Question WD My Passport HDD - ROM chip corrupt/not readable

[nmshah303]

Hello,

My Western Digital HDD stopped being recognized by any computer. The disks would spin, but no device would be recognized by multiple computers, both PC and Mac. I sent the device to two different hard drive recovery companies, and both said that the ROM chip data is not readable and thus the drive is unrecoverable. The second company I sent it to thought they would be able to recover it, as they stated they believe it was a mechanical failure of the read/write mechanism. They replaced those, but still could not recover so they deemed it ROM chip issue.

Wanted to see if anyone ever had this issue, and if so, is there really no way to recover? Thanks for the input!

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you sent it to two data recovery specialists and both of them told you it was unrecoverable, and has ROM chip problems, then yes, there is likely really no way to recover. In real life there is rarely much success in recovering data from failed drives which is why it is of the highest importance to ALWAYS have at least two locations where ALL important data is being stored at any given time. Three would be even better, preferably with one backup being offsite somehow whether on physical media at a different location (In case of a catastrophic even like fire, etc., that could possibly destroy all your copies if they are all at the same place at the same time) or via cloud storage or online backup of some kind.

If the data is that important that you are willing to pay to have a data recovery specialist try to recover it, which they generally charge for whether they are successful or not, and especially if you're willing to pay for two of them, it would have been A HELL OF A LOT CHEAPER to have simply purchased multiple storage devices and kept additional copies backed up so that this would not even be an issue for you right now. You would simply recover your data from your backup. It's a harsh lesson sometimes, but it's not rocket science. Drives fail. ALL of them. Sooner or later, and it's "sooner" a lot more than you might think. It's never a question of IF a drive will fail, it is ONLY EVER a question of WHEN.

I am not an electronics repair specialist who is highly knowledgeable in the area of repairing physical drives, but I AM fairly certain that if the two companies you sent the drive to are in ANY way reputable, then if there was a way to effectively replace or repair the ROM chip they would have either done it or suggested somebody who could do it. The fact that they didn't almost certainly means that without specialized equipment like the factory would use when manufacturing the drive, and a clean room, it's not possible.

 

[fzabkar]

Which data recovery companies looked at your drive, and in what order?

If the drive was spinning, as you say, then the ROM was OK. If the drive is now not spinning, or not making any attempt to spin, then one of these companies damaged the ROM, or did something else.

The latest Passports are MCU locked. That is, the controller on the PCB has a unique key which locks the firmware and prevents the older data recovery tools from reading the ROM and other firmware modules. In these cases the DR pros will transfer your ROM to an unlocked PCB, make edits to the firmware, and return the ROM to the original PCB. Alternatively, the newer tools can unlock the ROM by patching it.

I would ask the DR companies for a dump of your original ROM contents. I have written a tool to parse these ROMs and check them for consistency.

http://users.on.net/~fzabkar/FreeBasic_W32/WD/wdROMv17.bas
http://users.on.net/~fzabkar/FreeBasic_W32/WD/wdROMv17.exe

 

[nmshah303]

Which data recovery companies looked at your drive, and in what order?

If the drive was spinning, as you say, then the ROM was OK. If the drive is now not spinning, or not making any attempt to spin, then one of these companies damaged the ROM, or did something else.

The latest Passports are MCU locked. That is, the controller on the PCB has a unique key which locks the firmware and prevents the older data recovery tools from reading the ROM and other firmware modules. In these cases the DR pros will transfer your ROM to an unlocked PCB, make edits to the firmware, and return the ROM to the original PCB. Alternatively, the newer tools can unlock the ROM by patching it.

I would ask the DR companies for a dump of your original ROM contents. I have written a tool to parse these ROMs and check them for consistency.

http://users.on.net/~fzabkar/FreeBasic_W32/WD/wdROMv17.bas
http://users.on.net/~fzabkar/FreeBasic_W32/WD/wdROMv17.exe

I first used $300 Data Recovery, after that sent it to Salvage Data Recovery. I'll have to see if the disks are still spinning now once I receive my drive back from the company.

 

[fzabkar]

Salvage Data Recovery are not well regarded by their peers, at least not in the forums that I participate in. $300 Data Recovery has a good reputation in the data recovery forums, so I would be interested in seeing their report.

That said, your drive's original symptoms are consistent with a head/media fault or damaged firmware modules in the system area on the platters. I can't understand why $300 Data Recovery would have blamed the ROM in this case. Perhaps the PCB is a newer model that has no support in the commercial tools, in which case the DR pros would have been unable to perform the necessary firmware modifications. These modifications would serve to stabilise the drive so that it could be cloned.

 

[nmshah303]

Salvage Data Recovery are not well regarded by their peers, at least not in the forums that I participate in. $300 Data Recovery has a good reputation in the data recovery forums, so I would be interested in seeing their report.

That said, your drive's original symptoms are consistent with a head/media fault or damaged firmware modules in the system area on the platters. I can't understand why $300 Data Recovery would have blamed the ROM in this case. Perhaps the PCB is a newer model that has no support in the commercial tools, in which case the DR pros would have been unable to perform the necessary firmware modifications. These modifications would serve to stabilise the drive so that it could be cloned.

PM'd you with the report. Any other data recovery companies you suggest that are reputable and good in this kind of stuff?

 

[fzabkar]

Ace Lab is the company that makes PC3000, which is the premier data recovery tool in the marketplace. If their rep couldn't handle your case remotely, then it does appear to be a difficult one. That said, I still can't see how there would be any possibility for ROM corruption, unless the drive was handled previously by some other party.

Try asking in this forum:

https://ww.reddit.com/r/datarecovery/rising/

Maybe one of the pros can recommend a company in your area. $300 Data Recovery also hang out there, so they may be able to provide more detail on your case.

When your drive is returned to you, I would like to know the model number printed on the label, and the number on the PCB, ie 2060-nnnnnn.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I mean, almost regardless, if at least one of the companies involved was unable to further the desired result, and fzabkar seems to think one of them IS, then this is pointless. Unless that data you are trying to recover is going to get you fired from a high six digit per year job, you are simply wasting your money and time.

And if it is, you should have had it backed up, or the company should have had a backup routine in place. In any case, somebody really screwed up by not adhering to this very basic tenet of data supervision.

As to recovery, I've dealt with this MANY times, and no matter WHO it was sent to, unless it was a very simple problem NOT actually related to something user-fixable on the drive, the chances of actually getting something back that even matters is minimal. Practically zero. I don't care WHO says otherwise. Even fzabkar, who knows a lot in this area, can't show me more than a handful, at best, and a small handful at that, of occasions where it actually worked out unless it was something like a burned out fuse or transistor.

Even then, I'd bet there aren't ten occasions in all the time I've been here that there was anything even resembling success in recovering data from a faulty drive. Regardless of WHAT recovery service was used.

I mean, you have nothing to lose except more money I guess at this point, but it might be a better use of your time to simply get a few new drives for the purpose of redundancy, and don't not have backups for anything important in the future. That, is the best advice you are going to get regardless of whatever advice you might get.