WD Palmer USB encryption - how do we decrypt the newer drives? Topic is solved

[ThomasH]

I have a WD10SDRW-34A0XS0 from Nov 2019 that had a cracked-in-half PCB, and whose spindle motor was damaged to the point it doesn't spin (from being kicked and stepped on).
I've swapped the platter successfully and the drive detects and boots ok using either an unlocked SATA PCB with Patient ROM written, or a new USB PCB with Patient ROM soldered on.

Using the SATA PCB, the data is encrypted, and the normal DE Decryption doesn't seem to work yet, though this is one of my first of this new model / era, so perhaps I don't know something that I should. (I was able to read modules, and can scrub through sectors ok).

Using the Patient ROM soldered to a donor USB PCB, same pcb# (2060-800069-001 REV P1), the drive is still encrypted.

For the USB drives:
Patient: WD10SDRW-34A0XS0 from Nov 2019
Donor: WD10SDRW-11A0XS0 from May 2020
Donor2: WD10SDZW from August 2019
all the USB PCBs have JMS579 chip and have matching PCB #'s

I downloaded the most-recent PC3000 update today, in case there was a decryption update, but it's still not able to decrypt in the normal way using the SATA PCB (though I didn't uncheck anything out of fear), just ran the autodetect in DE, which does find 2 options, but neither work).

Has anyone else encountered this? Perhaps find a more closely-dated USB drive? They are both 'easystore' drives, but the external case has changed in appearance and in model #.
I'm looking for a closer-match now, but the customer has a deadline that is fast-approaching, and I've already tried the closest-dates matching PCBs before and after the patient build date.

[Maxim_TS]

Since the original USB PCB is lost, the same model and USB chip donor USB PCB has been suggested to try.
If anybody has some thoughts, it would be great.

[ThomasH]

Update: Per someone's recommendation, I had a local BGA rework shop transfer the Marvell MCU to the donor USB PCB. That, plus the ROM swap allowed the drive to be decrypt and be read properly.
Thankfully there was only 18GB of important data to recover, because cloning through USB sucked, and probably wouldn't have been practical for a full clone.

Now I wonder if swapping the Marvell chip and ROM to a SATA PCB or Unlocked SATA PCB would have also worked. I'm thinking no, due to the lack of a JMS579 chip, but does anyone know?

This case was abnormal since the original PCB was cracked, but even for cases with a good original PCB, we're going to have encryption problems cloning through SATA.

Assuming we're going to have to clone these through USB, is there a 'best way', such as build a map of selected data in DE with the USB PCB, then swap to SATA and clone the selected data while somehow keeping the encrypted vs decrypted straight?
or... Full-clone as SATA to a similar model SATA destination as encrypted, then install the decrypting original PCB?
or... does soldering a SATA port onto the USB PCB have to bypass the encryption/decryption?

Hopefully Ace can solve this type of encryption, or these aren't going to be pleasant.

[Maxim_TS]

The issue and solution has been transferred to ACE Lab developers. They are going to investigate it closer as soon as they finish currently researching tasks.

[firdousnet]

Hi


I have similar case, drive not finding the key for JMS579 chip, Any help ?

[MasterT]

I recently had a case with a WD20NMVW-11AV3S4 with no keys to decrypt.

[lcoughey]

I've found that the easiest way to deal with these drives is to leave the original USB board on it (replace heads, if needed), connect to DeepSpar USB Stabilizer and image with DE.

[sin]

+1 @Icoughey

[ThomasH]

Source of the post I've found that the easiest way to deal with these drives is to leave the original USB board on it (replace heads, if needed), connect to DeepSpar USB Stabilizer and image with DE.

Does that device work a lot better than the acelab PC-USB power adapter, I guess?
Do you know how that USB Stabilizer compares to the DDI4 PCIe-USB add-on card for the DDI4+DRE system?
PS I just watched a few videos, including yours, about the device, thanks.

[lcoughey]

Source of the postDoes that device work a lot better than the acelab PC-USB power adapter, I guess?
Also, do you know how that USB Stabilizer compares to the DDI4 USB add-on card?

- ACE USB power adapter still requires the patient drive to connect through Windows, which means that windows will hang up with unstable drives
- DDI4 USB add-on works pretty good, but can have issues getting unstable drives to identify
- DeepSpar USB Stabilizer allows the drive to ID with Windows, yet blocks windows from trying to mount it (unless you enable it to do so). It handles drive instabilities and when imaging with DE, most of the time, is able to deal with sector issues, making DE not even aware that there were any issues
- PC3K Portable III has a USB port that works pretty good, too, though I feel that USB stabilizer may be better. Even if they are on par, the huge cost of the Portable III system vs a USB stabilizer is significant. And it is a bit disappointing that the USB port is shared with channel 0, similar to UDMA-e and Express with the IDE ports, which is the only channel that works with NVMe SSDs as well.

[Abdurrahim.sopon]

Since the original USB PCB is lost, the same model and USB chip donor USB PCB has been suggested to try.
If anybody has some thoughts, it would be great.

it also same data encrypted

[Hddex]

A related question, if we swap the Memory onto a donor USB PCB will that work? Or just moving the MCU to decrypt?

[Doomer]

Source of the post
I have a WD10SDRW-34A0XS0
....
Using the SATA PCB, the data is encrypted
....
Has anyone else encountered this?

This particular model has CPU with unique encryption keys.
You have to have the original CPU to decrypt the data

A related question, if we swap the Memory onto a donor USB PCB will that work? Or just moving the MCU to decrypt?

you can't swap the memory, the memory you need is not readable/writable externally.


PS: sorry for the necro-posting, didn't check the date.