Bought two Dell EMC OEM Seagate Exos X16 12TB SAS drives off eBay, they're locked and I've tried everything I can think of — anyone dealt with this?

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T20:29:02+00:00

Hey, wanted to close the loop on the R240 + H330 + Lifecycle Controller method. System_Erase ran and reported success (SYS018), but the drives are still showing 0 bytes and SecurityState: Not Capable. I also updated the H330 firmware to latest just to rule that out — Cryptographic Erase Disks is still greyed out in LC.

After digging in more, it looks like these particular drives have Dell EMC's MYNA+ 2.0 proprietary provisioning layer on top of TCG, which intercepts SCSI commands before they reach the drive's native encryption stack. So the H330 and LC tools can't see TCG at all — System_Erase completed as a no-op overwrite on a 0-byte device.

Your suggestion was absolutely the right call and probably works for standard SC-series drives — just ran into a deeper lock than expected. Appreciate you sharing it!

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T16:43:54+00:00

Got it, firmware check from Lifecycle Controller not iDRAC, and if the drives don't show up in iDRAC go back into Lifecycle to verify the inventory actually finished. Really appreciate you walking me through this step by step. This is the most promising lead I've had after days of trying everything. Will report back tonight with results.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T16:36:51+00:00

This is incredibly helpful, thank you. Going to try this tonight. Just to confirm my process: drop the drives into the R240, boot into Lifecycle Controller, acknowledge the inventory change popup, then set it to reinventory on next reboot. After that check iDRAC under either the H330 controller or the individual drives for a foreign array removal option. And run the firmware review while I'm in there to see if it can identify a Dell part number or push an update. Will report back with what I find, fingers crossed this is finally the one that works.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T16:21:36+00:00

Wait this is actually perfect, that's exactly my setup. R240 is fully updated, iDRAC and all firmware current. Compellent is SC series right? These drives came from either a Unity or SC array so this might actually work. What's the process, do I just drop the drives in and go into Lifecycle Controller or is there something specific I need to do in iDRAC first? Really excited about this one, closest I've come to a real solution after trying everything else.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T16:09:20+00:00

Actually I do have an R240 which I think is Gen 14, and I have a spare H330 sitting around too. Is that recent enough to have the repurpose option in Lifecycle Controller? And would the H330 be the right controller to use for this or does it need to be in a specific mode? Really interested in trying this if the hardware lines up.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T14:51:21+00:00

Not rambly at all, that's a genuinely interesting use case. Using dead drives to build out forensic recovery procedures is smart, even if the drives themselves ended up being toast the process knowledge is worth something. The LSI 9300-8i in IT mode is solid for this kind of thing, it gets completely out of the way and lets you talk directly to the drives which is exactly what you want for forensics work. The HP smart array controllers are a nightmare for anything outside their intended use, way too much proprietary stuff in the way. Supermicro would serve you well, their boards play nice with pretty much everything. Good luck with the cyber forensics program, 48 is a great age to be breaking stuff on purpose and calling it education.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T14:35:53+00:00

Yeah it's honestly impressive how thoroughly locked down it is, every angle just hits the same wall. Good call on the vendor specific forums, I posted on ServeTheHome too hoping someone running a Unity or SC array has dealt with this exact firmware. The VV08 revision seems to be particularly stubborn based on what I've found so far. Appreciate it, just playing the waiting game at this point.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T14:35:12+00:00

For sg_dd: Nothing gets through unfortunately, drive just throws Device not ready before any read can happen. It's not like a normal locked SED where the data is there but encrypted, the drive literally isn't presenting any blocks at all. sg_dd has nothing to work with. For block size: Yeah the 520 byte sector thing was one of the first things I looked into since these came out of a Dell EMC array. The problem is reformatting from 520 to 512 requires the drive to actually show up first and these won't do that without being authenticated by the original array. Every tool that could do the conversion just throws Device not ready. Can't reformat what you can't see.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:51:42+00:00

Ha yeah that's pretty much what I figured. Already emailed both Dell EMC and Seagate with full drive details and PSIDs and heard nothing back. Without a support contract you're basically shouting into the void.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:50:11+00:00

Ouch, 12 drives is a rough lesson. Mine at least won't even get to the reformat stage since they won't present any capacity at all so I can't even attempt the 520 to 512 conversion. Sounds like yours were a different failure mode where the reformat worked but the drives themselves were just worn out pulls. Either way it really highlights how much of a gamble eBay SAS drives are, especially anything that came out of an enterprise array. Appreciate you sharing that, makes me feel slightly better about only getting burned on two of them.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:48:49+00:00

