WD500BMVW-11S5XS0. beep-beep-beep (slight pause) beep. light flashing 3x/sec

WD External and Portable SSD Portable SSD
1

The drive is a WD500BMVW-11S5XS0, date code 24 APR 2012, Thailand (removed from USB 3.0 enclosure).

Windows 7 recognizes “USB Mass Storage Device” and “WD My Passport 0740 USB Device” and shows them “Ready to use,” but it shows “WD SES Device USB Device” as “Device unplugged.”

When USB cable is plugged into a USB port (either 2.0 or 3.0, on any computer), the drive emits beep codes. It varies some, but this is typical:

Spindle motor starts; then
beep-beep-beep, slight pause, beep, longer pause.
(head-recalibrate click)
beep-beep-beep, slight pause, beep, longer pause.
(head-recalibrate click)
beep-beep-beep, slight pause, beep, longer pause.
spindle motor stops.

Sometimes the beep code is just “beep-beep” instead of “beep-beep-beep, slight pause, beep.”

It takes about two seconds for the “beep-beep-beep, slight pause, beep” + recalibrate cycle.

The beep code + recalibrate cycle happens 1 to 4 times, then the spindle motor stops.

After a couple of seconds, the spindle motor starts back up, and the whole process repeats.

The whole process repeats several times (the number varies) before the spindle motor finally stops and stays stopped.

The whole time, the drive’s white status light is flashing on and off continuously, 3 flashes per second.

Unfortunately, this drive has the USB controller built-in, there’s no SATA port.

Questions:

  1. What do those beep codes mean?

  2. Is this probably crashed heads, or might it be a PCB problem?

  3. Is there an equivalent model drive which has a SATA interface instead of USB, so that I could swap PCBs and access the drive as SATA? What model number?

front   back
(click a picture for supersized version)

Note: the enclosure gives the model number as WDABCY5000ABK-01.

2

Hello,

 Replacing the circuit board on a hard drive is not a recommended method for recovering data or drive functions as this will void the warranty on the hard drive. For every hard drive model that Western Digital manufacturers, there are many firmware changes that would make it very difficult to find a circuit board with the same firmware of the defective drive. If you attempt to install a circuit board with a different firmware than the original, this may damage the hard drive further. If you need to recover the data on your drive, please contact one of our recommended preferred data recovery partners.

3

HDKnows, thank you for your reply, but “voiding the warranty” is the least of my concerns. A brand new My Passport 500 GB drive costs only $70 at NewEgg.

There are currently ten (10) different WD500BMVW-11S5XS0 bare drives for sale on eBay. Most of them were made in Thailand, like this drive, and some have date codes in April, 2012, like this drive. There are also two WD500BMVW-11S5XS0 circuit boards for sale on eBay, for data recovery usage. So getting an identical or very close firmware match should not be difficult.

Do you know the answers to any of my three questions?

  1. What do those beep codes mean?

  2. Is this probably crashed heads, or might it be a PCB problem?

  3. Is there an equivalent model drive which has a SATA interface instead of USB, so that I could swap PCBs and access the drive as SATA? What model number?

4

Is this an issue of data recovery, or just trying to revive the drive?

If you’re trying to revive the drive my recommendation would be to just scrap it. I’m not a data recovery expert, but as far as I know you can’t just swap the board and expect it to work, because when the drives are low level formatted at the factory and the tracks are written to the disk, there are variances between drives. Basically there is info specific to the mechanical system stored on the board and from what I understand when boards are sold for recovery purposes usually individual chips are salvaged from them and swapped out onto failed drives for recovery…

Additionally, removing a HDD from a USB enclosure typically voids the warranty anyway, the warranty is on the enclosed unit not the drive itself…

P.S. I don’t know what the beep codes mean, I wasn’t even aware there was a piezo or anything present on them. I have had a pair of HDD’s in a laptop beep when the SATA cable was crushed and shorting, but that wasn’t in any pattern, probably from trying to drive the heads against the stops or something…

5

Sorry I was unclear; it’s for data recovery. Don’t care much about the drive, it’s the data we need.

Here’s an informative document from one of the eBay vendors who has replacement PCBs for sale:
http://stores.ebay.com/hddSupplier/PCB-Swap-Guide.html

6

Yeah, they’re saying what I said. There is data specific to the mechanics of the HDD and it’s not just a case of swapping the bord, but swapping a chip between the boards.

The question is if you’re comfortable doing this work yourself and placing the increased risk on your data.

If the data risk is not acceptable then that leaves a data recovery service and you will want to do research first because some are extremely poor, some will replace boards, and some have technology to take the platters out and mount them in special rigs to read them.

7

Swapping PCBs (and perhaps ROMs) won’t do any good if the problem isn’t with the PCB.  So, do you know:

  1. Is this problem probably due to crashed heads, or might it be a PCB problem?

  2. What do those beep codes mean?

8

I don’t know what they mean, but if you can post the smart info it might shed some light on what’s going on…

9

How can I access the S.M.A.R.T. info on this USB-only drive?

Acronis Drive Monitor reports that the S.M.A.R.T. status is unavailable. It lists the drive as:

“Disk Western Digital My Passport 0740  Volumes: None  Capacity: 0.00 GB”

10

If smartmontools and gsmartcontrol won’t get it, nothing will. You want to install both, then load gsmartcontrol

11

I installed up smartmontools, gtk, and gsmartcontrol on Windows 7.  Plugged into either a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 port, the My Passport drive isn’t even listed by gsmartcontrol.

12

Most likely it is Read/Write heads damage. Best recommendation is to find good data recovery company. 

Second you can try swapping PCB or getting a hard drive, something like this  http://www.harddrivesforsale.com/wd5000bmvw-11s5xs0.html it is USB 3.0 drive

Third is that you can get a replacement from WDC even if you opened hard drive, they are great about getting replacements.

13

Well, given it’s not responding on USB there’s a decent chance replacing the board repair the problem :slight_smile: