WD Charger with SA damage.

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Fraser Corrance

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Apr 9, 2021, 3:43:28 PM4/9/21
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Hello folks!

I have here a WD Charger with damaged modules in the SA.

0002, 0021, 0038, 006F, 012E, 0147, 0190, and 0360 are not readable from either copy 0 or copy 1. The two modules that I am worried about though are 0038 (Encryption key) and 0190 (Second Level Translator) because they are unique to the drive. 

Any ideas about how to fix these modules or is this a lost cause?

Fraser



t...@desertdatarecovery.com

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Apr 9, 2021, 3:53:32 PM4/9/21
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A head swap might help?

Also Digilab can work with corrupt 190.

https://thedigilab.com/index.html

 

Tim Homer - Lead Engineer

Desert Data Recovery

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www.desertdatarecovery.com

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Fraser Corrance

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Apr 9, 2021, 4:07:52 PM4/9/21
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I had that same thought but,....

Heads test
Cylinder to test........................ : -10
Heads to test........................... : 0,1,2,3
Test every head......................... : no more then 1 min.
Head 0.................................. : Ok
Head 1.................................. : Ok
Head 2.................................. : Ok
Head 3.................................. : Ok

The heads appear to be OK.

pbzcbf...@gmail.com

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Apr 9, 2021, 4:09:58 PM4/9/21
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Modules 0x190 and 0x38 are mostly zero filled, at least in the examples that I have examined. Perhaps you can find an unused area of the SA and transfer your repaired modules?

Are you able to upload partial dumps of these two modules from each copy in the SA?

t...@desertdatarecovery.com

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Apr 9, 2021, 4:45:49 PM4/9/21
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Personally I would not recommend working on the SA (resizing/moving mods etc) of an unstable SMR drive without at least swapping heads first. With so may damaged mods you have bad heads and/or media damage.

 

Tim Homer - Lead Engineer

Desert Data Recovery

t...@desertdatarecovery.com

www.desertdatarecovery.com

 

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Fraser Corrance

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Apr 9, 2021, 5:15:51 PM4/9/21
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Every time I attempt to read either 38 or 190 I get an error saying: device error detected "DISK ECU UNSAFE ERROR". I figured that I could probably piece together one whole module if I could get 2 partials that were fairly complete. 

Tim, I think you are probably correct on this one. I am going to see if the client would like to take the plunge and get the head stack replaced. 

Fraser







pbzcbf...@gmail.com

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Apr 9, 2021, 6:14:09 PM4/9/21
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Just a general question ...

Is the SA recorded in CMR mode or SMR mode? I would think CMR would make more sense.

pbzcbf...@gmail.com

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Apr 9, 2021, 6:20:02 PM4/9/21
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Is matching the adaptives more critical on SMR drives? 

t...@desertdatarecovery.com

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Apr 9, 2021, 6:57:21 PM4/9/21
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On SMR drives I am not sure whether that has been published, but would make sense.

I am sure Artem would know in a heartbeat.

 

Tim Homer - Lead Engineer

Desert Data Recovery

t...@desertdatarecovery.com

www.desertdatarecovery.com

 

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t...@desertdatarecovery.com

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Apr 10, 2021, 1:11:56 PM4/10/21
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Depends on the manufacturer and even drives families.

Preamp is very important as we know.

But on some WD SMR drives you can even use donor ROM and loaders.

 

Tim Homer - Lead Engineer

Desert Data Recovery

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Fraser Corrance

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Apr 10, 2021, 3:38:30 PM4/10/21
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I am not totally sure about adaptives on Seagate SMR drives but some of the newer WD drives no longer use microjogs because they have piezoelectric micro-actuators to make finer adjusts to the position of the read/write head. If you look up the microjogs using the PC3K and you see nothing but 0's, the drive is using piezoelectric micro-actuators to adjust the heads. 

The patents can give much better technical details that I am able to:
I have been trying to go through some of the patents to try and get a better understanding of what is going on under the hood. The patents are not an easy read but they are rather fascinating all the same. 

Fraser

pbzcbf...@gmail.com

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Apr 10, 2021, 4:20:39 PM4/10/21
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As I understand it, microjogs relate to the displacement of the read element with respect to the write element. I can't see how that has anything to do with the microactuator. In fact I can't see the need to store the microjogs in ROM at all, since the drive can read them from the SA before it needs to write anything.

pbzcbf...@gmail.com

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Apr 10, 2021, 4:35:42 PM4/10/21
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That patent does not seem to correspond with the actual tech used in WD/HGST drives. IIUC, the piezo actuator in that patent is bonded to the slider. However, here is an actual implementation in a WD40NMZW:

Fraser Corrance

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Apr 10, 2021, 6:09:29 PM4/10/21
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Hi Franc, 

Looks like I sent you the wrong patent....there are A LOT of them. Anyways, thanks for the links. I always enjoy reading your posts because you are a wealth of information. I am quite not sure how you find the time to make all the posts that you make.

Fraser

pbzcbf...@gmail.com

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Apr 10, 2021, 8:55:16 PM4/10/21
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Just a little bit of trivia in case you hadn't noticed ...

The most recent patent on the labels of WD's drives is dated Sept 11, 2001. It appears that WD stopped adding newer patents to their labels after this black day in history.


Amarbir[CDR-Labs]

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Apr 11, 2021, 12:04:55 PM4/11/21
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Hello,
      I was working on a Charger just 2 to 3 days back .Mod 0038 and 0025 Encryption keys was not ok ,When i asked Tech Support From
acelab flipp told me this is V2 encryption and keys are inside MCU makes perfect sense that encryption keys are not in SA ,Has anyone here noted this  ?

Desert Data Recovery

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Apr 11, 2021, 3:05:25 PM4/11/21
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Are you sure it was a Charger and not Spyglass2?

Spyglass2 has encryption in the USB PCS MCU which is why you have to recover them with the original USB PCB or convert to SATA.

As you can swap the USB PCB on a Charger for am unlocked SATA board, the Charger can't have encryption in the MCU can it??

Tim

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Amarbir Dhillon

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Apr 12, 2021, 12:16:45 AM4/12/21
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Hello,
        This ticket was taken by filipp and i do not like this tech support engineer personally ,Anyho this is what he tells me even for  charger ,I will restart that ticket again and ask him this question

Regards

Amarbir Singh Dhillon
CEO - Chandigarh Datarecovery Labs " @ CDRLabs  , India


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