:Hi I am in Brisbane Australia. I purchased a PR2100 very cheaply on eBay. It was completely dead. It came without power supplies which I had to purchase from Amazon Australia.
I exhausted all options to get the thing going - reset - no life at all.
I dismantled it completely and located the bios chip. There was no obvious damage to the circuitry. It is a 8mb 1.8v chip. I had to read the chip details with the help of a magnifying glass. I had a small eprom programmer which I purchased from China for $25AU. I purchased it for a number of computer projects. I also have a couple of dead Dell laptop motherboards. The programmer was a CH341A Pro with the 1.8v adapter.
After some trial and error I got the programmer operating under Windows 10.
I made sure I removed the CR2032 battery from the PR2100 board. First of all I searched the WD support web site to see if there was a bios file which I could write back to the bios chip. I wasn’t able to identify any likely file (all the bin files were obviously too large). The first thing you should do prior to attempting to write to the bios eprom is to back up what is there already. I did this and read the file and saved it to my laptop.
As I am a subscriber to several forum web sites (I have found Bad Caps . Net Forum to be a very good one), it was my intention to post a message and see if anyone had the correct bin file. It was also my intention to approach WD to see if they would supply the file.
I decided to give the PR2100 one last try. I flashed the saved bios file back to the eprom and reassembled the PR2100. To my absolute joy the thing booted up and is now working perfectly.
I am posting this as it may be of some assistance to anyone who also has a completely dead PR2100. It may just be worth a try.
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I have a PR2100 that has the slow blue blinking light problem and never starts up. I left it running for several days to see if it would eventually recover, but no luck. I also tried the 4 second and 40 second reset to no end. I took the device apart, and there’s no visible damage to the circuitry. I also tested the power supply and it’s putting out a solid 12.45v.
At this point, my device is well out of warranty and the drives have been removed. So, there’s no worry that I’ll do more damage. I’d like to take a stab at repairing it before chucking it into the trash…if you don’t mind pointing me in the right direction?
Is this the correct tool to read/write the bios?
I’m sorry I haven’t read your post previously until today. As set out the recovery process I used in my post and i just consider myself damm lucky.
I already had at the time a eprom programmer which I use sometimes to repair bricked laptops. It’s a H341A and usually comes as a kit. I am i Australia and you can buy the kit on eBay for about $30AU. It should come with a couple of accessories which you will need. The H341A is a 2.5v programmer and to program the bios chip in the PR2100 and most if not all laptops you will need the 1.8v adapter. The other part you should receive in the kit is a tweezer type clamp which will fit over the pins of the eprom chip.
When ever attempting to re-program eproms it is always a very good idea to back up what is already there on the chip. That way if anything goes wrong in the programming process you can always recreate what was there in the first place.
i was lucky as all I did was to read the eprom chip, save the file to my laptop and then re-write the file back again. I didn’t want to leave the PR2100 in pieces so I re-assembled it and tested it and it worked fine. If it hadn’t I would have had to source the firmware from somewhere and then attempt to program it. Unfortunately the WD firmware update program suite is from memory about 120mb and I didn’t have the programming skill to extract the bin bios firmware.
You could attempt to do what I did you may be as lucky as I was. I am still using my PR2100 to this day and it works fine. I replaced the two power supplies with about a 5amp 12v single unit and a Y adapter with WD plugs. I also put a switch in line. I run two 6tb WD Red drives in it.
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I didn’t see the last part of your message. Yes that is the correct eprom programmer in your Amazon link. Just make sure you also get the 1.8v adapter. Pin 1 on the tweezer thing is the red line and pin 1 on the eprom chip had a dot indentation on the surface of the chip. There should be a number of places where you can download the eprom programming software, usually a link is provided where the programmer is sold. It is pretty basic software and runs on Win 10 OK. There will a list of chips which it can program. If yours is not one listed just choose one of the same manufacturer type which is close with similar parameters.
@desone01, when you had this issue with the PR2100, have you had anything on the UART of it? Or was it completely silent?
What BIOS chip is exactly in the PR2100, if you remember?
I am facing a bricked PR4100, and looking at options what to try. Unfortunately the issue might not be just the BIOS in my case, but rather the ARM chip which runs the UBoot.
When you wrote completely dead, what did you mean? Was it turning on at least when the power was plugged in?
Any advice would be helpful.
I purchased the PR2100 quite cheaply on eBay because someone had bricked it.
It came without power supplies so I had to source those on eBay. I ended up using about a 5amp 12v with a power splitter thereby requiring only one.
When I opened up the PR2100 and examined it for any damage I could see none.
I saw that the update program from WD was far larger then the eprom in the PR2100 and I didn’t have the knowledge or ability to extract the bin file from the WD update program.
