Western Digital Self-Encrypting Drives recovery

[Filipp_TS]

The unique method firstly and solely developed by ACE Lab makes one more breakthrough in recovering data from the encrypted WD!

Now you can recover data from Self-Encrypting Drives which are encrypted not by the USB bridge but via the Main Drive Processor.

Our newest proprietary method implemented in WD Marvell utility empowers you to forget about any donors when recovering data from all kinds of encrypted WD drives.

Earlier, when dealing with the damaged Self-Encrypting Drives (SED), it was necessary to transfer the encrypted image from a damaged drive to a donor drive before starting the data recovery process. It took a lot of time to transfer the data, to find an appropriate donor and to buy it.

Starting from now, the PC-3000 users get the opportunity to use a unique time-saving method to recover data from WD Self-Encrypting Drives (SED) encrypted by the Main Drive Processors, such as 88i9045, 88i9146, 88i9346, 88i9446, 88i1047, etc.

The main feature of such hard drives is that they not only have the User Area encrypted, but also have the Service Area access blocked. Usually, when the access to the Service Area is unblocked, the User Area data cannot be decrypted at once, and it is impossible to work with the Service Data and User Data simultaneously.

The extended functionality of the PC-3000 utility for encrypted WD Marvel HDDs enables to overcome this restriction due to the unique software decryption of the User Area "on the fly". This approach makes it possible to work with such drives in the Data Extractor directly without transferring the encrypted image to another drive.

Moreover, the data can be decrypted even if the user forgot the password!

This technology created by ACE Lab is not available anywhere else.

Being at the front edge of data recovery technologies, ACE Lab is happy to share the innovations with you in the latest PC-3000 software version 5.9.21 which will be released soon.

[Doomer]

This technology created by ACE Lab is not available anywhere else.

I would be quite careful to make such statements if I were you.

[ACELab]

This technology created by ACE Lab is not available anywhere else.

I would be quite careful to make such statements if I were you.

Such statement is absolutely true.
Thorough and deep research carried out by our developers has made this technology available for every data recovery engineer who uses PC-3000.
Who else can provide the same option for DR engineers? Nobody :)

[lka124]

I would also like to know, because i had opened a thread about this a while ago (viewtopic.php?f=35&t=8459)

Frank

[ACELab]

There are two generations of WD encrypted drives:

1st generation - WD drives with USB encryption bridge (based on encryption controller chips like Initio, Symwave, JMicron)
2nd generation - WD drives with encryption inside the Main IC chip (SED - Self-Encrypting Drives).

At the same time, WD drives have a SmartWare utility that can set the user password. In other words, there are two methods of encryption:

1) Using encryption key (by default).
2) Using encryption key + user password (optionally).

For the 1st generation drives:
=====================
If a WD drive is based on the encryption bridge Symway, the PC-3000 will get access to the user data, no matter if the user password is set or not.
If a WD drive is based on encryption bridges Initio or JMicron and the user password is set, the PC-3000 will require to enter the user password (user password is needed).

For the 2nd generation drives:
=====================
All the Self-Encryption Drives from the 2nd generation can be successfully decrypted by the PC-3000 no matter whether the user password is set or not.

The PC-3000 software automatically detects the generation of a WD drive and encryption method.
The encryption will be done automatically if a WD drive is based on Symwave (the 1st generation) or if a WD drive belongs to the 2nd generation (user password doesn't play any role in the 2nd generation).

This news item "Western Digital Self-Encrypting Drives recovery" is about encryption of SED WD drives where user data is decrypted automatically.

UDMAbod,
In your case the WD drive belongs to the 1st generation and looks like it's based on Initio or JMicron Encryption bridge.

lka124,
The thread http://acelaboratory.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=8459&sid=4dc5db971ec8eb530e49d2349a0dab40 has been updated.

Meanwhile, our developers are working hard with deep research on how to deal with problem cases where password can't be unlocked. This is not easy and it will take some time.

[AJ2008]

2nd generation - WD drives with encryption inside the Main IC chip (SED - Self-Encrypting Drives).

All the Self-Encryption Drives from the 2nd generation can be successfully decrypted by the PC-3000 no matter whether the user password is set or not.

