496 Comments

1. 

   Great info, thanks. My Book also comes in a 640gb model. I read a techreport review on the 640gb internal drive which consists of 2 very high density 320gb platters. The higher the density, the faster the heads are able to read and write. And the 640gb drives performance approached that of WD’s much more expensive Velociraptor drives:

   http://techreport.com/articles.x/14380/2

   I can get the 640gb My book much cheaper than the regular internal drive and I have a pretty good hunch its the same drive that Techreport reviewed. And I think that has something to do with why WD has made it so hard to open their external drives. What do you think? 🙂

2. 

   Thanks for the guide!

3. 

   ANyone have any clue how to open the case of a WD MyBook Pro 250G? There are no screw holes visible and no stickers visible for covering up any screw holes. I see a latch on the top through the morse code stuff, but the case won’t budge. Help!

4. 

   I have a WD 500gb My Book (Model: WDH1U5000), and this guide worked just as well for this – the part about the credit cards, you need to do that on both the part with the rubber pads AND the other end of the case, but the other end doesn’t require pushing in any tabs, and after that it slides right out. The rest of the guide was the exact same, and I now have a 500gb SATA drive humming happily in my case. Thank you very much for the guide 🙂

5. 

   would the 1tb drive be ok to use as a main c:drive?

6. 

   Yes, it will work fine as the primary drive in a computer. It’s a standard hard drive.

7. 

   I have a slightly different problem. I accidently plugged the 19v power to my WD My Book 1tb external drive and now it won’t start at all. Could there be a blown fuse that I can replace? I like to open it up using your method above it solving the problem is simply replacing the fuse. Thanks much.

8. 

   A co-worker broke the USB tab. So I got it all open and maybe it could be soldered back on… But I told her it would be easy to buy a new external shell, they are like 50-75 bucks. Her drive is 500Mb and looks like the one in the pictures above.

   Good work!

9. 

   Well, I went through all of the trouble to open my “My Book”: 160 GB Essential Edition and got it open, to find that my hard drive is not the same as a “regular” hard drive! It doesn’t have prongs to connect to an IDE cable. It has gold colored slide points! So this must be a newer My Book Essential.

10. 

    Disregard last post! I didn’t realize that the gold sliding contact points are SATA connectors. DA! I’ll just have to purchase a SATA connector.

11. 

    Just another word of thanks for this write-up (I posted #39 above). The directions worked like a champ, though it took me a bit to realise that the credit cards needed to be slipped into the center of the back of the case to release the catches, not the top. My fault.

    FWIW, the drive was indeed dead, couldn’t recover anything using a USBSATA adapter but on the bright side Costco accepted the return with no hassle and I was able to repurchase the same drive for $60 less than I paid in September 2008!

12. 

    Hi,

    Thanks for the info here. I’m nearing to get my WD My Book Essentials 1TB opened. I just bought it last Jan. 7, 2007. I was able to backup all my files (all 700+ gig of hard work!). The drive was working fine until I reformatted my computer this week. After I connected the drive to my usb port, it’s no longer recognized. All my other usb devices work just fine. I tried plugging the My Book on 3 other computers and a laptop, used different power cord (plugged on a wall outlet like they said), used different usb cables, but to no avail.

    When plugged on a well outlet, the bottom led light was on. Is this just in a standby mode?…or my drive is dead already?

    Can anybody please help?!

    Thanks

13. 

    thanks for the how to, this thing is b!tch to open, but I got it, I have the 750gb mybook, got it since July 2008, only half year, the drive is good inside, I put it to my external sata usb case works good, the bad WD case sucks, I guess its bad stuff, quality is not good. WD is doing a advance replacement, I will back up my stuff to the new drive they send me, I just hope the new one don’t fall like this one.

14. 

    Excellent guide but here is my issue, i have a feeling that the power adaptor broke and its not giving any power to the case.
    This is what happens, when i plug in the FW800 cable the led gives just one blink and nothing occurs.
    1. Do you have any idea how can i check if its the power adaptor or anything else?
    2. Is there any idea how to wipe out my stuff from the drive before sending it in?

    1. 

       Hello George! Normally if u send your drive to the service center, its possible that some nosy person might try and recover your data using certain recovery softwares. To Prevent this, you need to clean wipe your drive first. This erases any data that remains on your sectors.
       What you can do is use a software like “Kill Disk” to hard remove all the data. The name might sound crazy but i have tried and tested it and it works perfect..So, google “kill disk” and get the software. FYI, its a freeware so don’t worry. Don’t judge the software by its name. Its kewl….cheers
       PS: Alternate softwares may be available, but ive tested this one. 🙂

15. 

