Thanks, Spildit -- good advice. My current (very old/ancient!) EEPROM programmer doesn't fit SOIC chips, so I'll have to look into replacing it or getting a SOIC adapter board or just get a new programmer.

Like watching a bad movie with an ending you can predict.

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This can be expensive but your best chance now is to get a SATA 771823 board, replace it and check if you can clone the drive with the SATA board. You will have to move the ROM chip content.
Now if you have access to the drive and you can clone it you will end up with encrypted data on the clone. Lacking better tools you will need a drive that is exactly from the same model of your initial one and you will have to convert it to sata as well, copy the cloned data to it, return to USB and use it to decrypt the data.

If you have tools like MRT Pro or PC-3000 with DE you can decrypt on the fly.

If you have bad heads then it's game over.

If the problem is firmware related you will have to get something like WDMarvell to work with the drive firmware.

In any case if you are lucky and if you can clone/scan the drive just with the SATA pcb then you might think about what to do next.

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Unless you plan on actually offering data recovery services for the price range I listed, or offering actual technical advice (you do not know my background -- go ahead and Google me, I write software for hardware monitoring I/Cs), I'd politely like to ask you to stop with this drivel. It's not productive and has already made me consider not posting any more responses. Respectfully, thank you.

Ah, thank you, I found my mistake in my SATA donor board replacement purchase -- some confusion here because I actually have two of these WD USB drives (different models, hence different PCBs). The 771960 is for the other drive (not being discussed here).

TL;DR -- Yes, I need to pick up a 771823. Sorry for the confusion mentioning the 771960.

As for decryption: no, I don't have MRT Pro or PC-3000, no do I know anyone locally with these products. That's why I was trying to track down a compatible MyBook product (the devices that contain a SATA<->USB adapter board w/ a JMS538S so the decryption can be done). I'll worry about that step if/when I get there.

A forum user who does professional data recovery has offered to do some verification of head problems / ruling out physical damage (without changing anything on the drive, i.e. pure USB-based), and I plan on taking him up on that offer before doing any more tinkering.

Ok ! But be aware that if the drive have some sort of firmware problem like the slow issue a verification by USB is likely to fail and it will be impossible to know the cause. The same if there are some sort of PCB damage.

To be sure you might have to get the compatible SATA PCB first so that you can gain firmware access with something like the free SeDiv or WDMarvell demo. also only then you can test a mhdd or victoria scan on the first 1%, middle and last 99% of the LBA space to check access speed. If the drive is suffering from the slow issue there is still hope. If the drive shows patches of data that can be read followed by patched of data that can't be read then one head is gone.

This if you can scan the drive at all. If not either you have further firmware complications of the heads are preventing the translator from loading.

In any case it will be nice to know the result of the "verification" that you mentioned.

Please keep us informed.

Regards and have a nice weekend.

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HDDSuperTool can access the drive's firmware modules via USB. You can also apply the "slow fix" via USB with this tool:

http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsupertool

First try reading modules 02 and 32. If you can do that, then I could help you with reading the others.

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This was extremely painful to do, given that 1) the drive has a very limited amount of time before I/O stops working, and 2) hddsupertool has some badly-designed path parsing issues (I can discuss those with the author), but I was successful. This was done via the USB interface as well.

I also saw output on the screen (didn't save it) for both modules stating the checksums were good.

Do you want the files attached here or hexdumps of them or what?

I don't like the fact that you have very limited time because I/O stops working.
At this point i don't know if attempting a Slow Fix is a good idea without trying a SATA pcb first to rule out PCB issues...

But let's wait for @fzabkar advice.

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I am currently communicating with the author of HDDSuperTool. He has managed to retrieve module 01 which I have now parsed for him. I have also presented him with a possible script for retrieving the ROM contents. Hopefully he can now retrieve a complete set of resources.

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Cool !
Did you attempt a slow fix as well ?

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Module 32 is clear. I believe the OP was going to try the mod02 patch.

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Please keep us informed

If module 32 is clear then most likely the problem will NOT BE slow issue related ...

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I haven't tried the mod02/mod32 "slow fix" patches (per hddsupertool) yet. I need to review the hddsupertool scripts to see what they do, and may have to modify them for the drive/situation. I'll explain what I mean:

Due to how the Linux framebuffer (console) behaves on my test box -- more specifically, output is very slow -- use of printbuffer or printscratchpad or lots of echo statements end up causing the program to take too long, by which time the drive has gone catatonic. I solved this in my own scripts by avoiding printbuffer/printscratchpad. (I could also try switching to a classic 80x25 text console, which would probably work fine).

A quick review of those patch scripts does show they use printscratchpad on a large buffer, particularly the mod02 patch script. I'd need to comment out those lines. But I also need to review the scripts to see what exactly they're doing ATA CDB-wise.

Current status update -- fzabkar and I have been conferring a lot privately, so the following has been done successfully via USB:

* Dumped modules 02 and 32 using hddsupertool scripts
* Dumped module 01 using a modified version of the module 02 script (very easy)
* Dumped the 256KB Marvell ROM (U12) using a hddsupertool script I wrote (fzabkar is going to see about giving that to the hddsupertool author and incorporating it into hddsupertool). The ROM was verified by fzabkar as 100% OK
* Made a short MP4 video showing how I'm able to dump about 350-400MBytes of data from the drive (using dd) during that very small window before it goes catatonic. The data obtained looks correct (MBR/PMBR/GPT, NTFS bootloader and MFT, and some real-world user data), but it's not enough. There's apparently a good amount of data on this drive (much more than 350-400MB) which my colleague needs

The ROM dump script I wrote saves me having to deal with desoldering/soldering U12 on, say, a SATA donor board -- instead I can just give the ROM file to a PCB vendor who can flash it and then ship me the board.

