Fried MyBook essential 1TB

sdaprile · February 25, 2011, 9:28pm

Hi,

it apperars that I’m not the only one who plugs the hard drive in the wrong power supply…

here is a picture of the board on the hard disk itself:

as you can see I took off the D4 diode, but the hard disk it’s still not working…

D4 measures 582 in one direction and 1 in the other;

D3 measures 469 in one direction and 1 in the other;

R64 and R67 measure 0 (so, I didn’t solder anything).

Any idea of what I can do?

Joe_S · February 25, 2011, 9:31pm

You’ll have to wait for fzabkar or PM him. He is the only one who has an understanding of these boards. Search out his posts you may find the answer in one.

Joe

sdaprile · February 25, 2011, 9:36pm

Thank you, Joe_S.

I already read all his posts. That’s why I decided to open the MyBook and try to fix it by myself.

I’ll wait.

Joe_S · February 25, 2011, 10:22pm

If he doesn’t get on this weekend just drop him a PM.

Joe

sdaprile · February 26, 2011, 2:00am

I tried to connect the hard disk as a secondary drive on a desktop and it shows up only in the disk management window, as unallocated space, asking me to initialize it!

what does it mean? If I let windows initialize it, will I lose everything inside the drive?

also, when I connect it, as usual, with its originary power/usb board (inside the MyBook), it doesn’t show up anywhere. I guess something else burned on this board, because of the wrong voltage I used (19V)…

Joe_S · February 26, 2011, 2:08am

I think you will loose the data if you iniatilize it. I don’t know much about the area you are in now with the board problems.

Joe

sdaprile · February 26, 2011, 7:54am

Just to update this thread…

I ran the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic on the desktop and the hard disk passed both the tests.

Mabkay · February 27, 2011, 6:13am

After initializing disk drive should start working but you’ll lose all your data. Try using repair options on Testdisk. This is a free utility and it might help you to restore your drive.

But there is a possibility that both of the above methods might not work if drive has a hardware fault.

sdaprile · February 27, 2011, 8:32am

I’m trying to avoid losing any data!

I already used Testdisk, but it said “no partition found or selected for recovery” (with the depper search too).

GetDataBack (for NTFS) says that it can’t find any NFTS partition.

Now, to be sure, I’m creating an image of the drive with R-Studio.

I plugged the hard disk into an eSata docking station and it still appears as unallocated space, as I espected. The weird thing is that a new MyBook (2 TB, I bought it yesterday) results as an allocated space too when I plug it through the docking station.

Do WD hard disks work only through their original usb/power board?!? I’m not talking about the board on the hard disk itself, but the other one inside the MyBook.

sdaprile · February 27, 2011, 9:43pm

ok… I guess that the problem is on the sata/usb board.

here is a picture of it:

Microsoft’s UVCView utility doesn’t show it when I plug it in the usb (no matter if there’s the hard disk plugged to it or not).

I didn’t set any encryption key with the SmartWare tool, but I guess it has a sort of encryption anyway, right?

So the pcb board on the hard disk can’t work without its original sata/usb board…

Did I burn something on this board too, plugging it into a 19v power supply?

Trying the hard disk with a sata/usb board from a different MyBook (2TB usb 3.0 as opposed to 1TB usb 2.0), I had no success.

If I buy a new MyBook (same version as the one I’m trying to recover the data from, ESSENTIAL 1TB usb 2.0) and I set no encryption key on this too, and use the new sata/usb board with the old hard disk, is there any possibility that I will be able to access to the data?

Mabkay · February 27, 2011, 9:58pm

"I didn’t set any encryption key with the SmartWare tool, but I guess it has a sort of encryption anyway, right?

So the pcb board on the hard disk can’t work without its original sata/usb board… "

> Spot on!

“Did I burn something on this board too, plugging it into a 19v power supply?”

There is very good possibility!

“Trying the hard disk with a sata/usb board from a different MyBook (2TB usb 3.0 as opposed to 1TB usb 2.0), I had no success.”

It should!

“If I buy a new MyBook (same version as the one I’m trying to recover the data from, ESSENTIAL 1TB usb 2.0) and I set no encryption key on this too, and use the new sata/usb board with the old hard disk, is there any possibility that I will be able to access to the data?”

