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
Post a reply

WD20SDRW-11VUUS0 detected only in USB 2.0 and slow cloning

August 9th, 2023, 11:37

Hello everyone,

I received a 2TB WD MyPassport 2.0 P/N WDB2AD00BBL-0B.
The inner HDD is a WD20SDRW-11VUUS0 (2.5'' 7mm).

The hard drive is quickly detected in USB 2.0, but is not detected on USB 3.0 ports.
(Other hard drives are detected on same ports.)

In USB 3.0 the disk diode is on, but doesn't blink, like if there was no data transfer.
I tried on several computers (Windows and Linux), and with different cables.

The HDD has a GPT partitioning scheme and the 200MB EFI partition is corrupt.

On Mac, the disk is very long to initialize (~1 minute) and the files are not listed.

On Windows, UFS Explorer easily detects the file structure and files on the HFS+ data partition.
As the disk appears unreliable on Windows (as it tends to disconnect), I decided to clone it first.

In USB 2.0, the cloning speed is very slow for this drive, around 1MB/s, whilst I would have expected it around 30 to 35 MB/s.

The S.M.A.R.T. values are 100% OK.
Furthermore, there are no read errors when cloning.

I suspect either:
  • a weak USB 3.0 connector
  • a problem with the circuit board
  • a firmware problem
  • a weak head (although we would likely have S.M.A.R.T. errors in this case)

Can someone tell if there are known problems for this model, like firmware ones?

I think I should replace the USB 3.0 connector as there might be a bad contact in it.

The ROM & SA modules cannot be dumped through USB 3.0.
I have the compatible SATA board in my warehouse, but because of the encryption an adapter would likely be required.

Re: WD20SDRW-11VUUS0 detected only in USB 2.0 and slow cloni

August 9th, 2023, 12:34

After a slow initial cloning speed around 1MB/s during around 30 minutes, the speed is not a good one, around 32 MB/s.

Re: WD20SDRW-11VUUS0 detected only in USB 2.0 and slow cloni

August 9th, 2023, 13:41

A WD20SDRW-11VUUS0 is a Charger SMR drive. Without preparation of the drive, imaging or data access might destroy the data.
Drive should be converted to SATA, write blocked, fw backup and stabilized before any reading.
Post a reply