Old drive with new PCB and old ROM wasn't able to connect via WDR when PCB was connected to old drive making contact with head stack, right ? And drive wasn't spinning, right ?

When you have to re-flash the ROM from New drive back again to New PCB did you test to insulate HSA contacts to use WDR on it ?

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Old drive with new PCB and old ROM wasn't able to connect to WDR and doesn't either spin up. With insulated HSA it spins up but stops shortly after that and WDR wasn't able to connect.
I think it was a kind of luck, WDR was able to read ROM from old drive with old PCB.
Is WDR able to connect to HDD instead PC-BIOS isn't able to recognize HDD? My PC wasn't able to boot with connected HDD, so I connected it during running Windows.
I tried any possible combination of drive and PCB, with and without insulated HSA. But WDR couldn't connect to PCB.
Should WDR be able to connect to PCB without any drive? In my case, it wasn't. Either with old PCB and old ROM or new PCB with its own ROM or new PCB and old ROM.
As I understand, MCU loads firmware and adaptive information from ROM? So MCU loads firmware through a bootloader via SPI from ROM?
If it works that way, I don't understand why drive won't spin up with connected heads. Maybe because of different assembly and therefore different voltage etc. for HSA (already mentioned by Nebojsa_28) or damaged driver in HSA (mentioned by Spildit). But nevertheless, old drive spins up and does some clicking with old PCB and old ROM.
Should I try another PC with WDR to connect to HDD (as I mentioned, I've got an old Dell Pentium4 with installed Windows and SATA)?

Nice to have you back

Well, i'm confused with all of this. And honestly i don't think we will be able to fix the issue with the drive .... I'm starting to be out of ideas on this one, don't understand why you coludn't write ROM back with WDR and don't understand either why you can read rom from old pcb when connected with insulated contacts but you can't with pcb out of hard drive.
If the dump of the external programmer is the same as the one you flashed with WDR .... well, don't understand. Maybe someone with more experience can help ?

What do you think that its a reasonable "next step" ?

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I wasn't able to read out ROM on first time. I tried several times and suddenly I got it. But I don't know what step I did before (maybe new reboot of PC with insulated HSA and deactivated HDD in BIOS). But I tried all possibilities (reboot PC many times with old and new PCB, with and without insulated HSA, with old and new drive connected to old and new PCB, only PCB without drive etc.)
Next step, i would have changed different assembly. Maybe PCB has got different component values, too. I can't verify them because of little package and no label.
Schematics would be fine.

Maybe PCBs are not compatible ? They should be because of PCB revision, even if they use diferent components .... but at this stage i don't know.

What are you planning to do regarding this drive/case ? Drop it, send it to a Data Recovery lab or wait until we get more knowledge ?

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I still think that the code to read/write ROM is on ROM itself, so i think it should be possible to read the code from the pcb using just the pcb ... do you still have the old pcb with you ?

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I gave it back to my brother, but I could get it back tomorrow.
Data recovery is much too expensive. He told some laboratories and they said something about 900 €.
It's still in warranty. Maybe WD would change the drive and data will be lost. I have to talk to my brother about that situation.
My problem is time. I have to prepare for some important exams.
I will read that article, talk to my brother and answer tomorrow about next steps.
I appreciate your help.

Ok ! If data is not that important and can be replaced, the best thing is indeed to get the a new drive (still under warranty). Because if we move on doing stuff to it, we will end up without data and without drive. At least you can have another drive to replace the damaged one

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@Louis, thanks for the article.

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That's I'm thinking of
Nevertheless, he's sad about data from last 3 years. He did a backup on exernal HDD, but deleted it for a huge project for which he needed much disk space.
This mishap happend few hours before next backup
I learned a lot how HDD is working.

@Spildit:
Are you able to read out ROM soldered on PCB with SOIC8-Clip? I'm thinking of power-supply for circuit. Does MCU work during connection through external programmer?

Yes, on drives i'm able to do that, with the ROM chips. PCB have of course to be without power conneceted to it. Only power supply are the one from the programmer.

I don't know if MCU word during connection because i've never power-on the pcb while reading/writing ROM to it.

I use this to program SOIC 8 BIOS chips on laptops also without any problem. Of course, with the board powerd off.

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No. You should go to wingoz device manager..and look for the HDD. Doesn't matter when you plug it in (I plug it in after windows start because else it will remain stucked at BIOS checks. More, I plug the SATA in it after it finishes those clicks in which is not ready and f.u windows). Also it is recommended to disable the device in dev manager to stop windows accessing it. If the windows can't see at least the ROM version...WDR won't see nothing. I'm talking from experience. I was doing some coding on the principle that WDR works. ATA commands directly to the MOBO's ide controller. But if the PCB firmware (intern or external U12) is f. up..MCU can't handle any ATA command or Vendor Specific Commands. So if the hdd can't even reply to ATA IDent command...even with the ROM name..it means that the rom it's invalid...bad..not supported by the MCU in other words..the MCU is stacked with some errors at some flash execution point.



Adaptives could be or not inside ROM firmware. MCU loads the firmware via a bootstrap...a code which can be dumped from within MCU with a JTAG device.


In the PC's bios..the sata controller must be set as ide for the ports where you connect the hdd. ATA commands work with the controller set to IDE. But if you already dumped the frmw ..the MOBO's bios is correct.

Now I plan to write a function which checks the ROM.bin...but since te PCB identifies as WDC ROM..I assume that the file it's checked (by the kernel loader- the first code pointed by the first 32 bytes header in rom.bin file) for that stupid additive CRC

@Louis can you test a thing, if you plug the PCB to the motherboard without the hard drive (connect just the pcb) are you able to Read ROM from it ?

And also, do you have a clue about how tu unpack the ROM ?

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I'm to lazy at this hour to get the screw and unmount the pcb which by the way..lies on the floor with the cables hanging over the PC's opened case.

Tried a little time ago the ida on a random ROM..."kernel loader". the one about _dex_ states that it unpacks the other module. I'm a little overrun by the image I saw It requires deep knowledge of micro-controllers architecture and low level arm understanding. What ar I/O, IRQ etc, and how it looks the arm code when working with those entities. I'm just staring like a cow at it. Although the code is really small, couldn't find any unpacking routine ore where the code checks for the other code segments in the header.

Ok, thanks, at least i think we are making progress.

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Of course, power doesn't have to be connected to pcb. But ROM needs VCC to run. If MCU needs same voltage, let's say 3,3V, it would probably on the same power path and run, too. So it would interrupt communication between external programmer and ROM.

@louis:
Maybe WDR works with old PCB because I connected SATA to PCB after it ended up clicking. I will try again.

On my tests i was able to read ROM with that SOIC 8 clip without problem, for other WD drives (not the one you have).

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