Hi,

I've got a 500 GB Western Digital WD5000BMVV-11GNWSO. That's one of those disks with only USB on the PCB.
After connecting it to the USB, the disk doesn't make any alarming sounds - it rotates the platters, blinks the LED. Unfortunately, it's not recognized by BIOS.
My drive is: WD5000BMVV-11GNWSO
My PCB is: 2061-701675-604 04P

I found a donor who might send me these:
drive 1: WD50000BMVV-11A1CSO
PCB 1: 2061-701675-002 04P

drive 2: WD5000BMVV-11GNWSO
PCB 2: 2061-701675-604 10P

My question is if I have any chances to use his PCB to rescue the data from my drive. If you think yes, what exactly would I need to do? I read that I surely would need to replace the 8-pin chip. Anything else?

My other question is about the method to solder some wires and removing 4 capacitors to get the access straight to SATA. Is it really doable? I read that I might get encrypted data out of that. Do you have any experience with that?

Best wishes,

Piotr

PS. I attach the photos of the disk in case it might be useful:

Over SATA Drive will be encrypted. Replacement of PCB with donor USB model may not work because drive already powers which is a good indication PCB is good.

Problem could be related to service area, damage to encryption key, bridge on PCB could be bad, there could be surface errors preventing read...

This device cannot easily be diagnosed over USB and needs converting to SATA but for recovery I highly recommend you consult a professional who has the experience to save your data safely.

Thanks for your reply.

The data on the disk is not essential for me so I'd rather not pay the professionals to retrieve it. If I manage to do this low-cost way then it's great, otherwise I think I can live without the data but with the money (what money?! ; ) in my pocket.

Is there any way to decode the encrypted data or is it totally useless?

What about the replacing the PCB to one of the above mentioned? I understand that the service area is on the drive, not on the PCB, so if it is broken, then replacing PCB will not help. Am I right?

I'm sure that there are no mechanical errors and that platters are OK. The professional told me that "the controller is damaged." But the cost of recovery is just too high : \

Almost certainly a firmware/media issue, nothing to do with PCB.

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What does it mean exactly for me? My PCB is fully functional and the problem is elsewhere?
Is there anything I can do with this myself?

@kelnerrr, these PCBs often have connection problems at the USB connector. Depending on your level of skill, there are DIY methods to narrow down the source of the problem.

I would remove the PCB and invalidate the bridge firmware to see whether the bridge IC identifies itself in Device Manager. This will at least confirm whether the bridge is working. Could you upload a detailed photo or scan of the component side?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you, fzakbar.

I'll upload the detailed photo as soon as I have received the screwdriver set I ordered yesterday. Unfortunately, at the moment I don't have access to even such a basic tool.

As of my level of skill, I'm a biomedical engineer and I rather develop/maintain scientific devices. I've rescued data from a few hard drives already but they were always at least recognized by BIOS. What I can do is everything that doesn't require specialist tools.

Dear all,

finally I got my screw set and was able to detach the PCB. Here comes the photo of the other side of it (dark side? ; )

Thank you for your ideas,

Piotr

Pin #7 of U14 (/Hold) appears to be hardwired to Vcc. This means we can't short it to ground as I would have liked to. Doing so would have invalidated the firmware, in which case the bridge IC would then have identified itself as an Initio Default Controller.

If you connect the PCB on its own to a USB port, does it appear in Device Manager?

Does UVCView detect it?

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB_ID ... ew.x86.exe

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you, fzabkar.

Unfortunately, nothing happens if I detach the PCB and connect it to the USB port. UVCView doesn't see it. What else could be done?
Pin #7 of U14 is definitely connected to VCC.

Do you need a better quality photo?

Below what UVCView shows if I connect disk as a whole:

---===>Device Information<===---

ConnectionStatus: FailedEnumeration
Current Config Value: 0x00 -> Device Bus Speed: Low
Device Address: 0x00
Open Pipes: 0
*!*ERROR: No open pipes!

===>Device Descriptor<===
*!*ERROR: bLength of 0 incorrect, should be 18
bLength: 0x00
bDescriptorType: 0x00
bcdUSB: 0x0000
bDeviceClass: 0x00
*!*ERROR: Device enumeration failure

Hi again, is there anything I can do to retrieve the data from this disk? I wouldn't like to spend a lot of money on professional data recovery. But it has already taken a lot of time and I wonder if there's any chance for me to avoid it. Thanks.

UVCView is indicating that something is present on the USB port but it cannot communicate with it. You could try shorting the data output pin of U14 to ground while powering up the PCB (Ace Lab uses this approach, but it makes me feel uncomfortable). If the bridge then identifies itself as an Initio Default Controller, my approach would be to convert the PCB to SATA mode and then try to retrieve the drive's firmware resources. The next step would depend on what we find.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

These drives are a pain even for pro's with professional equipment. DIY doesn't stand a chance of recovering the data. If it's not worth paying for, give up now. Trust me.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company