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Western Digital SMR HDD firmware repair and data recovery cases are more and more common for data recovery engineers worldwide.

Among all cases, the most common cases are the following two types:

1, Firmware module 190 failure;
2, Physical head damage.

As for module 190 failure, it has the following situations:

Module 190 is good but couldn’t be loaded to ram properly;
Module 190 is corruped due to bad sectors within the module LBA range or overlap nodes or vacant nodes or error nodes generated;

As for Physical head damage, users need to swap heads to continue and can try head and platter swap tools here.

To ensure users can get the best WD SMR hdd data recovery success rate, Dolphin team have added the unique WD SMR HDD Firmware module 190 manager with the following detailed functions:

Import Module 190 and Manage
Extract the T2 Data(190 core nodes)
Original Nodes List
Scanned Nodes List
List Nodes by Original Order
List Nodes by Node Tree
List Nodes by Start LBA
SIT Repair
Search Correct Blocks Auto
Search and Replace
Search Error Nodes
Search Overlap Nodes
TIS Check
Vacant Nodes Count
Overlap Nodes Count
Tree Root Node Number Check
Test Current Nodes
Test All Nodes
Test Tree
Test Nodes by SMRZONE
Scan Lost Nodes
Repair Selected Nodes
Delete Selected Nodes
Delete Error Nodes
Delete Nodes with Same Start LBA
Delete Nodes with Same END LBA
Repair Vacant Nodes with Scanned Nodes
Caculate Valid Data from Selected Nodes
Zerofill Bad Sectors within The Module
Load 190/T2 auto for data recovery

Users can get above solutions within DFL-DDP data recovery tool.

Any question is welcome to sales@dolphindatalab.com or add Dolphin Skype ID: dolphin.data.lab

For WD SMR HDDs, they usually have firmware lock and SED V2 lock issue. To unlock the firmware area, users can use firmware unlock PCB. To fix the SED V2 issue, users can use the following methods:

1, Solder wires on original USB PCB;
2, Use
HDD USB-SATA wiring PCB;
3, Use Data Unlock SATA Connectors;

Now we have another method: When the original PCB is physically damaged, users can only transfer the main controller IC to firmware unlock PCB to fix SED v2 issue.

The following two Main Controller IC Reballing Stencils are available now to make the MCU transfer job easier and more successful:

WD 800041 800022 88i1047-NDB2 Main Controller IC Reballing Stencil
WD HDD PCB 88i1053-NXZ2 Main Controller IC Reballing Stencil

WD HDD PCBs with the same 88i1053-NXZ2 Main Controller IC:
800066
800067
800069
810030
810033
810035
810067

Any question is welcome to sales@dolphindatalab.com or add Dolphin Skype ID: dolphin.data.lab

WD 2060-810011 is one very common western digital SMR hard drive PCB number and drives with this number have MCU lock and SED lock.

One thing is important for WD 2060-810011:
This PCB number has two types:

WD 2060-810011 HDD Firmware Unlock PCB-3C Version
WD 2060-810011 HDD Firmware Unlock PCB-1C Version

The 3C version is more common in the market but the 3C and 1C version are not compatible with each other.

Before users buy this WD 2060-810011 unlock PCB, users need to check chip number on the PCB in the picture above.

Any question is welcome to sales@dolphindatalab.com or add Dolphin Skype ID: dolphin.data.lab

Dolphin team have created new WD smr hdd firmware repair functions to repair and recover lost data from these drives at a higher success rate.

Sector 000000 is one very common problem in the Western Digital SMR hard drive data recovery cases due to the module 190 loading failure to RAM or module 190 corruption.

Within the new DFL hdd repair and data recovery software, users can find very good functions: module 190 repair and module 190 auto loading(T2 auto loading) to RAM and this auto T2 loading is unique and helps to fix many cases other tools cannot fix.

Dolphin engineers will teach users how to backup the module 190 perfectly and this is the most important step to fix WD SMR cases. Next users can use the T2 auto loading tech. to fix cases such as the sector 000000 firmware issue. If T2 cannot be loaded automatically, after power reset, the HDD can be sector 000000 again.

Watch the WD SMR HDD Sector 000000 190 Failure Data Recovery video case study here:  https://youtu.be/VLNc6qXWrHs

Any question is welcome to sales@dolphindatalab.com or add Dolphin Skype ID: dolphin.data.lab

There’re multiple similar chips on these WD SMR HDDs with PCB number 2060-800077 and 810011. Users are usually confused to find out the correct ROM chip.

The following are the correct ROM chip location:

WD 2060-800077 HDD Firmware Unlock PCB, click here
WD 2060-810011 HDD Firmware Unlock PCB, click here

When users are trying to use above firmware unlock PCBs, users need to use HDD ROM Chip Pin Reader to read the original rom and write the original rom to the unlock PCB and then install the unlock PCB to original HDD so that the original HDD firmware area can be accessed. If users don’t have HDD ROM chip pin reader, users need to solder the original rom chip off and solder it on to the unlock PCB rom chip location.

Please note: firmware unlock pcbs help only to access the firmware area and don’t bypass the SED V2 data encryption. To fix the SED V2 data encryption issue, users need to use HDD USB-SATA Wiring PCB Pro. or Data Unlock SATA Connectors.

Any question is welcome to sales@dolphindatalab.com or add Dolphin Skype ID: dolphin.data.lab

Physical data recovery cases are very common for Western Digital SMR 8X00XX hard drives. To recover the lost data safely, it is necessary to set up the head map within the data area and then image the patient HDD by selective heads, image the good heads first and then weak heads. Read more

Recently Dolphin users in many countries reported one special data recovery case on the new Western Digital WD20EZAZ-00L9GB0 hard drives, the HDD family is CARMEL and the PCB number is WD 2060-810011.

These WD20EZAZ-00L9GB0 hard drives have MCU lock and users cannot access to the ROM and firmware area. Read more

There’re more and more new western digital hard drive data recovery cases such as WD10SPZX, WD20SPZX, WD20EZAZ, WD40NMZW, WD50NMZW, etc, their family names are: Palmer, Charger, new SPYG2ULT families. Read more

The new WD Charger 800065 800067 810003 HDD Head Replacement Tool has been added to the Hard Drive Ramp Toolkit Pro. on April 1st, 2021. Read more

This is one Dolphin user from Australia.

‘Hi folks

i´ve got a WD external HDD with PCB 2060-810035-000 Error. I cannot access the drive, the PCB is broken.
SO what do i need to access my data?
If I buy your:WD 2060-810035 Recovery Unlock PCB with the HDD Rom Chip Reader. Read more