Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 Data Recovery

Zero Alpha offers professional data recovery for the Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 hard drive series. These enterprise-grade drives are commonly used in data centers and RAID arrays, available in capacities such as 8TB, 14TB, 16TB, and 18TB. Although designed for 24/7 workloads, they can still suffer from issues like firmware corruption, head failure, or PCB damage. Zero Alpha provides expert recovery for these failures and accepts mail in jobs from across Australia and worldwide.

Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 16tb data recovery

Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 Common Problems

  • Firmware corruption or module damage preventing detection
  • Power surge or PCB short circuit
  • Bad sectors and degraded performance under load
  • Failed or weak read/write heads
  • Drive not spinning or making clicking noises

Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 Models

  • WUH721816ALE6L4
  • WUH721816ALE6L0
  • WUH721814ALE6L4
  • WUH721812ALE6L4
  • WUH721808ALE6L4

WUH721816ALE6L4 16TB Data Recovery Caselog

07NOV25: A client reported that their Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 drive was no longer detected. It was left near a window during a storm and has lots of water damage and corrosion. PCB: 006-0B44198. It spins up and makes a lot of musical sounds with full ID but no data access. There are 2 roms on this pcb but swapping them to a donor board does not work as it may be code signed with the mcu. PSID Lock state!

wd WUH721816ALE6L4 pcb 006-0B44198 data recovery

Get Tech Sense
ErrCode         = 0x70
SenseKey        = 0x05
SenseCode       = 0x20
SenseCodeQual   = 0x00
KCQ             = 0x52000 = Illegal Request.  Illegal Command Operation Code.
FRU             = 0x00
SnsKeySpcBits   = 0x40
SnsKeySpcBytes  = 0x0000
UEC             = 0xF821 = Invalid opcode in CDB
VendUEInfo      = 0x0000

ID.Model................................ : WUH721816ALE6L4
ID.FW................................... : PCGAW232
ID.SN................................... : 2CK4DKWR

Factory family by FW.................... : PANTHER-C
Inquiry Page 03...
Product ID.............................. : PCM
Code ID................................. : 0x28130102

 
 
Selected family......................... : CUSTOM
Model by ID............................. : WUH721816ALE6L4                         
 

ID.Model................................ : WUH721816ALE6L4
ID.FW................................... : PCGAW232
ID.SN................................... : 2CK4DKWR

Factory family by FW.................... : PANTHER-C
Inquiry Page 03...
Product ID.............................. : PCM
Code ID................................. : 0x28130102


ATA ID Vendor specific fields:
Write Cache Enabled..................... : Yes
Read Look Ahead Cache Enabled........... : Yes
Revert to Power On Defaults Disabled.... : No
Auto Reassign Write Hard Errors Enabled. : Yes
Buffer Size (M)......................... : 512
 
HDD State:
Inquiry Page 03...
0x0000     00 03 01 0C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00     ................
0x0010     00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 50 43 47 41 57 32 33 32     ........PCGAW232
0x0020     00 00 00 00 33 30 30 31 57 32 33 32 30 30 30 02     ....3001W232000.
0x0030     32 33 32 00 30 37 2F 32 37 2F 32 30 20 31 37 3A     232.07/27/20 17:
0x0040     30 37 3A 34 37 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 30 31 47     07:47....... 01G
0x0050     02 01 13 28 50 43 4D 00 00 00 00 00 50 4C 41 49     ...(PCM.....PLAI
0x0060     4E 5F 53 41 52 45 4C 45 41 53 45 00 62 6C 64 63     N_SARELEASE.bldc
0x0070     72 65 77 00 00 00 00 00 66 6F 72 67 65 73 6C 61     rew.....forgesla
0x0080     76 65 30 32 00 00 00 00 2F 6D 6E 74 2F 79 2F 63     ve02..../mnt/y/c
0x0090     63 62 38 2F 52 32 33 32 2F 6C 69 62 72 61 72 79     cb8/R232/library
0x00A0     2F 50 43 4D 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 10 00     /PCM............
0x00B0     00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 57 32 33 32     ............W232
0x00C0     00 42 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00     .B..............
0x00D0     30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 00     000000000000000.
0x00E0     66 61 38 36 64 37 63 35 63 35 34 62 64 61 31 4D     fa86d7c5c54bda1M
0x00F0     00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00     ................
 
micro Code ID   = PCGAW232
Servo PN        = 3001
Major/Minor ver = W232
Build Number    = 232
Build Date      = 07/27/20 17:07:47
Code ID         = 0x02011328 ...
Product ID      = PCM
Interface ID    = PLAIN_SA
Code Type       = RELEASE
Compile Path    = /mnt/y/ccb8/R232/library/PCM
Operation state = 0x00000004, OM_SPINNING, Motor is started but reserved area is not loaded yet
PSID Lock       = 0x10 PSID locked
Functional Mode = 0x00, Normal Mode
Idle Functions  = 0x00
Degraded Reason = 0x00000000, No error
Broken Reason   = 0x00000000, No error
Code Mode       = 0x00, OM_FLASH, Drive is running flash code
 
Techno mode key......................... : Error
Get Tech Sense
ErrCode         = 0x70
SenseKey        = 0x05
SenseCode       = 0x20
SenseCodeQual   = 0x00
KCQ             = 0x52000 = Illegal Request.  Illegal Command Operation Code.
FRU             = 0x00
SnsKeySpcBits   = 0x40
SnsKeySpcBytes  = 0x0000
UEC             = 0xF821 = Invalid opcode in CDB
VendUEInfo      = 0x0000
PSID Lock state!
 
Initialization error
 : Error switching to techno mode