    To check the power adapter, use a multimeter to see if it is producing power or not. Or find a device that takes the same voltage/current and see if the adapter will power it.

    To wipe the drive, remove it from the case and attach it to a computer that has a SATA port, or get an SATA-to-USB adapter.

16. 

    All of you rock. Here is what happened to my 500gb Mybook Home…I plugged in my toshiba laptop power cord by mistake, and I didnt realize it.It was working good for some time, but then all of a sudden the lights get into a fit. it started blinking like crazy. I was like..what? Suddenly i realized that, and i unplugged it immediately.I then fetched the proper power cords, but unfortunately,since the laptop cord was also lying on the table, I plugged in the toshiba cord again for the second time.Shit happens.After that i never saw the lights.Could only smell the burnt plastic, or rubber or whatever fancy thing WD put in there.
    I still cant open the case. I tried to depress the case, but little pressure wouldnt move it, and a little extra pressure broke both the clips. I hope it works fine with the desktop. I really need this thing to work.
    if somebody could post a video on youtube or something, i’ed worship that guy.
    Thanks.

    1. 

       rhon,

       As hard as it is to admit, I did the exact same thing this morning. I connected mt Toshiba laptop cord to the WD 500GB My Book hard drive. It won’t power up at all now. Anyone have any suggestions for recovering the data or getting the HD working again?

    2. 

       What a great guide.I’m afraid i did the same as you,plugging the wrong power cord and when i finally opened my unit and got the HD, it didn’t worked.I’ve tested it into other external boxes and it’s seems dead.I hopped the only broken thing was the internal board but i was wrong…
       I’m still trying to make it work.Any help?

    3. 

       At the end I found what’s wrong!!! I opened the unit and found that the HD logic board had a burned condenser. I bought a second unit(My Book essential 1Tb) but the HD inside was 32MB buffer instead of 8MB(The one i broked).Nevertheless I tried the 32MB logic board on the broken HD and the unit got alive (spinning and lights on) but my system couldn’t mount the HD (using linux).I’m almost sure that if I could have the same HD model,it would be possible to read the HD as if It was new.So if anyone plugs the unit with more than 12V (i did with 20V) The unit board survives(I’ve checked)but not the HD logic board.Hope my litle adventure helps anyone.I was about to repair it when i finally got upset an gave up.

17. 

    I have a 500 gig World Edition and the internal power switch broke. does anyone know if there is a way that I can either buy a new switch or make one of my own? I don’t have the switch anymore so I can’t just try to reproduce it. IF someone has some picture of it though I might be able to. anyway, any help here would be awesome,
    thanks in advance!

18. 

    Todd you might just be lucky..I opened my 500gb WD Mybook Home edition. I had to…I’ll send you the links of how to open it, as i took pics and made a DIY video. Hope it helps.

    http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/4452/22716184ye6.jpg
    http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/5034/64439772we4.jpg
    http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/6515/65483536zu0.jpg
    http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5215/70434080qs0.jpg

    I can send you the pic of anyother part…inside out.

    …i’ll link the video after i upload it

    1. 

       rhonchamo can you please post the link to the DIY Video you made. It would help me open my case for my WD 500 Gig USB MyBook

    2. 

       Hey Jason, the link is here…its not the best video, but it will definitely give u an idea..Cheers

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2PnLRVeMxI
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2PnLRVeMxI

19. 

    Does anyone know the power consumption of the drive?
    I left my power supply at my parents, picked up it the next time I went over, set it down, and now its gone. Things seem to disappear in their house with no knowledge of their existence! Anyway, does anyone know if I can use a aftermarket power supply to power the enclosure and what the mA consumption rate and voltage are so that I don’t fry it!
    Thanks
    Andy

    1. 

       Andy, I have the 1TB Studio edition. It uses a 1.5A 12V adapter.

       They seem to be a bit fragile: mine sizzled and died the first time I connected the MyBook using eSATA. Had to buy a new (generic) one and solder the plug on it.

       cheers,

20. 

    TODD:
    I would unsolder it and take it to Radio Shack and look for a comparable switch, then solder it back in.

21. 

    Thanks. I wanted to remove the drive and pop it into my desktop for better transfer speeds. This guide worked perfectly!

22. 

    Thanks for these instructions, they worked perfectly. Looks like you had no problem stepping the drive size down, I’d like to step mine up.

    My question is on a WD MyBook Premium ES 500GB (WD5000F032). Has anyone upgraded this to a 1TB drive, if so, will any 1TB SATA drive work?

    I’m considering this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

    Thanks for any help.

23. 

