Problem with WD Marvel Demo

[Vlad]

Download demo and try to detect HDD in safe mode, try read modules
I dont have WD20NMVW, but WDMarvel must work with this family

[egrebin]

Hello, I just download the demo, and when I'm trying 4install, it gives me the following error: driverwdmarv falied to start... could you please help me? i'm very interested in purchase this software, but I wold like to see more or less how it works.

Thanks in advance

[Vlad]

If you are using x64 windows, then press F8 when Windows starts and select mode without driver signature enforcement
In x86 Windows simple run program as administrator

[ianc]

Hi there,

I am looking for help. My wife’s computer had a voltage spike from its Power supply unit which burnt out the two Western Digital 1 TB hard drives in it. They are no longer recognized, nor will they spin up. I purchased another PCB for it and now the drives spin up and are recognized, but as 0.0 GB.

I think I need to either:

A) Transplant the Main controller chip (containing the BIOS) from the original PCB on to the replacement PCB, or:
B) Use WDMarvel to read the BIOS off the system area of the drive’s platters and write it to the BIOS chip on the replacement PCB.

My question is: Can WDMarvel do B, and will I find the help on your forum that I need to accomplish this if I license the program for as long as is necessary? Is there any documentation in English I might take a look at?

Please help me. Many thanks,

Ian

[Spildit]

Yes, WDMarvel can do "B".

AS LONG as there is a copy of the ROM modules on the SA (platter) you just need to :

1 - Place new non-native PCB on drive and power it up. Detect the drive with WDMarvel.

2 - Go to ROM - Modules in ROM :

1.jpg (64.45 КБ) 20031 просмотр

3 - You can now READ the ROM Modules copies from SA and/or CREATE ROM IMAGE FROM COPIES ON SA. If you do that you can then go to the ROM menu and write the new ROM image.

2.jpg (33.8 КБ) 20031 просмотр

For drives without ROM COPY on SA it might be a little bit more "tricky" but still perfectly doable. But then again this happens only on drives WITH ROM CHIP.

Drives without ROM chip (embeded ROM on MCU) tend to have a SA copy of the ROM modules.

[Spildit]

Further reading :

Analyis of the "ROM" on a Western Digital ROYL HDD :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=225

Regenerating a WD ROYL ROM from SA MODs :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=761

[ianc]

Spildit, thanks a lot for your post.

I did as you suggested and mounted the new PCB, attached the drive and ran the demo. I seem to be having trouble detecting the drive however. The machine has an Intel H81 chipset on it with two 6 Gb and two 3 Gb SATA connectors on it. I connected the drive to the 3 GB connector, so I think I've done the right thing here? Not really sure how to choose or know for sure what drive is selected. The drive does report its capacity as 0.0 Gb in the BIOS however:



I don't know what the 'No DRQ after transfer request' error is though. Can the utility do with this with the demo copy? Trying to read the ROM from the SA just yields an 'Error reading buffer'. Does this indicate a problem with the drive, or that the function I'm attempting to access is not available in the demo?



Thanks again for your help,

Ian

[ianc]

I actually decided to go and download beta 8, which seems a little clearer and gives you a much better understanding of which drive is selected. Here I'm quite certain I've got the correct drive, but the errors persist and I think I've just got problems since the SA can't be recognized:



These are actually Dell-branded WD drives, and as you can see the FW version is listed on the label. Is it worth trying to get this version from Dell? Could WDMarvel flash the FWH file to the PCB if I could get the correct version?



Any advice on how to proceed? Thanks so much!

Ian

[Vlad]

Look on ATA registers on the last screen, drive is Busy
If repower drive, again Busy?

[Spildit]

Instead of SATA/AHCI select IDE/Compatible, MASTER and "Safe Mode".

Browse the vendor/device one by one and press "DETECT" set timeout to 60 as well.

Can you see the drive Model/Family when you Detect the drive ? If not what status register do you get ? BSY ?

Regards.