The short answer is that I don’t think I can help you. Sorry.
Regarding the PCB, depending on which model you have, there could either be a separate USB-SATA bridge board, or the USB-SATA bridge IC could be incorporated on the drive itself. A further complication is that certain models (eg Essentials) are hardware encrypted, even if you have not set a password. If you are replacing the HDD PCB, then you will need to transfer the serial flash memory IC, or its contents, at location U12 from patient to donor. If U12 is vacant, then the unique, drive specific “adaptive” data will be internal to the Marvell MCU (the largest IC). If the drive is encrypted, then you may need to transfer a second 8-pin chip. This second IC contains the firmware for the bridge IC.
As for the “Initio Default Controller”, there are several possible reasons why the external mass storage device identifies itself in this way. On the bridge board there will be an Initio INIC-1607E or INIC-1607P bridge IC. Your PC (USB host) speaks USB while the drive (USB peripheral) talks SATA. The bridge IC is their interpreter. When it powers up, the bridge IC attempts to locate an external EEPROM. This EEPROM will contain WD’s OEM firmware. It also stores the identity of WD’s product, ie WD’s USB Vendor ID and Product ID, product name (“Passport”), serial number, power requirement in milliamps, etc. If the EEPROM is absent or corrupt (bad checksum), then the bridge IC will revert to identifying itself with Initio Corp’s Vendor ID (0x13FD) and Product ID (0x1617). This is what happens at manufacturing time when the EEPROM is blank. In this case the bridge IC prepares itself to receive a firmware download. In fact you may have seen cases where users have reported that their Passports or My Books have become “Initio Default Controllers” after a failed firmware update.
In Seagate’s case, users typically report that their drives identify as “Initio Default Controllers” if insufficient power is available from the USB port. The remedy in most cases is a USB Y-cable that picks up power from two USB ports. Obviously this is not the problem in your case.
Another reason that your Passport may identify as an Initio Default Controller is if the firmware is programmed to report Initio’s ID whenever WD’s HDD cannot be detected. Some bridge firmware will not enumerate itself at all if a drive doesn’t come ready, while other firmware may identify the bridge IC instead. In fact I have seen some reference designs for bridge circuits where a jumper can be used to define one or the other behaviour. Therefore it could be that your drive is spinning up but not coming ready. That would appear to explain the symptoms in Seagate’s case.
