I recently needed to removed the drive from a Western Digital My Book External USB/eSATA drive enclosure. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an obvious process and this excellent article by Scott Cramer didn’t apply to the newer version (1 TB drive) enclosure I have. So here you go, the steps required to disassemble a new-style Western Digital My Book drive enclosure.
1. Locate the two rubber pads on the bottom of the enclosure near the front, curved surface. Remove these two pads. Depress the two tabs below using a small flat-head screwdriver.
1a. With a couple of credit cards, pry the back edge of the casing apart and hold them open with the credit cards. There are some locking mechanisms there that need to be held apart. You can now slide the plastic casings apart. Note that it is easier to lift the round corners of the case and pop it out of the retainers than it is to slide it off due to the very tight fit of the sliding components.
2. Slide the clear plastic LED front panel conduit forward and remove.
3. Rotate the hard drive/carrier assembly sideways and then lift away from the case
4. Remove the two screws holding the metal connector casing. Slide it upwards and remove it
5. Slide the circuit board upwards (away from the drive), just like you did for the metal casing.
6. Remove the 4 screws holding the hard drive to the metal carrier. You’ll see that it is a standard 3.5″ desktop SATA drive.
You’re done!
Repeat the steps in reverse order to re-assemble the enclosure.
Getting Your Data Off of the Drive
In most cases, the circuit board inside the enclosure is the cause of the failure and the drive itself is fine. The drive is a standard 3.5-inch SATA drive and easiest way to get your data off is to use a SATA-to-USB adapter dock, such as this Thermaltake Dock at Amazon.com.
Thermaltake BlacX eSATA USB Docking Station
In many cases, all you need to do is connect the drive to a computer using a new dock and your data is immediately available. If it’s not, here are some suggestions:
- Test the drive using the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool
- Use data recovery software:
- Use TestDisk to repair damaged partition tables.
- Purchase the Runtime.org GetDataBack data recovery software (free demo available)
- If you’re a Linux guru and have an empty spare drive on which to copy data, you can try using the SystemRescue bootable Linux CD and Antonio Diaz’s ddrescue command line program.
- Send the drive a professional data recovery specialist, such as DTI.
Video showing How to Opening the Case
Protect your data with offsite backups:
If you are looking for an even more robust backup solution, I highly recommend using an online backup service. If your hard drive fails, or in case of a catastrophic event (fire, theft), there is still a secure copy of your data. I’ve had great experiences with CrashPlan.com Offsite Backup, which allows you to backup files between your own computers for free, and gives unlimited unlimited offsite storage on their servers for $3.00/Month.
To Install a Different SATA Drive in the Original Western Digital Enclosure:
In many cases, the enclosure is probably what is failed. But if you’re sure it,s working, you can replace the original drive with a different drive. For example, I replaced the 1TB drive with a 200GB drive. I didn’t have to do anything special, I just put the new drive in the enclosure, plugged everything in, and it worked.
However, a few people have had with the enclosure recognizing the new drive. If you do, try this:
(thanks Fisslefink) The onboard chipset memory of the MyBook Studio needed to be reset. When you remove the metal shielding, you see the circuit board and all of the different components. One of them is two metal prongs, an empty jumper (J6, may be different on your board), sticking out of the circuit board, near the DC power input. By shorting those jumper pins together with a metal screwdriver for 2 seconds (with the drive OFF and the power cord REMOVED!), the board will reset so it can recognize the new drive.
For what it’s worth, if your drive supports slower SATA operation, you can use a traditional jumper shunt (those darn little black things that get lost all the time!) to connect the jumpers at OPT1 on the 250GB drive itself. This switches it from the faster “SATA 2” 3.0GB/s transfer rate to the slower 1.5GB/s rate, with which the enclosure chipset may be more compatible.
Cheers. I swapped out my 320GB for a 1TB drive in 10 minutes!
I just wanted to give you my heartfelt THANKS!! I ordered the docking station and it came today. My son opened the My Book without a hitch and I recovered all my files and it’s put back together. It worked like a charm! God Bless You! Have a very Merry Christmas and thanks again for having your site up to help all of us out here who wouldn’t have a clue as what to do without you!
My 2-year-old turned our HD into a piggy bank, so I had to remove the cover to get some change out.
The instructions are good, but it seems the enclosure was not designed to be opened, so it is difficult.
Thanks for the step-by-step!
Just to express my thanks for these.
I just successfully opened up my WD (1T)
The WD case is beautiful, but the PSU sucks.
Mine just not power up.