    Hiya guys, i have the 1TB my book got it arround christmas 2008, has worked fine had no problems took it to a mate plugged it in fine, annother mate borrowed it but he didnt plug it in coz he forgot the cable just got it back now plugged it in and the blue light on the front is intermittently flashing and it just will not power up! do u think i should buy a new cable or take it apart and see if i can see anything wrong with it? dont really want to take it apart but wondered if anyone had the same type of problems and could help? thanks in advance.

24. 

    Carlton, Thanks for this effort. I was able to remove the HD (a WD-Green 1TB-WD10EACS) with some effort. The Credit Cards were a necessity and sliding them to the center of the drive did the trick.

    1. 

       MacDoc: purchase a SATA-to-USB adapter (about $15), remove the drive from the case, attach it to your computer, done. Or purchase a SATA external enclosure to replace the broken Western Digital enclosure ($40). NewEgg.com has a large selection of both.

25. 

    Great tip to open up the case. I never thought I can open it. I have a 1 TB MyBook. I want to put it in my PC as a secondary internal hard drive because my PC won’t recognized it externally while it lights up and spins. I need the data! Do I need to use a junper shunt on the WD hard drive besides the SATA?
    Thanks!

    1. 

       Nope, no jumpers for SATA drives.

26. 

    Hi,
    no luck. I got the mybook open, it spins and lights up. I connected my external WD mybook 1 TB to my mother board as a secondary to wipe data by a SATA cable. My computer won’t recognize any hard drive, including my primary one, after the connection – no hard drive detected at all. I tried to switch my primary to WD Mybook, won’t recognize either. Any suggestion?
    Thanks!
    William

    1. 

       Did you got a solution for this issue?
       My WD 1TB worked fine until I plugged the cable to its 1394 port and the HDD is now no longer detected at all.

27. 

    Hi,
    Sorry, correction, I was in a hurry. should have been ripping/transferring data from my WD to my regular hard drive. My computer just won’t detect it – even from BIOS, the set up screen.
    Thanks!
    William

28. 

    can this drive be added to a laptop? Toshiba Satellite preferably….

    1. 

       Not internally. But it can be added externally via an eSATA port (rare on laptops) or a USB-to-SATA adapter (costs about $15.)

29. 

    The instructions didn’t work as well with my Studio Edition T1 drive. There were two more tabs in the unit’s top in approximately the same location, by not as easily found. I just kept poking until the case opened.

    The MyBook unit died when plugged into a dubious FireWire port on my 800 MHz G4 Flat Panel iMac. (This has happened before, so I should block that port.) After plugging in and turning on, the MyBook LED lit once, then went black.

30. 

    Hi

    My brother plugged in a wrong adapter in the HD.
    When I plug in the normal adapter, the blue light starts to flick but I don’t here the HD spinning.

    I removed the HD from the enclosure and plugged it in a Sata-to-USB adapter but the drive doesn’t spin.
    What could be the problem?

31. 

    Hi,

    thanks for the instructions, they worked (almost) perfectly fine for me (had a hard time with the credit card and one of the little pads broke).

    Unfortunately, even after shunting the pins to get my WD My book 500Go to 1.5GB/s it still freezes the computer after a couple sec running… I guess my old Asus K8N MB is really not wanting to get this external drive running in eSATA mode… too bad, I’ll continue using it with USB 🙁

    One question though: After rebuilding the case back to normal, the ON/OFF button does not seem to work properly any more (seems to be blocked in the “pressed” position). Any idea about this?

    thanks,

    1. 

       Sounds like a mis-assembly issue. Something isn’t aligned properly.

    2. 

       David,
       A short internal SATA cable in MyBook to bypass firmware might ‘convert’ your drive to an eSATA-only 1.5GB/s version. I have same situ w/ 1TB MyBook Home Ed, Mar-09. (Your attempt helped me discern further how to work around this issue. So thanks for writing! And thank you Carlton for the site and getting to the detils in those photos!)
       My mb from 2005 having Intel chipset ICH5 is part of family (ICH5,-6,-7) only supporting SATA at 1.5GB/s
       Intel told me these chips don’t negotiate speed w/
       SATA II. Thought I’d be stuck using only USB
       until this idea came…
       Open case, add jumper as you did to ‘lock’ 1.5GB/s rate and bypass firmware altogether with a new, short SATA cable w/ SATA conn. to drive running to eSATA port in MyBook case LED won’t work of course, but at least you’d have enclosure with basically an internal SATA drive, using WD’s OPT1 SATA fix.

       Others can find WD advice in Knowledge Base #1461 contradicting MyBook design for this SATA issue. And can also find a poorly-covered warning in WD KnwBase #1337. VIA & SIS chipsets are mentioned but not Intel. And the good Lord knows who else. Hope this helps anyone. I may end up doing this bypass if vendor won’t exchange mine, still new but past 60 days.

