Bizarre Hubble LT SED Issues

[Jared]

So I'm not new to dealing with SED locked WD drives, but this one has me confounded.

On arrival, the drive's PCB was totally dead. I had to physically remove the ROM and read it in an external programmer. With the ROM code programmed to a SATA board, the drive was then able to ID and had sector access. When I tried imaging, it seemed like possibly one head wasn't reading so I wanted to generate a headmap for it.

I followed the normal processes. Blocked preamp, block SA access in ROM, ldr/dir upload, unchecked SED in drive ID and also did the slow responding fix on it just for good measure. Was then able to generate headmap in DE and all seemed well.

But, then I now have no sector access anymore. I tried turning SED back on, still no sector access. I tried undoing the slow responding fix, still no sector access. I even took and read all the modules from copy 1 of the SA and wrote them back to copy 0. Yet, still, it's got no sector access whatsoever.

All modules read from both copies and all test out as good.

Maybe it's just weak heads, but at first it definitely didn't seem like it. It was reading really fast in some areas, so this makes no sense to me.

What might I be missing?

 

[Sam]

I've had this problem. Try converting back to the USB pcb.

 

[Jared]

[post]13490[/post] Try converting back to the USB pcb.

The USB PCB is totally dead and I don't really keep any stock of USB PCBs here. Though I'm sure I could dig something up.

But the odd thing is, I was reading sectors using the SATA board before I touched the SED. And everything has been restored from the backup of SA.

 

[Sam]

I assumed you had a spare USB PCB to use. Yup, this sounds frustrating.

It sounds like it's ID'ing with full capacity... sort of sounds like a translator issue besides the fact that the SA seems fine.
Regenerating it might not hurt if you've got it saved and the heads are ok. Were you able to run a heads test?
Might want to extract the translator from the service tracks first and compare it to your saved copies.
You might also try making a smart donor just in case for some reason the translator or something else isn't loading properly.

It does sound a lot like the case I had where when I started messing with SED I lost sector access until I replaced the PCB with the USB version. Though this may have been the case where H0 would read fine but intermittently not write so when I thought SED had been turned off it really wasn't, or the SED module wasn't properly written back after the change. I think I used donor heads to make changes to the SA and then original heads to image (donor heads didn't read well...yeah, strange). I was lucky enough that after repairs the drive was functional enough to image off the USB port.

 

[abedalkareem]

[post]13489[/post] So I'm not new to dealing with SED locked WD drives, but this one has me confounded.

On arrival, the drive's PCB was totally dead. I had to physically remove the ROM and read it in an external programmer. With the ROM code programmed to a SATA board, the drive was then able to ID and had sector access. When I tried imaging, it seemed like possibly one head wasn't reading so I wanted to generate a headmap for it.

I followed the normal processes. Blocked preamp, block SA access in ROM, ldr/dir upload, unchecked SED in drive ID and also did the slow responding fix on it just for good measure. Was then able to generate headmap in DE and all seemed well.

But, then I now have no sector access anymore. I tried turning SED back on, still no sector access. I tried undoing the slow responding fix, still no sector access. I even took and read all the modules from copy 1 of the SA and wrote them back to copy 0. Yet, still, it's got no sector access whatsoever.

All modules read from both copies and all test out as good.

Maybe it's just weak heads, but at first it definitely didn't seem like it. It was reading really fast in some areas, so this makes no sense to me.

any update about this case ??
it looks interesting

 

[Jared]

I think I ended up quoting it out for replacing the heads, assuming that's what it'll ultimately need, and the customer declined the quote. So we may never know.