If I get a SATA PCB and it works, I still don't know what I'm going to do about decrypting the JMS538S data. I know no one with MRT Pro or PC-3000. And the MyBook bridge board solution is not very well documented (there are many board types all using JMS538S, with many different firmware versions). I can't move U14 for the same reason I can't move U12 (SMD/SMT desoldering is very difficult/dangerous for me).

There is a strong possibility that a bad/faulty head is what's causing this problem. The WD20NMVW-11W68S0 uses 4 platters, and fzabkar confirmed through review of module 0A that the drive does have 8 heads (logical/physical). If a faulty head turns out to be true, I obviously can't fix it and will send the drive back to my colleague + refer him to a data recovery company + call it quits.

ddrescue still isn't an option because I'd have to power-cycle the drive nearly 5700 times to get data in chunks of 350-400MB. It just isn't feasible right now given the circumstance.

Question about SATA PCB replacements --

The original USB PCB is a 2060-771801-002 REV A.

The compatible SATA PCB, per this guide, is labelled "771823" and nothing more.

There are sites that do BIOS flashing/swaps that sell several revisions/versions of 2060-771823-000:

* http://www.hdd-parts.com/wd-caviar-se.html -- search this page for 2060-771823 and you'll get 18 results that vary widely

* http://www.onepcbsolution.com/western-d ... -blue.html -- search this page for 2060-771823 and you'll get 10 results (some are REV A, others are REV P1)

How truly different are these when it comes to using one as a SATA donor PCB?

Ok here are some points that you can consider :



You don't even need that ! If you already have your ROM file you just need to get the SATA compatible PCB with any ROM on it and as long as it's working you just plug the drive directly to SATA and you use the FREE DEMO of WDR to WRITE the ROM file that you have on the SATA compatible PCB this way :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=1127

You will need a 32 BIT windows system if possible XP so that WDR will work on it (doesn't work on 64 bit windows). Also MAKE SURE that the SATA donor PCB will have the same ROM SIZE as you have on the original PCB.

Even if you mess this up and you end up bricking the donor SATA pcb it's still possible to fix it by connecting a TTL adaptor to the PCB and re-programming ROM this way - http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=217

- A tool like MRT Pro or PC-3000 with DE can clone the drive by making a HEAD MAP of it. With that in mind you can clone all the heads that are still working. If you have the luck to have the data you need stored on the platter with head that is working then you might be able to recover that data without swaping the head stack. Example on Hitachi - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31026

If all heads are ok you can buy an exact same drive as your USB one to do the decryption. You will have to pick the damaged drive and place SATA pcb, then you IMAGE the drive to another one. You pick the replacement donor drive, convert that one to SATA as well, now you restore the image from the initial problematic drive to the donor drive by SATA. Now you apply the USB only PCB on the donnor. If all is done correctly you should be able to decrypt it. Of course you might need to move the ROM of the decryption/usb bridge over anyway (U14) .... If you can't move U14 you will have to attempt to programm it using SOIC8 clip or send it to someone for a swap, but i think that if you manage to get a close drive to the problematic one there shouldn't be the need to swap chips as the donnor should decrypt your data. There might be some other complications like decryption key stored on SA but at this point it shoud be easy to use a script to write the necessary modules on SA for decryption from the patient to the donnor.

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There is a KIT for sale with 7 of those PCBs, That kit is sold to people on data recovery business so they will have compatibility on ALL USB to SATA adaptations.

With that in mind i'm almost positive that as long as you match the xxxx-771823-xxx you will be ok !

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Does the drive support error recovery control? This can be determined by the output of the identify device command. HDDSuperTool will list it as a value of 0 or 1. If it is supported then setting the error control read timer would be worth a try. If it is not supported then it is no help.

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Does mod02 have the value of 0x02 at offset 2? Mod 32 can be cleared but still have the slow issue until mod02 is patched, at least from the small test I was able to perform on a drive.

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The drive does not support SCT ERC. smartmontools' smartctl -x flag will show whether the drive has SCT ERC capability or not (it's near the bottom of the output). I've provided both -a and -x output in an attachment in my initial post.

I've attached a .zip that contains modules 01, 02, and 32 for review by others. If there's anything else you guys want to peek at module-wise, just give me a list and I can hack up some scripts to snag all the ones you'd find of interest.

I still have not tried the mod02 "slow fix" patch yet. I need to read the script to see exactly what it does + comment out the printbuffer/printscratchpad lines (see earlier post of mine for why -- it's a situation specific to my setup/this drive).

And most importantly of all: again, everyone, thank you SO MUCH for helping. I love the fact that as a group we're all working towards narrowing down what the issue is, simply to try and determine if it truly is a head/mechanical problem or not. Honestly if you all had PayPal addresses I'd be donating money to each and every one of you. This is a perfect example of how more than one set of skilled brains when combined can do amazing things. Honestly I'm surprised nobody has considered hiring all of us to make some kind of data recovery company, haha. I hope I've "earned my wings" with the hddsupertool scripts I've written and all that. To the naysayers, let this be a lesson: never judge a book by its cover.