I'm struggling with the following and would really appreciate any advice regarding this. I've spoken to one or others in the UK DR about this, and they have yet to receive a WD Smartware HDD in with this fault (as described here: for-those-who-had-doubt-smartware-solution-t21584.html ) and have yet to come up with a solution.

WD 500GB Passport, May 2010
WD5000BMVV-11A1CS0, USB2 Initio

The VCD partition does not mount and is not accessible. WD Smartware has to be installed via download from the WD website. When it does the HDD appears as locked. No user password has been entered.

So far:
Firmware OK.
Full disk image of all LBA taken OK. VCD data starts at LBA 976,717,823, data looks relatively normal.
Tested a 3.5" HDD with same total LBA and attached via a My Book SATA to USB2 (Initio) controller - the result (as expected) was the same as above; locked HDD with no VCD partition.

What I am most curious about, is why the VCD won't mount at all. I would have presumed that despite the locked status this should still be available. That, or because the VCD partition is not mountable (and the relevant password is not available), the device is being shown as locked. Hopefully I should have a bit of free time this week to experiment with some other non-critical drives, but given the difficulties other people have obviously had I don't fancy my chances.

All the best,
J

Did customer set smartware password before? Can you check if key is intact at end of HDD? When you connect to Mybook enclosure you see error locked HDD, or write protected media error?

The customer says they did not set a password. They were using it normally one day, then the next it was not responsive.

When the imaged 3.5" is attached to a My Book Elite controller with Initio it still displaying the device as locked within the Smartware software installed to the computer from the WD website. For the password hint "No hint" is shown as per the original 2.5" passport HDD. When accessing the HDD(s) by WinHex the error "The media is write protected" is shown in the log.

There are a total of 55344 sectors for the VCD partition. As mentioned the front end of the VCD partition looks OK – sector 0 shows a partition map in WinHex and reference to a small HFS+ partition at offset 33148, size of 7992. The filesystem loads OK for this and I can see the software related for the Apple Mac Smartware (unlocker etc.)

The rear of the VCD area does not look so good - It is largely blank. At offset 51208 there is the following:

In the final 4135 sectors after this where I would expect to find data that refers to the actual HDD it is completely filled with “00”.

When I use a fully working WD Smartware HDD I get the following data, and then after this various data that refers to the HDD serial number etc.:


I’ve uploaded the VCD area to zip file should anyone wish to examine it?
Thanks,
J

What does the PDK sector look like? Can you upload it?

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Hmm.... this is part of MFT record

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