[SOLVED] WD HDD hardware encryption question

[jfrisby6872]

Long story short, dead PCB on an old WD external. The board is model 4060-705059-001 rev A. The barcode sticker on the back of the board (which I assume is firmware version) reads 4061-705059-001 rev AC.

It's an old drive so I'm having trouble finding an exact board match in order to recover the date. I did find a used drive for sale with NEARLY the exact same configuration. Same board model (4060-705059-001 rev A), but the barcode sticker is slightly different: 4061-705059-001 rev AF. Common sense tells me that rev AF is just a newer version of rev AC. My question is this: Since it's the same board model, but newer firmware, will it still work to decrypt the files? I don't have the skill to switch the BIOS chips.

 

[hang-the-9]

If the drive was encrypted with the drive firmware, no new board will decrypt the files since the encryption hash would be on the original board. Board swaps don't often work even with the exact same board model.

 

[jfrisby6872]

Just in the interest of following up: I bought the old hard drive, pulled the same model but newer firmware board off it and attached it to the drive I'm recovering. Located the partitions with testdisk. Downloaded an HFS viewer because it came from a Mac, and now I'm recovering the files. Had to know the password in order to bypass the WD SmartWare, but it worked. I recovered every bit of the data.

 

[fzabkar]

The encryption key on WD's My Books and Passports is stored at the end of the user area on the platters. It is also stored in a hidden System Area on the platters. In fact there is a free tool that can decrypt the drive without the bridge board.

reallymine: WD MyBook/MyPassport decryption :
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1488