Hi, guys. Recently my laptap hard drive WD1600BEVT-00A23T0 can't be detected by BIOS. In windows 7, the disk manager says it is uninitialized and recommends me to initialize it. But when i click to initialize it as MBR or GPT, it failed with the error message 'I/O Device error'. When i open it in the winhex, it says its size is only 0.5KB while in fact its size is 160GB. The winhex then shows a window to let me set the number of sectors, however this won't work either.

I tried to use the tool WDR-DEMO and the tool detect nothing info of this drive. The tool wdmarvel didn't work too.

Can anybody offer me some advice or give me some tips? Really appreciate your help and thanks!

it can be bad heads / FW problem or combination of both.
drive is clicking or any abnormal sound ?

search slow-fix on this forum, it might be of some help.

BUT, DIY has its pros and cons, your data your choice.

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RAID/Server Recovery

thanks, chinopk. I don't get clicking or any abnormal sound. Here is the info of WDR. I guess it is FW problem. I will search slow-fix on this form and have a try.

Thanks, Spildit. I don't have important data in this drive. Now I can use WDR in windows PE to detect this bad drive. And here is the information WDR says. I have dumped the ROM and compared it to the one I dumped when it worked well. The two ROM's MD5 checksum is identical. So now i think the problem is Firmware. But I don't know what to do next. How do you think of this? Thanks for your advice and help.

Hi, Spildit.

When i go to modules operations, I can't read any modules from this bad drive. The window shows nothing. Then I load a loader file(module 11) (perm ovl) first, this time the module window is empty too. I write the module 01 first back and close the module window. Reset the hard drive, then open the module window and I can see the module list. I choose all modules and write all, but only module 01, 35,40,B5 can be written back successfully. Now the modules written back unsuccessfully on the module window displayed a red cross each while there is no other messages displayed in its parent window except messages indicating three other modulse can't be found. I backed up modules by using the tool wdmarvel. And here is the log info of wdr. Thx for your patience and invaluable guide.

Probably is already too late. Hopefully, it didn't successfully write any of the modules. Otherwise it'll just be another "mystery" FW corruption job that some lab will wast two weeks trying to figure out what happened and eventually give up.

I've got a few of those DIY ones here now. On one I can read every module, they all check out, heads have been replaced, PCB has been replaced. Original issue had just been stuck heads, but they had to go tinkering and really tweaked things up.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

The modules I wrote back are backups from the bad drive when it works well. I write DIR and gain the module list, but I can't read the modules listed in the module list.

The modules 01, 35,40, B5 can be written successfully while others failed. When I power on the hard drive, I can't see any modules at all again. I guess no modules has been written into the hard drive in fact. how do you think of it? Thanks

there are many reason for this problem, but in all cases
it's bettter if you read Tracks , then you split tracks to module
what is pcb number ? is it 1672 ?
HDD not click , so first step in repair is to try to read all tracks then split tracks to module
don't write another module's to HDD
or you will need days to repair
then try to test heads R & W in many zones
and this hdd is 1672 , did you load loader to work ?

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http://www.hpwlab.com

thanks, Spildit. I have given up the try by myself and send it to one data recovery expert. He may find out the reason and mend it.

BTW, you mean the head is gone.That is to say it is a physical problem, isn't it? Is head easy to be damaged?

In WDR, it seems that i have written the module 1 successfully into the hard drive but when i power off( not the soft reset ) and open again only to see nothing in the modules window. So something went wrong when the write operation of module 1 carried on. Just as you see it is a problem of bad head. but when i wrote other modules a red cross displayed before each module in the list. Why?

Till now I realize there is so much knowledge with mystery in the 2.5 inch box and i know nothing of it.

hi, hpw333, thanks for you advice. the pcbnumber is 2060-701499-000. I don't understand 'load loader to work'. what is a loader? is it a module? plz tell me more about it.thanks.

Thanks, Spildit. Then i know the loader is the module 11. I also tried to load module 11 to the ram before write the module 01. Then I identify this hard drive and find the hard info has changed.

WDC ROM MODEL-DENALI- FW:11.01A11 SN:WDC-ROM SN_ XYZ---- (ROYL selected) port 0xF0B0
Logical: Cyls 30481, Heads 16, Sectors 63, LBA 30723841, 15Gb
Controller Buffer Size: 8192Kb
Family: Denali (Royl)

But then i tried to write modules back and the result is the same. Only 01, 35,40, B5 can be written successfully(in fact not successfully into the hard drive).