AWESOME !!! I was looking for this for 2 Hrs…. Thanks for making this video 😉
I broke the clips so guess the only was is to use a hammer next.
great instruction video – although it still requires some fiddling with the credit cards – replaced my 1TB with a Hitachi 2T – works perfectly :-))
you saved my life! well all my photos and music i’ve been collecting for 5 years.
Thank you so much!
Quick question, I dropped my WD external drive and broke the power/data ports. I ordered a new Connectland 3.5 enclosure thinking I could plug and play…it now wants me to reformat the HD (b/c of the new enclosure + drivers).
Can I avoid this step somehow? If I pull old HDs out of computers and tried to plug into this same case will it require the same??
Is the dock a better solution to my problem? I just want the 1TB drive to function again, wont be swapping it out alot.
Thanks!
You shouldn’t have to reformat the drive just because you switched enclosures. The external dock shouldn’t make any difference. Perhaps the drive was damaged in the fall? That’s the only reason I can think of. Don’t reformat; try data recovery instead.
thanks so much! I live in a town called Carlton, cool huh?
That’s awesome – didn’t know one existed! Unfortunately, no relation. . .
Can someone tell me where I can buy a new circuit board for this drive as my USB port damaged in an accident cheers
I did the test, the drive came back fine- thats a relief.
I need my resume off the drive like yesterday, so i ordered the Thermaltake to access the info while i figure out why the drive wants to be formatted all of a sudden. Worse comes to worse, I’ll pull the data off, reformat then put back on. Thanks for all you help, your tutuorial was direct and to the point.
I dropped my 1tb western digital mybook..when I go to the external harddrive icon on my computer..everything shows up but it takes forever to show up or load..all my artowrk is on this..I just bought a new ext hard drive the same exact one.is there a way to get all the files on this new one faster? Its taking forever and I am scared to go to sleep. And wake up and nothing be on the one I dropped..help please. Tiffany
Thanks – opened case and saved drive inside.
This was 3rd failure of an external USB HD in 3 years. I have to start thinking of these as perishables. Last 2 (Maxtor OneTouch and another MyBook) went into the trash because I didn’t know how to extract the drive inside. This drive is purring nicely in a Kingwin EZ Dock 2.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121049&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-External+Enclosure-_-Kingwin+Inc.-_-17121049
Doug
Strange, my case does not want to open after all instructions being used… it simply does not slide. the clips are pressed and they seem to be in a good position to open the case. it is simply impossible to slide it out. any more ideas? wd hdd belongs to my brother, wouldnt like to break it 😉
p.s. i have a silver 1 TB WD MB Studio Edition.
Thanks, I managed to remove the defective 1tb hard drive and replace it with 500gb.
I would suggest not to depress the two tabs too much. Mine got broken, but it doesn’t matter.
My MyBook Studio is 1tb silver, is it possible to put 2tb or 3tb?
You can definitely add up to a 2 TB drive that is not advanced format. However, I’m not sure about the newer Advanced Format drives, which most of the newer (Western Digital EARS series) drives are. So until someone confirms, I can’t say if the newer 2TB and 3TB Advanced Format drives are compatible or not.
Wow that was easy. Now need to dock it and see if I can get my data back. Thanks.
i am happy you managed to open it. i truly believe it is possible, but why the hell mine is so tight… not a milimeter of movement with a quite a lot of force used. next time i get to that box i’m gonna use “i’m da maker – i’m da braker” system. 😀
Thank u sooooo much for this! My MyBook failed last year, and have been wondering what to do with it next, so will give this a go tonight.
Just a question… has anyone maybe tried to reset the chip (as described above) as to see whether the hdd comes alive again? My MyBook packed up after (rather stupidly) plugging it into a macbook (i use windows), and i think it corrupted something somewhere…so was just hoping maybe a reset will fix this?
Anyway, thanks again for this..
I don’t think shorting the jumper does anything, but you can give it a try.
Hi,
Thanks so much for the opening tip. I can now try to retrive my data through another PC connection. Appreciate it Frank
I have WD10000H1NC-00 Western Digtal network drive, i change my hard drive from 1 Tb to 512 GB, but the drive does not detect please help.
Hi,
Has anyone tried if this works with a new My Book Essential 3TB USB 3.0 enclosure unit?
Model # WDBACW0030HBK Made in Thailand 2 yr warranty.
It seems to have a bad power board inside the enclosure.
I let it rest, and plug it in and then I can read the drive on my Win XP machine for maybe 3 minutes, and then copy 1 or 2 files until it just sits there and won’t do anything.
I want to open it and put the drive into a thermaltake.