It was my intention to put up a post on badcaps.net in order to obtain a copy of the bin file.
As it turned out I didn’t have to go down that path.
My PR2100 was completely dead with no life at all but there appeared to be no physical damage to the circuitry.
I already had a small eprom burner which I sourced from eBay. Its a CH341a and the required software for Windows can be readily downloaded free from a number of websites.
There are a couple of accessories which you also need for the CH341a. One is the 1.8v adapter which simply sits on top of the main CH341a programmer. The second one is a clamp connector which you can simply clamp on the eprom chip and connect the leads to the 1.8v adapter.
Prior to making any connections make sure you identify pin 1 first. Its the one with the small dot right beside the pin.
Before I did anything to the PR2100 circuit board I thought I would copy down the bin file already on the eprom chip so that if anything went wrong with my process then I could restore it to its original state, even though it was bricked.
I decided to reassemble the PR2100 but before doing so I decided to write the copied bin file back to the eprom. I did this and re-assembled the PR2100 and to my surprise the thing booted up and has worked well ever since.
I don’t know much about electronics but am willing to give anything a try and this time I was extremely lucky and managed to get hold of the PR2100 on eBay for $127AU (Australia) plus the cost of a power supply.
It would appear to me that whoever bricked the PR2100 did it at the update stage where it was completed but required the checksum.
I found a cheap USB microscope to be also very useful for this type of work, also sourced on eBay.
If your PR4100 is already bricked carrying out this process is not going to do any damage as it can be easily restored to its albeit broken state.
I have two 6tb WD Reds in my PR2100.
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As for the bios chip. I can’t recall what brand it was. It was a standard type as used in many laptops. That’s why I purchased the usb microscope, so I could read it. It’s pretty important that you use the correct voltage setting when reading and writing to the eprom. The standard CH341a does not do 1.8v eproms. That is why I purchased the 1.8v adapter at the same time I purchased the eprom programmer.
Thanks for the reply. I am trying to de-brick a PR4100.
I have a 1.8V adapter, and I managed to read the chip ID by AsProgrammer, but every time when I try to read the chip ID again, it gives something else. Then again the right chip ID. If I try to read the chip it gives just repeating data. So, if you remember, what program did you use?
And if you remember…
How was the PR2100 when it was bricked? Was it turning on and having flashing blue power LED, but not booting? Have you had UART access on it at that time?
And thanks again for the reply.
When my PR2100 arrived it was completely dead. No lights, no sign of life.
If you are getting different results each time you read the eprom chip, then it is highly likely that you have the incorrect settings in the eprom reader.
I assume that you do not have power connected to the PR4100 when attempting to read the eprom.
Another point you should consider is that if had recently applied power to the PR4100 is that the capacitors will probably retain some residual power. You should be able to clear this by switching the unit on with no power pack connected.
I would give badcaps.net a try and some helpful individual with a PR4100 may be able to read their unit and provide you with a bin file.
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Thanks! All sorted. The CH341A with 1.8V converter was unable to read the chip correctly, because it had some residues on the PCB and likely shorted (caused cross talk between) the lines, so it was reading repeatedly the same thing, which resembled the clock signal. After I cleaned it, it started to work. Managed to read the BIOS chip (a 25LQ64CSIG), and flashed it back, but did not help, the unit was still bricked (it had the signs of the flashing power LED, and the Welcome to WD My Cloud message on the screen, but nothing else, not even UART). I have sourced a BIOS (an updated one from another forum), and last resort, I flashed that. For my pleasure, when started with the newly flashed BIOS, the unit has started and booted up, UART is working again, back to business. The only issue now, it is on an ancient firmware (2.30.183, back from February, 2018), so need to somehow update it, but so far the update button was grayed out.
Thanks for all the help! Your comments were really helpful and useful. Unlike WD support, who just suggested to scrap the device. I don’t understand why they cannot provide some guidance to some advanced troubleshooting and binaries to re-flash the BIOS or re-flash the firmware. It is just a shame how they operate. The only advice I was given is to do a 60 seconds reset, then a link to the 40 seconds reset procedure. It is just a bloody joke, how useless they are. That job could be easily replaced by an AI.
I’m glad to see you got it up and running again albeit with an old bios.
I thought WD had an update program on their support website. From memory the suite of programs was about 120mb for the PR2100 at least.
I haven’t bothered updating mine for some time as most of the time it is off line and I only connect it when I wish to do backups. That way you don’t get hacked and it minimizes the chance of a virus or trojan.
The PR4100 is not a cheap piece of equipment and the answers provided by WD are just pathetic.
More recently I have been more concerned about big brother here in Australia.
Over the past 60 years I have stood on a few big toes belonging to some high profile “kiddiefuckers”. They are a worldwide problem.
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