WD MyBook Studio : when is the gauge displayed?

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

I fear that my MyBook Studio (1 TB) is dead, because the display doesn’t show anything anymore (except the label, which is also displayed when turned off). But to diagnose this I need to know : on your drive, when does it display the gauge : 

  • when it is started (i.e. a few seconds after it has been powered on) OR

  • when it is connected to a computer ?

Thanks for your help !

2

Hi there, ignoring the label were you able to check if the drive spins or is on disk utility (Go> Utilities> Disk Utility)?

3

Hi Toto,

I guess I’m in the same boat as you. The drive name is displayed on the LCD screen like normal but the drive gauge indicator isn’t visible. I was able to get back the indicator when I reformatted using Bootcamp to make the drive NTFS, but reformatting it back to HFS+ for use with Mac OS X reverted the screen to its previous name-only display.

I also ran the quick test under Windows using USB and found out that the drive fails every time. I’m not sure what to do with the drive (since its just been emptied) but I might RMA it or crack it open and see if its the enclosure that’s screwed up or the drive itself. Of course I’d rather go with the RMA but I don’t know if my drive is still covered since I lost all documentation of the purchase.

I’d recommend you go run SmartWare under Windows and possible update the firmware to the latest one (as long as your drive is empty). Other than that, I’m somewhat positive that it’s a lost cause.

Oh, regarding the LCD info visibility I’m quite sure that the name and capacity gauge should always be visible even when the drive is disconnected from any power source or from your computer. At least that’s what I’ve seen from my company’s hard drive media/backup vault - all 50+ of them have the name and capacity gauge visible even when in storage.

JQ