Is the 3TB a sata drive? it must be huh? does it need the enclosure and/or usb 3.0 in order for XP to see the entire 3tb as it did out of the box?
Yikes. Starting to lose faith in WD, like I have with Seagate the past 5 years. Who is left to buy/use?
XP 32-bit can’t access a 3tb partition; 2tb is the limit for xp. Vista or Win 7 and GPT partition table is required for anything above 2Tb. USB 3.0 isn’t required, but an advanced format compatible controller in the enclosure is.
Does anyone have any experience with the newer USB 3.0 My Book? I removed the HDD fine, it was similar enough to Carlton’s instructions. But the drive itself seems to have hardware encryption to prevent it from being used outside of the WD enclosure. Putting it in another enclosure or a PC SATA connection, it shows up as having no files or partitions. It works fine once you put it back in the WD enclosure.
Does anyone know how to defeat this? It’s terrible, what do they expect users to do when the WD enclosure fails?
Jay, I think what you are experiencing is a drive that is encrypted by the enclosure. It should be a standard drive, but it is encrypted by the enclosure. The only way to use the drive outside the enclosure is to reformat it. The enclosure most likely will auto-encrypt any drive placed into it, requiring a reformat to function properly. BTW, I should mention that I haven’t verified this as I don’t have one of these enclosures, so please provide verification if you something.
Thanks so much for this! It was a big help! I have a Western Digital My Book (500 gigs)that we use for our Wii to store games on. While transferring data from our pc to the My Book, the usb port snapped clean off. We bought another one – same model except it is 1 TB. I swapped out the hard drives, but neither my pc nor my Wii will recognize it. Any suggestions, anyone? I was hoping to be able to recover my data easily going this route, but it’s not looking like that is the case.
Dana, it could be that there is hardware encryption that is specific to each enclosure and can only be read when connected to the original enclosure. You could try the external Thermaltak Dock to confirm, but you are likely to get the same result.
I wonder if you might be able to give me guidance on my failed 1TB WD My Book Essential Edition 2.0
Using Windows XP Professional version 5.1 with Service Pack 3
The drive is being identified in Device Manager as WD 10EAVS External USB Device, but I don’t know if that is coming from the controller or the drive itself.
The drive is not being identified in Disk Management, i.e., no drive letter is being assigned.
Can you tell if this sounds like a controller or drive failure? Is this a candidate for the Thermaltake dock?
Thanks so much for any guidance you can offer!
Brian, it sounds like a drive failure, but there is no way to know for certain until you test the drive and enclosure separately.
Thanks for your advice … I was unable to find a Thermaltake here in Canada, but found a LANTEC NexStar STAT dock at BestBuy and it worked like a charm.
It took me a while to get the case open, but I was able to do so finally without breaking anything, I think … the tabs were not at all cooperative.
I bought a replacement drive, though it was a WD10EARS 64MB Cache in place of the WD10EAVS 8MB Cache of the original.
Software was unable to recover anything for me from either routine or more intense scanning of the drive, so I’ll have to decide on a data recovery service to which to send it.
Thanks again for your advice and for the information you’ve provided here. 🙂
Thanks for the great writeup and pics. It made opening the case relatively easy. I replaced the WD 750GB drive with a Samsung 2TB drive. I reinstalled the drivers, but I keep getting a device cannot start (code 10) error. I’m using XP pro. Any ideas?
Dael, sorry, I’m not familiar with that error message. It sounds like the drive and enclosure are incompatible. You should try testing the drive outside the enclosure (connected directly to a desktop computer SATA controller or another external controller.)
Thanks for your help. I did some research and found that the drives in the MyBook are “green” drives that run at low power. My Samsung drives aren’t, so I put the 2TB Samsung in my desktop and the 1TB green WD I had in the desktop into the MyBook enclosure. It all works great now. Thanks again.
Hi,
Any idea if the BlacX Docking Station will work on my Western Digital 2TB My Book World Edition?
I’m hoping that it’s not incrypted like some of the messages on here.
I take it that the opening procedure will be the same.
This is my drive
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=300
Thanks.
John, yes, it should work fine.
Hi Carlton, thanks for your reply
Today I was told by WD support that the drive is in a Linux format so unreadable by a standard windows machine.
I have already ordered a BlacX Docking Station hoping to retrieve my data but now worried that I may not be able to use it now.
You however have said that it should work so I will hold my thumbs & wait & see
Thanks
Hi there,
thank you very much for this tutorial. I bought a WD My Book Studio without HD. I tried to use my own new Hitachi 1TB but it didn´t work. And the enclosure seems to be not ok because it doesn´t work sometimes. Is it normal?
