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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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WD Encryption - Forgot Password

June 30th, 2022, 19:22

Hi,

I'm trying to recover data from a client's 2TB Western Digital Passport (MDL: WD20NPVT-00Z2TT0). The drive is in perfect condition physically, and I'm able to image it completely with PC-3000 software. But the data is encrypted, beyond just native WD encryption, which PC-3000 can decrypt automatically. WD Marvell utility detects a decryption key, but when I select the key it asks me for a password.

They always kept their drive plugged into their iMac so they don't remember what password they chose when setting up/encrypting the drive (I'm assuming they used WD SmartWare). It seems like their password would be stored somewhere on their computer, but I'm not sure where that would be (I'm gonna have them check in Keychain). Any advice? Thank you!

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 1st, 2022, 2:28

If the drive is physically fine why not just plug it back into the mac and copy the data?

Have you checked the image with something like r-studio or ufs-explorer they seem to have a better understanding of container based encryption that DE.

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 1st, 2022, 11:31

I can probably bypass the password if you want to outsource it.

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 2nd, 2022, 3:10

We too able too to bypass it...

along with Doomer :wink:

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 2nd, 2022, 15:59

Unfortunately the customer mailed their drive so I wouldn't have access to their computer unless they mailed it, which is not something I wanna deal with. They've also told me they're uncomfortable with me logging into their computer remotely, so that eliminates any potential solutions that would require their computer.

I imaged it in R-STUDIO/UFS as well, but I didn't get anything. I'm not interested in outsourcing, but thank you all for the offers & suggestions.

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 2nd, 2022, 21:37

When you figure it out, I'd be happy if you'd share the solution with me.

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 5th, 2022, 4:10

you can clone it with SED off to a similar drive which you turn SED off as well, then copy 02 and SED related modules to the target and turn SED back on and mail them the drive and hope you did everything right :)
a bit freaky ...

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 5th, 2022, 10:32

pepe wrote:you can clone it with SED off to a similar drive which you turn SED off as well, then copy 02 and SED related modules to the target and turn SED back on and mail them the drive and hope you did everything right :)
a bit freaky ...

This is likely a JMicron JMS538S based drive

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 5th, 2022, 14:20

http://www.hddoracle.com/download/file.php?id=2298

Re: WD Encryption - Forgot Password

July 5th, 2022, 16:00

fzabkar wrote:http://www.hddoracle.com/download/file.php?id=2298

thanks !
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