WDBY8L0020BBK-01 - Cannot Format - Hangs Drive Manger - disappears

Hello I purchased 8 WDBY8L0020BBK-01 on Ebay and the seller has disapeared and I can’t get my money back $1800!
I have tried everything (except Linux) to format and partition these drives.  Acronis, EaseUS, DOS, Free low level formatter, heck I even cracked one open and tried strapping it to SATA port.  The drive inside the case is WD20000BEVT-00ZCTD SN: WMAWF039830 P/N: XXXXXX-XXX CT: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX ← yea right, its X’s)   WWN 50014EE20469331C Scorpio Blue.  I called WD trying to get a refund on just one, and they told me “These drives are OEM, you have to go back t where you got them”   They arrived sealed in a WD retail box, but when tried a few, they came up formatted FAT32-EXT 2.0TB.   Well I cannot use FAT32-EXT, I need NTFS for files larger than 4GB for video editing and large VHD files.

I tried to format NTFS, and kabloowie… that was the end of that.  ALL 8 OF THEM.  I am wondering if they are counterfit or something, but WD says, "Sorry Charlie… we can’t help… and we dont’ care if they are formatted, we don’t want them.  Not even to look at… (I never got past level 1 peon support…)    If WD reads these posts, please let me know if Ihave been shanghai’ed.  And wouldn’t you want to catch the counterfitters?

Anyone else know of a utility that might format these drives once and for all with NTFS?  They did not even have the WD software thats supposed to come on the drives, and i read that there is supposed to be a partiton that cannot be removed but hidden.  I checked an its not there.  The firmware tool does not find the drive with or without the USB.

I managed to get Ultimate Boot CD PE to make a partiton, but it will not format.

Any Ideas?  Any magic bullets?  Bios sometimes sees the drive and says it needs to be formatted, but it will fail, and after a while the drive dissapear.  Rescan for disk and it never shows up, reboot and it showes up.  Shows up in Bios as a 2000GB drive all right, but no go.  Have tried on three different machines.

WDD, Can I send these back for repair and you can load the voodoo partition back on it and low level it for me?

I sounds like you got ripped off with counterfit drives.

Joe

Here is a pix of the bootleg drive?  WD20000BEVT shows up as 200GB X-box drive  in google

http://sdrv.ms/11iKeNK

Here is a pix on Newegg, WD2000BEVT 200 GB Drive.  It like they took a $2.00 bill and turned it into a 20.  Maybe some rocket scientist crack head knows how to manipulate the geometry and format it 2TB under FAT-EXT… I would like to know that trick… The drives did show up as 2TB and I could write files to them before I tried to format NTFS… I would at least like to know the recepie so I could put them back to 2TB-FAT-EXT and use them for something…

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236176

Found a link to this page, translate it with Bing and loosley it says he is a data recovery company, and the drive is fake!

http://www.datawhy.com/201211674.html

HOW DO YOU DO IT!   20GB Drive formatted as 2TB!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awwhhOaVfLk

1 Like

Thanks for posting back the video was interesting. I buy very little off Ebay and always check out the vedors record.

Joe

Of course it’s fake.   The label doesn’t even match the case underneath.

And it doesn’t say WD2000BEVT, it says WD20000BEVT, which isn’t a valid part.

The label on the fake drive should go on a drive chassis that looks like this:

http://picclick.com/WD-2000BEVT-HARD-DRIVE-200925123277.html

@Rickee

You can get your money back  – from eBay!  I have had a couple of instances where goods did not get delivered and got my money back.

You need to put in a claim to eBay!

Nevertheless, I have bought plenty from eBay, and except for these two instances, I get good service and what I paid for, so don’t be shy about eBay.