       Intel link for chipset family features:
       http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-026615.htm

       May God bless us with righteousness in mfrg. and compatibility forewarnings. I feel bad for all of us who have had to suffer these problems. As in Ephesians 4:31-32 it’s really hard, but let’s try not to be indignant? esp. in language in forums. You have my prayers, at least. And up till now, was very satisfied w/ 2 WD internals, 4 years running fine.
       Going external, they seem to have really stumbled.

    3. 

       @Carlton:
       yes, this is what I guessed. As it is working fine like this, I will leave it untouched though, as I don’t want to open the beast too often :p

       @James: My pleasure if my comment helped you, I’d be happy to try your solution, which would work fine I’m sure, but I also often plug my MyBook on my laptop which only has USB ports, and if I bypass the software, I will not be able to use USB any more, so you comment basically confirms that I am stuck with USB for now :p It’s ok though, I have had it like this long enough and am quite used to the speed…

32. 

    thank you carlton

    my USB connection of the circuit was off

    i hope to found a replacement

33. 

    Thanks for the instructions. Great blog.

    Just a note to everyone, This model of MyBook uses a Oxford OXUF934DSB chip inside for serial bridges. I recently messed up my MyBook with a firmware upgrade from WD and have been looking for a firmware unloader from Oxford semiconductors (currently PLX) The firmware update tool from Western digital is piece of work. It’s just a wrapper UI tool to use the Oxford API.
    The problem really is with the tool WD developed to use Oxford API framework. WD tool was written by a lousy developer apparently. It’s a shame when you see a big company like WD hire armature to write big releases like this. That one/few developers must have cost the company WD millions in MyBook returns, customer support hours and eventually bad reputation for software updates

34. 

    My WD Mybook 500G went kerplunk. Using your guidelines, i got the case opened (slightly different than yours). Must have been the onboard PCB, which I removed, because I obtained a SATA-USB converter; the HD spun right up and no data lost. I’m using it on a daily basis. Thanks!!

35. 

    Hey just wondering does this void the warranty???

36. 

    How can I acquire a replacement power supply circuit board? When I plugged in the hard drive unit using the transformer and the USB, there was no blue light to indicate the unit was working and was not read by the computer. I tested out the transformer with my other HD (identical) and it works fine. Please advice.

    I have sensitive information on the HD therefore I can not send it in. I have already removed the Hard Drive from the enclosure and separated the power supply board.

    WD My Book Home Essential 1 TB Ext HD

    Thanks

    1. 

       Too much trouble in my opinion to replace the broken parts. Either install the drive inside a desktop computer with an internal STAT port, get an external STAT-to-USB adapter, or buy an external enclosure and get your data off. Then reassemble the whole thing and send it back to WD.

37. 

    Thanks Dude!

38. 

    Hey Carlton thanks for the guide! Worked great and got the drive out. I am still trying to figure out if something is wrong with my HD or the circuit board. I plugged the HD into several computers with either the circuit board or an eSATA to USB cable. The comps recognize the drive but after that there is no drive shown in my computer even though it is still spinning. I tried to reset the circuit board but didnt really know how. I located the prongs (J6), do i just use a screwdriver to touch both at the same time? please advise. thanks!

    1. 

       Sounds like a bad drive. You should see it when using an external USB-to-SATA converter. You shouldn’t have to short the jumper prongs, but a screwdriver would work.

39. 

    ok so I opened the casing.

    1) I tried connecting the hard disk to a desktop using SATA cables…The computer wont start.

    2) I bought another hard disk casing from a third party. It blew again..u know, the smell. So i went back to the shop and told them it wasn’t working ;)..Luckily they gave me another one. The same thing happened to this one too.

    3) I called up some data recovery companies, since i now suspect that its a physical damage..Too expensive..More than 10 times the cost of the hard disk..So its crazy.

    4)….Somebody has got to help me out. I have all my pics in there.Pics taken over 10 years..

    1. 

       Have you tried purchasing a USB docking port for a HDD, I’m in the UK but bought on t in the equivilant of radio shack (maplin over here). Pretty simple device which ou can just swap in and out HDD’s at your leisure.
       http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=222999

    2. 

       Well I believe i just backed mine up its very difficult.

40. 

    Hi,
    I just wanted to thank you because of the tutorial.
    I had a ridiculous problem. I had a power outage and after that my PC couldn’t recognize the external 1 TB WD My Book and it kept saying “Unrecognized USB device”.
    So I opened up HDD’s case and as you mentioned above about J6 jumper (although in my circuit it was J9 and there weren’t any pins connected) so I just connected two spots with my screw driver for a couple of seconds and checked my HDD and it worked!
    Thanks again, you really saved my 8 months of work!