Hi,

I'm new here and I don't know if this is the right place to ask. If not please move this post to the correct forum.

Anyway,
I had an "incident" with an external HD enclosure that encrypts the HDD.

I don't know what happened exactly but I have come to the conclusion that my only hope of ever seeing my 70GB of data again is to do some hardware hacking.

The enclosure has a pesky 8MHz PIC controller and at first I thought "that's impossible", an 8 MHz PIC can't possibly encrypt a 1.5 Gbit data stream in real-time.

Then I found that the USB/SATA controller INITIO INIC-1610EL supports AES encryption.

There is also a 1Mbit memory chip that seems to be connected to the USB/SATA controller instead of the PIC. My Guess is that something related to the encryption key is stored on that chip.

My first problem is that I can't find the Specs for this controller. The manufacturer's website says "contact us", and that goes to a dead link. Also, I'm not sure they'll give it to me if I tell them I want to use "untraditional" methods of getting to the data on the HDD.

Has anyone gotten a copy or know where I can get the specs for this chip INITIO INIC-1610EL ?

Thanks,

Does this thread relate to your device?

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27531

The PIC may be a keyboard decoder.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi Fzabkar,

yes, actually this thread you pointed out was the reason I created an account here. Reading the comments I figured out that people here might be of help.

What I have is the "Apricorn Aegis Padlock Pro" 500GB.
I think this is the oldest models of the Aegis Padlocks.

Apart for a chip that is marked "250 ADOG", There are only 3 chips on the board.

INITIO-INIC-1610EL - The USB/SATA controller
PIC16F883 - I/SS - Flash Based 8 bit cmos microcontroller
SST 25VF010A - 1 Mbit SPI Serial Flash

I already found the specs sheets for the memory and the PIC, I suspect the "250 ADOG" is not a logic circuit.

It appears to be a 25MHz crystal.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Could you elaborate? Does the HDD still spin up, both inside the enclosure and outside?

Have you measured the voltages on the filter capacitors near the Vcc pins of the PIC and SPI flash memory? There should also be a lower voltage supply rail in the vicinity of the Initio chip.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

"The Incident", i believe is a bug in either the PIC controller software or the INITIO (or both).

A few weeks ago, I had to quickly copy about 80 GB of data and I found the old Aegis Padlock Pro that I haven't used in years.

I googled the user manual, tried the "default admin password", it didn't work.
I then did a "full reset" of the Aegis Padlock and typed the default password ( 123456 ).
I saw the new drive appear in my OS (Linux).
I created a partition and formatted it (ext4 linux partition).
I then copied the 80 GB of data onto the Aegis Padlock.

About a week later I got another PC, connected the Aegid padlock and entered the "default password" 123456.
It didn't work.
The default password will take you into "admin mode" where you can change the admin password or create a user password.
So I changed the admin password and set up a user password, it still won't unlock the drive.

My problem is that although the Aegid Padlock recognizes the admin password to enter admin mode, it won't unlock the disk.
One thing I have noticed is that if I plug in the electric cable into the Aegis Padlock and quickly enter the user password, the led will turn green (accepting the password), but then immediately I get the 3 red blinks indicating a "failed password".

What I think is happening is that both the PIC and the INITIO chips are verifying the user passcode, first the PIC accepts it, and send it to the INITIO, who compares it to a saved and encrypted copy stored on the HDD, where it fails.

I suspect that the passcode stored on the HDD by the INITIO somehow was not updated correctly when I reset the Aegid Padlock.

The Aegis Padlock appears to work correctly, and so does the HDD. I have taken out the HDD, put it in another enclosure and done a full 'dd' copy of the entire 500GB without a error.

So I'm looking for the INIC-1610EL specifications so I can try to better understand what went wrong.