Got a WD10TMVV from a customer who had originally taken it to a computer repair shop. They diagnosed it as a bad PCB, ordered a new drive, and switched over U14 chip. Drive now behaves normally, but doesn't mount, computer management shows the device as WD Elements 1023 USB Device and WinHEX shows the following when you open the disk:

Cannot read from Sector 1 of WD Elements 1023. The media is write protected.

My question is whether the U12 chip needs to be transferred for a PCB swap solution to work. I have read every post on this drive series and know about the other issues with recovering the data. Before heading down that path I wanted to rule out the U12/U14 issue first.

Yes

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

U14 contains the firmware that is associated with the bridge IC.

U12 is WD's usual "adaptives" ROM. It is associated with the drive.

Just think of the drive as a standard 2.5" SATA model with a USB-SATA bridge tacked onto the front end.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.