Cannot recover data from WD MyBook without original enclosure, right? Re: 256 Bit Encryption

Long story short, my 2TB WD MyBook Studio LX quit mounting on my Mac.  After trying new cords and different computers I decided to remove the hard drive from the enclosure and try to connect it via a USB hard drive reader.  At this point my Mac at least recognized that a drive was present.  Although it displayed a message that said “This drive is unreadable by this computer.” and gave me the option to eject or initialize.  I initialized it and it appeared in my Disk Utility.  I couldn’t actually select the drive to verify or repair, but it was at least showing up as something.  The drive was also being recoginzed by Data Rescue III, and I let that run for about 2 days.  It looked like it was pulling a bunch of files, but in the end the only files actually recovered were the original Western Digital Documents on the drive when I bought it.  

Meanwhile, I sent the drive to a Data Recovery company and they’re telling me that they cannot access the drive without my original enclosure.  Unfortunately, I assumed that enclosure was trash and I threw it away.  They’re saying they need the original enclosure because the 256 Bit Encryption is stored on that interface.

Help me!  Can anyone offer please any other possible solutions.  It’s 2TB’s of my life I’d like back!

Thanks!

About the only hope is to try and find a repalcement board on Ebay but that will be hard without numbers to match up. Try sending a PM to fzabkar he knows the most about the boards used in these maybe he can help.

Joe

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Hey Joe, 

Thanks for the tip.  I’ll try to contact fzabkar.

Any update on this anyone?  I am having the same issue.  I was able to recover only WD manual files but not my data files.  Does ordering the board replacement do the trick to recover the data or no?  Also, could you please post here if there is a resolution to this issue.

Thank you so much.

I am in the same boat, but I had a slightly different experience, my usb port on the circuit board broke off, does anyone know if there is anything I can do about fixing that? I need this data very badly.

Thanks!

You might try getting an electronics repair place to solder on a new port. In posts by fzabkar he mentioned you might have better luck resoldering using fine wire rather thansoldering directly to the board like it was originally. If that doesn’t work looking for a replacement board is about all that’s left.

Joe