Bad idea - Will not work - Initio Chip is your enemy.

IMO, I believe your drive electronics and interface card gone bad. If you really need your data recoverd, you need to contact WD approved Data Recovery agents from WD support site. This may cost you lot of money.

sdaprile · February 28, 2011, 12:25am

Mabikay, I don’ understand…

How can you say that the hard disk should work with a sata/usb board from a newer model and not with one from the same model?!

sdaprile · February 28, 2011, 3:45am

I want to give as much informations as I can to anyone who wants to try to help me with this mess…

and so… here you are a screenshot of what HxD found:

sector1 is full of beautiful zeros… It should mean that my data are not hardware-encrypted… right?

but the bridge board does have an Initio INIC-1607E chip… and I had not success with any data recovery software…

also… the zero-ohm resistor L6, near the DC power socket, still measures 0 ohm.

sdaprile · February 28, 2011, 4:34am

I used HxD with the new, healthy, WD hard disk (without any password) and sector 1 is filled with a repeating 16-byte pattern only as long as I read it through its original bridge board. When plugged into a eSata docking station, sector 1 is full of zeros…

so, the sick hard disk, showing only zeros inside sector 1 while plugged into the same docking station (obviously, because its bridge board is not working), does not mean anything…

Mabkay · February 28, 2011, 5:23am

“How can you say that the hard disk should work with a sata/usb board from a newer model and not with one from the same model?!”

I didn’t say like that… I said it is a bad idea. USB/SATA bridge board and hard disk drive is “Mated” together by means of encryption when leaving factory. The new disk drive and interface board inside enclosure have different signature compared to old one. As I understand you cannot cannibalize any part out of “Essentials” drives except for casing, power adaptor and cable.

Some people had some success by swapping initio and flash chip from donor to host when they had other issue like broken interface card. But your case is totally different. Due to application higher voltage, your drive electronics and interface card electronics may have been already damaged. I know this is bad news. But I like to be straight forward.

sdaprile · March 1, 2011, 2:50am

thank you Mabkay.

anyway… I want to believe that a way to fix the USB/SATA bridge board is possible…

no one of these pins measures 12v with the power on… it means that no power arrives to the hard disk.

If there is a way to fix this board, I will try!

…and if there is any possibility to have success by swapping something to a new, identical, board, I will try that too!

Joe_S · March 1, 2011, 2:55am

I already told you there is only one poster that has any real understanding of these boards fzabkar.

Joe

sdaprile · March 8, 2011, 12:13am

I recovered all my data!!!

I bought a new external drive, identical to the one I fried, except for the file system (sold for mac usage), and, as soon as I plugged its bridge board to my hard disk, it showed up inside explorer, as nothing happened!

Joe_S · March 8, 2011, 1:03am

You’re lucky most who tried that haven’t had any success.

Joe

fzabkar · March 17, 2011, 5:55am

I’ve been informed by a data recovery professional that you can simply swap the USB-SATA bridge PCB in WD’s 500GB My Book Essential,P/N WDBAAF5000EBK. Therefore, I expect that any external WD product where the bridge IC is on a separate board will be similarly recoverable.

The difficulty arises when the bridge IC is integrated onto the drive’s own PCB. In this case you will need to transfer the serial flash IC at location U12. This IC contains the drive’s unique “adaptive” data.

Interestingly, an owner of an HP SimpleDrive, model sd320a, has been able to flash its firmware so that it now identifies as a WD Passport:
http://forum.hddguru.com/disk-with-sata-usb-adapter-remove-virtual-rom-t18492.html

The firmware in the above case is written to the flash chip that is attached to the Initio bridge IC. The VCD and Smartware data are stored in a reserved section of the platters.

The OP in the abovementioned thread has done some excellent detective work that should illuminate the structure of these SmartWare drives. Furthermore, his results and methods suggest that anyone who has experienced the “Initio default controller” problem after a failed firmware update should be able to recover by simply reflashing the drive. In his case he actually lifted the clock pin on the flash chip. This made the Initio controller believe that no flash was present, causing it to power up as a “default Initio controller”. He then applied the update after reconnecting the clock pin.