Quote Needed for Repair and/or Recovery

[mr812]

All I have a WD My Passport Essential SE 750 GB External Hard Drive. It has stopped being detected on my Windows Vista computer but can be accessed on my Windows 7 laptop. It soon after disconnects drive from computer.

I have 700GB of Data on it currently and want to try and get it fixed.

I am assuming it would be similar to what fzabkar has posted about here:
viewtopic.php?t=17727&start=

256-Bit Based Hardware Encryption on WD MyBook Essential:
http://computersciencelabs.blogspot.com ... on-wd.html

BTW, the encryption algorithm appears to handle data as groups of 16 bytes. AFAICS, this would make it 128-bit based hardware encryption, not 256-bit.

AFAICT, the HD PCB has two EEPROMs -- one for the HD, and a second for the Initio bridge chip. If the encryption key is stored in the EEPROM, then you should be able to move both chips to a donor board. Otherwise, if the key is uniquely flashed or OTPROM-ed into the bridge, then that will be a serious obstacle, especially if the bridge is dead.

The first thing I would do is to verify that there is continuity at all four pins of the mini-USB connector, particularly Data+ and Data-. To this end I would attach a USB cable and perform a continuity test for each pin from the host end to the PCB end.

Here are the USB pinouts:
http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml

I would then disconnect either the clock or data pin from the serial EEPROM attached to the Initio bridge. The bridge, if it has sanity, should then identify itself with the Product ID and Vendor ID of its manufacturer, Initio Corp, rather than the IDs of the device manufacturer, WDC.

Looking for any and all help to help me get my music/movies back.

Many thanks!

[lcoughey]

Contact Jon at Data Savers.