My Book 1TB Essential - Broken USB Port?

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

 Hey

I Got a WD My Book Essential 1TB, And The Micro usb Port is Broke - and it’s off The board and i Can Hear that’s falled in the board.

Is There Any Way To Fix That, or At Least Get The Info From The HD? (and i still got the warranty, if thats can help)

2

Look for the posts by Fzabkar or send him a PM he is the only one that understands these circuit boards and might be able to help. Somebody else posted the same this week about broken port. If you open the drive without premission you void the warranty. Some of these boards provide hardware encryption and the boards aren’t  simple to replace. A few have bought the same drive and swapped in enclosure and got lucky but most haven’t. They change the boards constantly.

Joe

3

i sent him a PM yesterday and he’s Still not Replayed

4

This is what I think.  If the five/four  USB connection tracks on the drive PCB are still intact, skilled technician with hit air rework station can replace your micro usb female socket. If the tracks are dislodged from original location, it will be next to impossible to repair your drive.

Schematics of the Passport PCB (Printed Circuit Board) in not published (WD Confidential Property) and PCB may equip with 3 or 4 layer board.

2 Likes
5

Well this is just a users forum people help when they have time.

Joe

6

@Mabkay

look, i will give you the kudos - because you really helped me with the explaining,

but how i can know if it disloged from original location, or is it still intact? i can hear the usb port is falled and it’s still in the hdd box… nothing can happen to the data if i give it to a skilled technician to fix it?

7

First read your warranty document if you need to seek possible warranty claim. Physically damaged HDD’s may not be covered by WD warranty. But to be sure, read it carefully. Sometimes, terms and conditions of this document change from state to state and country to country.

If you intend to claim warranty replacement now or in the future (if it covers) it is advisable to send your drive to WD approved data recovery agents (See WD support web) for drive repair. They don’t need to technically recover your data – so they shouldn’t charge you that much. Call or email them with full description of your issue. Then you’ll come to know this is possible or not.

It is also possible to seek help from a local skilled (well equipped) mobile phone repair guy to have a look on your drive PCB.

Look on YouTube for case opening. Be careful while opening as it is somewhat tricky. Don’t even think about touching drive PCB if you don’t have an antistatic work place. Synthetic carpeting & Air Conditioning make things worse.

I have done USB socket replacement before in several occasions but not on this particular drive model. (We don’t have that many (My Passports) in our country nor do we have any WD agent)

Hint: Nokia N97, 97mini and many newer units have almost identical socket. These parts are freely available on mobile spare parts market.

Good Luck…

8

Hey Dj,

I had that exact same thing happen to me this morning! You can get the case open…it’s quite easy…you need a file of some sort, not too sharp, not too thick, (I used a little nail file)…you don’t want to slip and slice something off. Turn it upside down, you can slide it along the edge and the back will pop off. You will then see where the port broke off from, that part can be unscrewed and removed to be replaced…all pretty simple!

Hope this helps!!

KK :slight_smile:

9

Would you be kind enough to post a image of your disassembled drive? And did you replaced the whole interface board?

10

i had the exact same prob and found no help, i actually posted a new post myself before finding this one, im looking to just replace the enclosure any sugestions?

11

It seems that WD has a BIG problem with this external HDD the USB port…I’ve had the same problem since the next day I buy it , the USB cable was moving all the time and I bite my hands everytime editing was failed because of interruptions :angry:  Today  I open it and I saw the disaster : the USB contacts are simply broken and I can’t do nothing to fix it ! I think it’s a fabrication error and the contacts are very fragile because of that . Now I need the interface board ( the one with USB and power conector ) . Do anybody know where can I find it ?     

12

They don’t sell the board separately they constantly change them. Take the board to an electronics repair person and see if they can solder on a new USB port. There is a slight chance buying an identical drive that the board may work. Look through the posts by fzabkar in one he explained about matching up numbers on the boards. Maybe you can find one on Ebay.

Joe

13

Thank you for your promptness …There are so tinny solders there I can barely saw them with a gemology 10x loupe ! How can someone  solder that manually ?!? I would’nt believe that could ever happen , I am so dissapointed . The item is only 2 months “older” and I was very satisfied in the first days , especially because of the absolute silence it’s made . Then , after only few days , the problems occurs with the cable , wich was unstable and moving all the time …Honestly , I will not buy another WD again , I have my last works there and I think to buy a docking to recover the material . Plus , in my country this cost me over $200 …  

14

There is no economical way to solder that port back to the circuit board.  You guys have to be kidding if you are seriously suggesting sending this to a repair company that would charge you 3 times what the drive is worth with no gaurentee that it will be as good as it was before.  I can’t believe no one from WD has helped to let their customers know this, but inside that crappy Taiwan-manufactured external hard drive case is a standard SATA harddrive that will fit in any desktop computer.  The easiest way to get your data back would be to take the drive out of the case, discard the flimsy circuit board with the USB connector, and plug it into a desktop computer.  It will make a fine internal drive, but it will no longer be portable, obviously.

15

Do_Japan wrote:

The easiest way to get your data back would be to take the drive out of the case, discard the flimsy circuit board with the USB connector, and plug it into a desktop computer.  It will make a fine internal drive, but it will no longer be portable, obviously.

Sure, it’s usable as an internal, if you write zeroes and re-format it, but the hardware encryption still prevents people from accessing their data, unless they have access to a supercomputer for cracking it.

We generally offer “solutions” to those who are desperately trying to get their data back – your way will not work at all for data retrieval.

16

So is there any way to retrieve the data from thee drives without sending the unit somewhere to be repaired? I have nearly a terabyte of digital photos on mine that would be really bad to lose.

17

Look at post 12. Repair is about the only option. Or you can gamble and by an identical drive and see if the board works in old one, but that voids the warranty on the new one. The boards change frequently so there is no guarantee that would work anyway.

Joe