WD Board Swap Question

S

ScotchBroth

New member
Hi all!

I spent forever trying to get the USB to Sata conversion on the same board working (non customer drives) but I haven't been able to get the ground working so I could get the drives to come up. I gave up and decided to work on the board swap method instead.

I have the 701675 board (left) and I have a replacement sata board 701672 (right) as the list supplied by ACE indicates should be compatible.

My question is about the U12 and U14 chip. The 701675 board has a U14 Rom chip, and the sata board (701672) has a U12 Rom chip. Now I'm pretty good at swapping the chips over by soldering from my years of no PC3000. I haven't done it with different boards though so everything always matched. I just want to make sure that the label U12 and U14 don't really matter in this case.

Here is a picture of both boards: http://i.imgur.com/wzQiZK8.jpg

Any tips (I know i'm going to have to deal with that initio chip eventually too but I'll just be happy with the drive coming ready at this point) would be greatly appreciated.
 
LarrySabo

LarrySabo

Member
U14 is firmware for the encryption and VCD, I believe. There being no U12 on the patient means it's masked on the MCU and you will have to transfer it using your firmware tools (Pc3k). If the only problem is FW, once you fix that, you should be able to re-install the USB board as-is and recover the data.
 
Jared

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
+1 to what Larry said. The U14 isn't it. You'll have to use a COM connection to read the ROM code from the USB board.
 
lcoughey

lcoughey

Moderator
I don't recall ever seeing a USB only Passport without a U12 ROM. A quick read of the ROM from the USB PCB with PC3K via terminal should be enough to get it saved out. Program the donor SATA with the saved ROM. Then complete your diagnosis and recovery of the drive, keeping in mind that the data is encrypted.
 
S

ScotchBroth

New member
Wow! Thanks a ton for the information! This is probably the most help I've ever gotten from a DR forum, so props to Jared for creating and maintaining such a great forum, and huge props to Larry and everyone else for the help.

Now I have a PC3K but I fear that I'm not certain how to communicate with the terminal of a USB drive. These are my hookups, but none of them seem to work or even fit really. http://i.imgur.com/2zsdPzm.jpg This particular drive doesn't come ready which is why I'm testing on it.

I've not taken the training in Russia and the WD USB terminal is not mentioned in the manual.
 
Jared

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
You have to use the Samsung adapter on the USB board and connect it like this:

Passport Solution.jpg
 
J

jol

Member
use the samsung
run the utility in Boot ROM (COM Port) mode
connect the usb when it says power on.......
edit: hoopss you beat me
 
Jared

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
Or, you can use the WD Calypso board and connect sort of like this, just on the two bottom right pins:

IMG_20150128_181258.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top