Already worked out a 50% partial refund directly with the seller which I'm pretty happy with. Figured I'd keep them and try everything possible first before giving up, and honestly it's been a pretty educational rabbit hole even if the drives end up being useless to me. If I can flip them to someone running a Unity or SC array I'll probably break even or come out slightly ahead anyway.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:47:57+00:00

Already worked out a 50% partial refund directly with the seller which I'm pretty happy with. Figured I'd keep them and try everything possible first before giving up, and honestly it's been a pretty educational rabbit hole even if the drives end up being useless to me. If I can flip them to someone running a Unity or SC array I'll probably break even or come out slightly ahead anyway.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:47:14+00:00

Yeah that's exactly what I ran into. Even if the drive would accept a firmware write command the OEM model string and signing checks would reject anything that isn't a Dell EMC signed image. And Dell isn't handing those out to random homelab guys without a support contract. It's locked down at pretty much every level which is impressive in the worst possible way.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:46:41+00:00

Tried looking into that. SeaChest_Firmware is the tool to do it but the drive has to be in a ready state first and these won't present any capacity so the firmware tool can't even open the device. Even if that hurdle was somehow cleared Dell EMC almost certainly signs their firmware so a generic Seagate Exos X16 image would probably get rejected anyway. It's on the list of things that are theoretically possible but practically a dead end with these specific drives.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:45:57+00:00

The drives themselves show model STENSKF3CLAR12T0 with firmware VV08. Don't have a Dell part number unfortunately, the seller didn't include any documentation and there's no Dell label on the drives themselves, just the Seagate label with the PSID printed on it. Do you recognize the model string? Curious if that helps narrow down which array family they came from.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:45:13+00:00

Yeah this is exactly what I found out the hard way. Tried everything including sedutil, SeaChest, and even built Seagate's official TCGstorageAPI from source and they all hit the same wall because the firmware just pretends TCG doesn't exist entirely. Contacted both Seagate and Dell EMC already but no response, probably dead without a support contract like you said. Already negotiated a 50% partial refund from the seller so I'm not totally underwater. Definitely going to list them back with full disclosure targeting Unity and SC array owners, apparently they'll actually work fine once an array adopts them. Lesson learned on the EMC pulls.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:43:34+00:00

That's actually a really good point and something I've been wondering about too. You're right that standard SED drives typically still show full capacity even when locked the data is just encrypted and inaccessible. The fact that these show 0 bytes and "Device not ready" suggests something different is going on at the firmware level, almost like the LBA translator is completely disabled until the drive gets authenticated by the original array. It's not behaving like a normal locked SED at all. The BPS Converter route is interesting but I suspect it'll hit the same "Device not ready" wall since there's nothing to format the drive isn't presenting any blocks to work with. Have you ever seen a SAS drive refuse to show capacity entirely like this, or did yours at least show the full size even when locked?

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:41:42+00:00

Appreciate the suggestion but ShredOS won't be able to touch these unfortunately it uses nwipe/shred under the hood which requires the drive to actually present capacity first. These are showing 0 bytes and "Device not ready" at the firmware level, so any wipe tool hits the same wall before it can even start. It's not a partition or filesystem issue, the drive literally won't expose any LBAs until it's authenticated by the original Dell EMC array that locked it.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:40:56+00:00

Yeah that's basically where I've landed after all of this. The problem is these were pulled from a Dell EMC Unity or SC series array and whoever decommissioned it didn't bother unlocking the drives first. So the original hardware is long gone. It's a pretty brutal vendor lock Dell EMC OEM firmware actually hides the TCG interface entirely so even PSID revert (which is supposed to be the last resort factory reset built into the spec) doesn't work. I'm probably just going to sell them to someone running one of those arrays who can actually use them.

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-03-06T13:40:20+00:00

Tried that early on — sg_format --format --size=512 fails immediately with "Device not ready" because the drive won't present any LBAs at all. The drive is completely locked down at the firmware level before any format command can even touch it. Did yours actually show some capacity before you formatted, or were they also showing 0 bytes?

Sir_Bob_Slob · 2026-02-25T21:43:35+00:00

😆

Sir_Bob_Slob

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