HDD GURU FORUMS

Dear colleagues-

I got a problem with W30NMRRW PebbleB drive, originally USB, PCB changed to a compatible SATA with ROM transfer. Looks like no problems with heads or platters, modules in SA can be read with no errors.

Still there's no access to user area - the drive is giving DRD, DWF, ERR and ABR for every sector in user zone.

The drive is SED locked, if I remove "SED Lock" checkmark under "Edit Drive's ID" - sectors in user area can be read, look encrypted, PC3000 is not able to find encryption key...

Any ideas?

Thanks for your help!

Does the drive give full ID or is in Kernel mode?

Regardless of whether it "looks like" there are issues with heads, I'd assume there might be. I'd start by editing headmap in RAM to disable all but head 0, then see if you can read sector 0. If you can, then you just have to systematically turn heads back on until you figure out which one(s) are causing the problem.

data-medics wrote:Does the drive give full ID or is in Kernel mode?

Regardless of whether it "looks like" there are issues with heads, I'd assume there might be. I'd start by editing headmap in RAM to disable all but head 0, then see if you can read sector 0. If you can, then you just have to systematically turn heads back on until you figure out which one(s) are causing the problem.

It gives full ID and I already mentioned that with SED lock removed I have full access to user area but data is encrypted with no key found - to my knowledge at this time PC3000 utility has no support for SED encryption

I guess I missed that part of your post.

Have you tried cloning to see if you get a lot of bad sectors? It may ultimately come down to having to buy another PebbleB drive, clone the encrypted data to the good one, then put the USB PCB back on it to decrypt the data. Had to do that a few times back before PC-3000 supported on the fly decryption.

data-medics wrote:I guess I missed that part of your post.

Have you tried cloning to see if you get a lot of bad sectors? It may ultimately come down to having to buy another PebbleB drive, clone the encrypted data to the good one, then put the USB PCB back on it to decrypt the data. Had to do that a few times back before PC-3000 supported on the fly decryption.

Yeah, I remember these times

data-medics wrote:Have you tried cloning to see if you get a lot of bad sectors? It may ultimately come down to having to buy another PebbleB drive, clone the encrypted data to the good one, then put the USB PCB back on it to decrypt the data. Had to do that a few times back before PC-3000 supported on the fly decryption.

I thought that SEDs were "self encrypting". That is, the key is stored on the drive itself, not in the bridge, or am I missing something?

fzabkar wrote:

data-medics wrote:Have you tried cloning to see if you get a lot of bad sectors? It may ultimately come down to having to buy another PebbleB drive, clone the encrypted data to the good one, then put the USB PCB back on it to decrypt the data. Had to do that a few times back before PC-3000 supported on the fly decryption.

I thought that SEDs were "self encrypting". That is, the key is stored on the drive itself, not in the bridge, or am I missing something?

You are right, I think in this particular case something went wrong with SED decryption mechanism and stored keys no longer work for any reason

HI,
try this from ACE,

Add from folder button can’t find the key, so you should try Add from file one, and manually select 38 module:

lifeguarddubai wrote:HI,
try this from ACE,

Add from folder button can’t find the key, so you should try Add from file one, and manually select 38 module:

No, it's not adding neither from 38-th nor from 25-th