"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet as true"

4 Start_Stop_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 91
9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 100 100 000 - 102
12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 65
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 52
193 Load_Cycle_Count -O--CK 200 200 000 - 54

4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 101
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 115
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 74
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 61
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 148

This means that now we can do the slow fix and read/write modules and ROM on WD drives that are USB only by HDDSuperTool bypassing the USB bridge chip.

Oh my... it's working after the mod02/mod32 patch! The drive didn't go into a catatonic state, and I/O appears stable so far:


/dev/sdb = origin drive (now patched)

/dev/sdc = destination drive (same capacity, slightly more LBAs, same sector size)

I'll let this run and see what the result is in the morning.

Well, I have a way to keep the drive "alive" for longer periods of time, but it does appear that reading certain LBA ranges cause the drive to go into a catatonic state. From my review of my data, I'm thinking these regions are calculable.

I believe this supports fzabkar's theory that there may be a specific head that's misbehaving or wonky. The drive has 4 platters with 8 logical/physical heads.

The bright side is that with my workaround, the successful I/O period is substantially longer, allowing me to try the mod02/mod32 patch without too much worry. I'll give that a shot. I'm hoping that might make the overall drive behaviour on failures/retries/etc. "better" for something like ddrescue.

Dear koitsu,,

I'v similar drive has the same problem, in your case you'r say " you have a way to keep the drive "alive" for longer periods of time,"
Can you tell me how you do that, to apply this in my case?

Most likely one of more of the heads are gone.

You will need proper tools to clone the drive with the good heads if that is the case and using USB interface doesn't help as well.

Did you try to do a reverse clone ?

On drives with the slow issue that i've clones (with hardware assisted cloning tool) ALL of them had patches of bad sectors on some point on the platter. Maybe you have hitted some bad sectors but maybe you can clone on reverse or skip the bad area.

If the problem is indeed with one or more heads either you live without the data on that platter or you have to send the drive in for data recovery to a proper data recovery firm (not a regular computer repair shop) with a proper aseptic hepa 100 room or laminar flow workbench.

If the problem is head(s), converting to SATA is not gonna help you
anyway, do not clone partial by USB and partial by SATA
regarding the encryption, upload a clear pic. of the PCB or write the chip marking

if you convert to SATA, then clone it to another WD
1) make sure they have the same LBA's
2) 4061-705094 uses the same chip and able to decrypt the data