The PC-3000 software automatically detects the generation of a WD drive and encryption method.
The encryption will be done automatically if a WD drive is based on Symwave (the 1st generation) or if a WD drive belongs to the 2nd generation (user password doesn't play any role in the 2nd generation).

I see a lot of passport / MyBook cases recently where some ATA password is active which I expect is related to activation of Smartware. With such cases, the PC3000 utility does not allow access to data. Instead, SA has to be accessed via blocked regions or shorted read channels to clear password modules manually (it seems the PC3000 utility cannot clear ata password on modern WD?) to get SA, but after cleared data is still not accessible unless modules containing pw are restored and PW Smartware password is known. Is there possibility to access such cases without knowing user password for Smartware?

I also see some cases with ASMEDIA bridge chip that seems cannot be decrypted via the PC3000. Is this something you have seen?

[einstein9]

Well, AJ2008,

I tried it both, the old Manual Way by going through some modules
and NOW, with the latest update its possible

i tried it with many models and it works, never had a problem with it. (either with old school - Manual way, or newly added option in latest update)

[AJ2008]

Well, AJ2008,

I tried it both, the old Manual Way by going through some modules
and NOW, with the latest update its possible

i tried it with many models and it works, never had a problem with it. (either with old school - Manual way, or newly added option in latest update)

New update allows for decryption of models with ASMEDIA bridge?
Or allows access to data in cases with ATA security lock based on Smartware encryption with password being unknown? For this case I can remove PW manually to rectify any problems and restore it then recovery with known PW, or clone to other passport and write relevant PW data from 3 SA modules relating to it.

I think maybe you are referring to specific cases where encryption is done with processor on PCB and not the bridge? For these cases I can get access to data with no real problem.

[einstein9]

do u have any specific problem with a Specific pcb?

if yes, let me know which one is it my dear.?

[AJ2008]

do u have any specific problem with a Specific pcb?

if yes, let me know which one is it my dear.?

I do not have problem that I cannot solve, I am questioning whether PC3000 can automatically support such cases. I will give you an example:

WD10JMVW-11AJGS2
PCB: 2060-771961-001, 88i9556-NDB2, Bridge - JMS569

Password is set via Smartware which has activated the ATA security on the drive and access is not possible to SA or data when converted to SATA because of ATA password (it seems PC3000 cannot remove such PW on such drive at present). How can this data be accessed where password is known? Also, without ATA password (which I assume will be some hashed variant of the Smartware pw) how is it possible to access SA or data?

For this case I can manually remove the ATA lock, but I have to make backup of modules containing PW first. For this case, I removed PW then run 'solve slow responding' , wrote password modules back, converted back to USB, entered Smartware password and recovered all data.

But as PC3000 does not have ability to open this drive ATA lock, how can average users bypass this? Also, assuming I recieve similar case where Smartware password is now known, can data be recovered via DE when converted to SATA?

I do not need help with a specific case, I can solve these problems with my own method, but I am interested to know more about whether PC3000 can deal with this, or if there will be some method to automate this process or provide data access without password because it will be very useful feature for many users who have limited experience or with clients who have 'lost' password.

[einstein9]

PM Sent...

[krager]

Hoping someone can be of assistance. I have a 2TB WD My Book (3.5" Drive) evidence drive that is encrypted via USB Bridge with the JMicron chip. Additionally, it has a password via WD SmartWare. Reading some of the posts, it appears that there may be a solution for this scenario. I am a law enforcement officer/computer forensics examiner in the US. I have one like it for testing purposes. Without a password, PC-3000 can decrypt the drive with no problem. However, with password enabled, PC-3000 requires the password to be entered.
Thanks!

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Source of the post Hoping someone can be of assistance. I have a 2TB WD My Book (3.5" Drive) evidence drive that is encrypted via USB Bridge with the JMicron chip. Additionally, it has a password via WD SmartWare. Reading some of the posts, it appears that there may be a solution for this scenario. I am a law enforcement officer/computer forensics examiner in the US. I have one like it for testing purposes. Without a password, PC-3000 can decrypt the drive with no problem. However, with password enabled, PC-3000 requires the password to be entered.
Thanks!

Hi ,
The second post by acelab seems to have a lot of info if you can find your answer there good otherwise ask then via a email