I just recently (last week) updated to the newest firmware on my WD My Book Live 2TB drive. It appears that some of the services die or fail to start upon boot up. I can ping the drive via a cmd prompt but cannot access it through the UI nor My Computer via a mapped drive. The light on the front is flashing green. I have tried pushing the 4 sec reset also. It is very intermittant. It will work for hours on end and then simply drop (but still be pingable). I have to restart it several times for it to finally come back online. It was fine before the newest firmware.
I think its related to accessing the UI. When I try and go to the UI it hangs and then I have to restart it. I’m sure I just have to wait for a new software update but just wondering if others are experiencing this.
Ok so I have contacted support and they are going to replace the drive. I did it through the website via creating an RMA. I didn’t see anything in regards to data recovery. Am I responsible for this? I can’t see that being the case but am not sure. I assumed that WD will send me a box and I’ll send in my drive for them to recover the data. Am I wrong?
[Deleted] I think a firmware update bricked his drive… You will need to ask them or you will just get a new drive when you send your old one back.
There is an advanced RMA option too where they put a hold on your card for a certain amount of money, they send you a new drive, you copy the data from old to new and send old drive back. When they get your old drive back, the hold comes off your card.
Ok so a new drive arrived after I submitted the RMA. With respect to the data recovery, WD offers no such service. They did send me a list of recovery services in my area but I don’t feel like paying a couple hundred dollars.
So after some back and forth with tech support they have given me approval to open the case and remove the drive. I then purchased a SATA to USB adapter for 30 bucks and connected the drive to my computer. The problem I now have is that the file system is EXT4 and I can’t find a program that works. I have tried EXT2 Volume Manager, R-Linux, Virtual Volumes, DiskInternals, etc. Most of the programs just don’t see the drive. Others recognize it as a RAW file system. R-Linux sees it but the file names are not in tact. They are all renamed to a number sequence. I don’t really have the time nor patience to go and rename thousands of files.
Has anyone had any success doing this? Maybe there is more wrong with this drive than I intially believed. I have to say that before this happened I had recommended this drive to several people but now I’ve changed my mind. I’m hesitant to put anything of importance on the drive for fear that it happens again. WD knows that this is a known problem. There are several threads on it.
I’m thinking now of simply building my own NAS and selling the My Book Live. It’s just too unreliable and if several data recovery linux tools can’t recover the data why should I put my faith in a new drive?
I am going to keep trying for a few days to recover the data but as they only give me a month from the day they shipped to return the drive (or they will charge my credit card $180) there aren’t a lot of options left.