I left it 4 days without power and on the 5th day i got it work again. But now it seems to be dead. Is there anything that i could do or test?
Thank you =)
Thanks for the tips. Worked perfectly.
Strange things here.
My 750 GB drive doesn’t power up properly in this enclosure, so I removed it and put it in an external docking station and all is fine except that my iMac recognizes it as a generic drive. I put a 200 GB Seagate drive in the enclosure and it works fine but my computer recognizes it as a WD drive rather than a Seagate.
I repeated with the original in the enclosure and same problem as before, then repeated with the Seagate and it works fine again.
I am thinking that these enclosures are just not providing enough power to spin up the larger drives. And that is why the drives are still usable once placed in another enclosure.
My WesterDigital External hard drive was knocked off the table onto the floor and now when accessed it requests that “The drive is formatted before use”. I have ran the Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics – DLGDIAG for Windows
and the results are as follows:
Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WD 10EAVS External
Unit Serial Number: WCAU44618487
Firmware Number: 1.75
Capacity: 1000.20 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 06-Quick Test on drive 2 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 97 (Unknown Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 2!
Test Time: 10:45:57, July 01, 2011
I have around 750GB of old photo’s, music, film and educational files of which I had backed up on a tower computer both have failed in the last 2 days. ARGGHHH,
Does this mean that the board attached to the drive is the problem or that the hard drive is and if this is the case how does your unit access it as there must be several types of connectors (both my hard drives have different types, your advice would be very much appreciated.
Thankyou
John skelhorn
You should try removing the drive from the WD enclosure and installing it in your PC. If it still cannot be read then you should try a data recovery program. Plenty of good ones out there for free.
If your drive was running when dropped, one of the sectors might have been damaged. But you should still be able to recover your data even in a worst case scenario.
Thanks. I had an old WDH1CS5000 from Costco that stopped working about a year ago. I happened to have a few old 300G WD drives no longer in use and needed to take a backup of my wife’s laptop prior to upgrading her OS and applications.
The presence of the video made all the difference — I was able to replace the WD5000AAVS drive in <5 minutes.
Cheers
Thanks kindly. That is very helpful.
As my WD My Book Case usb connector in the circuit board was damaged, I opened the case and connected it to the pc with a sata connector. But the problem is that it shows only as unallocated disk space in the disk management. What can I do to get my data back or to make it work. Please help.
Mani, it could be that the drive is encrypted. The only way to get the data back would be to put it in an identical Western Digital enclosure. So, buy an identical external drive, remove the drive from the new enclosure, install the new drive.
Your hard drive could also be damaged, in which case using the data recovery software listed in the article may help.
Thanks for this tutorial. I didn’t realize that the newer version of enclosure has those tabs hidden under the rubber feet on the bottom (Step 1) and I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get the enclosure off after prying open the rest of the casing edges. Thanks again! 🙂
Thanks. I had problems sliding the plastic casings apart, though the two locks (beneath the rubber parts) were pushed aside.
However… the controller+enclosure seemed to be broken and that was the reason I had to take it apart. And so I had the case bent up by a screwdriver. I placed the WD-drive in a new disk enclosure. Yay!
Thanks for the info, it was reassuring that I could pull off the cover without messing the whole thing up after my husband accidentally dropped the thing on the floor and it would not power on. The bonus is that it is now working, albeit without a cover.
Did anyone try put into a new 3TB disk?
So Hey Everyone, so has anyone used this method with the WD My Book Essential 1 TB External hard drive??? I recently bought the “CRock of Sh*t”(R0CK3T F!SH)from BestBY, to be able to access my data from the firmware lock on it, and was displease to see that my drives were never visible. I know the drives are there and this unit is in no way corrupted. So I FINALLY see this site where it looks like this process could help get to my files….Anyone know if this will be possible with the ThermalTake Dock??
So Hey Everyone, so has anyone used this method with the WD My Book Essential 1 TB External hard drive??? I recently bought the “CRock of Sh*t”; I mean (R0CK3T F!SH)from BestBY, to be able to access my data from the firmware lock on it, and was displease to see that my drives were never visible. I know the drives are there and this unit is in no way corrupted. So I FINALLY see this site where it looks like this process could help get to my files….Anyone know if this will be possible with the ThermalTake Dock??
HiCarlton,
Thank you for the information. I replaced the USB connector in the board and now its working fine. I also had to repair the partition table using testdisk software as I have tried to connect the hard disk with another sata connector and it showed unallocated disk.