviceProtocol: 0x00
bMaxPacketSize0: 0x40 = (64) Bytes
idVendor: 0x1058 = Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
idProduct: 0x0730
bcdDevice: 0x1012
iManufacturer: 0x01
English (United States) "Western Digital"
iProduct: 0x02
English (United States) "My Passport 0730"
iSerialNumber: 0x03
English (United States) "575837314131313030393038"
bNumConfigurations: 0x01
===>Configuration Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x09
bDescriptorType: 0x02
wTotalLength: 0x0020 -> Validated
bNumInterfaces: 0x01
bConfigurationValue: 0x01
iConfiguration: 0x00
bmAttributes: 0x80 -> Bus Powered
MaxPower: 0xFA = 500 mA
===>Interface Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x09
bDescriptorType: 0x04
bInterfaceNumber: 0x00
bAlternateSetting: 0x00
bNumEndpoints: 0x02
bInterfaceClass: 0x08 -> This is a Mass Storage USB Device Interface Class
bInterfaceSubClass: 0x06
bInterfaceProtocol: 0x50
iInterface: 0x00
===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x84 -> Direction: IN - EndpointID: 4
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00
===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x03 -> Direction: OUT - EndpointID: 3
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00
July 10th, 2012, 10:59
Did the drive have a password configured?
July 10th, 2012, 11:04
Also installed the SES driver, I think that was needed to recognize the device.
demodl wrote:I cleaned the connector pads that connect the disk.
I also checked UVC view.
A 931.48GB uninitialized disk appears.
It seems that the USB is OK. (?)
I don't want to format the drive just to test it. Is there a tool that tries to read (rescue) from RAW disk?
edit: Winhex shows: Cannot read from Sector 0...1 of WD My Passport 0730. drive is write protected.
July 10th, 2012, 14:08
labtech wrote:Did the drive have a password configured?
No password was set. Not even sure where to do it.
July 23rd, 2012, 6:28
Hello everyone,
I am having the same problem.... hdd is recognized but with 0 bytes

(( I saw pinouts for SATA but my PCB is slightly different. Does anyone have pinouts for this one?
July 23rd, 2012, 6:28
Hello everyone,
I am having the same problem.... hdd is recognized but with 0 bytes

(( I saw pinouts for SATA but my PCB is slightly different. Does anyone have pinouts for this one?
- Attachments
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- hdd.jpg (65.96 KiB) Viewed 16436 times
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- hdd2.jpg (66.48 KiB) Viewed 16436 times
August 10th, 2012, 2:29
Hi mudassir345, I've got the same pcbon my hdd. My drive spines but is not recognised.
Did you have any luck identifying the pinouts for SATA ?
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