1TB My Book World Edition Blue Light Failure

WD Legacy Products Other Network Drives
1

I have a WD My Book World Edition 1TB.  The unit doesn’t appear to be powering up.   The network cable on the back lights up, but I’m not hearing anything internal in terms of drives spinning up.  I have it plugged into the wall and I am using the correct adapter. 

What would be my next steps troubleshooting wise.  Pull the drives and use a Linux distro to mount them?  Replace the power supply.  There is a little green light on the external power adapter that is lit up.

THanks,

Sean

2 Likes
2

I had a similar issue…WD support suggested that I submit an RMA request to return the enclosure which was bad.

My drives were configured as  RAID 1 (mirror) so I was able to connect on of my drives to my computer and boot with a Linux Live CD  (I used Ubuntu).  Once booted  you should be able to mount the RAID (4th) partition using command “mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb4 /mnt”   sdb may not be the same on your machine…so whatever the partition is…use that

Also…If you use the Ubuntu Live CD  simply change to superuser by typing in the command “su”  it will prompt you for a password…if you don’t know the password change it by typing “passwd su”

Once you are superuser then you should be able to access all your folders.

Good luck!!

1 Like
3

This totally worked for me.  I downloaded Ubuntu Live CD, opened up one of the partition utitilities, found the partition, got it mounted.  My terminal looks like this:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ passwd su
passwd: user ‘su’ does not exist
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ su
Password:
su: Authentication failure
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ su
Password:
su: Authentication failure
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc4 /mnt
mount: only root can do that
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo passwd root
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc4 /mnt
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Then it was a standard copy and paste op to Windows directories on the local drives.

The only thing I can’t figure out is how to get to the protected folders to open.  Do I need to create a user that mimics the user that I had on the WD drive with the same password and then log in with that user  and see if it lets me on.

Thank you for your help!  Saved all our baby pics.

1 Like
4

Ok. I got that last part figured out as well. In case someone needs help in the future.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo passwd root
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ su
Password:
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc4 /mnt
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# su
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# gksudo nautilus

this will allow you to run the nautilus file explorer app as the root.  From there you can copy files around onto your WD drive and I guess it unencrypts them as part of that process.  Once you have them in a new spot on the WD drive, you can then launch another isntance of the Ubuntu file explorer and pick up the files you just copied into a public location on the WD drive.

Wow. learned a bit about Ubuntu today.  First time I ever used it.  If you don’t think you can  do it, you can, so if your WD enclosure fails and the disks are good, it’s not too hard to get the data off.

Best of luck,

Sean

5

Would it works if the drives were in RAID 0 ??

6

I’m not sure.  I think the only difference is that in Raid 1 both the drives have a full copy of the data.  If you are in RAID 0, my guess is that it would still work, but you would have to hook up each drive and mount each one to get all of your data.  I just used a powered SATA to USB kit from NewEgg to hook up the drives and then ran all of the commands listed above. 

In my case, each physical drive had what looked like 3 or 4 different partitions on it.  I just mounted the largest one on each drive.  They had all the data.  My guess is that if you are in RAID 0, you’ll see the same thing, but you’ll just need to hook up one drive, copy all of the data down, and then hook up the second drive to get all the data from it.  Of course, that assumes your drives aren’t the problem and that it’s really the enclosure that is the issue like in my case.

7

Do you happen to remember the part number for the SATA to USB drive kit you used?  I need to do the same thing it sounds like.

Mike

8

Yep, It’s this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156014&cm_re=sata_to_usb-_-12-156-014-_-Product

9

I ALMOST bought that brand today at Microcenter.  I got the inland version for $14.99.

I used Unbuntu that I had installed previously on my laptop (2nd partition) and was able to use the instructions you gave to mount the drive and transfer some of the important data off one of  the drives that I needed today.

Thanks for posting this thread, it helped a lot.

Mike

10

I had the same problem with the failure of powering up the drive. No blue led’s on the front, but the network connector lights were on. I heard also a soft thicking sound from the drives. After replacing the powersupply (I have two identical drives), the problem was solved. It seems like there a certain voltage on the power supply (12VDC), but it cannot deliver the right current to the drives, which is required.

11

I’m also having this issue where the lights will not come on.  I’d considered pulling the drive but on the 1TB that I have doesn’t have any readily removable panels to access the drive directly.  Any suggestions?  Thanks.

12

I have a 500Gb version  (not raid).  My blue light is off, but I can hear the drive spinning.  I put the drive in a different enclosure, but it didn’t show up in Windows 7 My Computer or the device manager.

I also connected it straight to the mother board SATA connector with the same results.

Could this Ubuntu trick work?  Or is that just if you have RAID drives?  I’ve never used it or Linux.

Thanks for any help you can offer…

13

rvbuilder wrote:

I have a 500Gb version  (not raid).  My blue light is off, but I can hear the drive spinning.  I put the drive in a different enclosure, but it didn’t show up in Windows 7 My Computer or the device manager.

I also connected it straight to the mother board SATA connector with the same results.

 

Could this Ubuntu trick work?  Or is that just if you have RAID drives?  I’ve never used it or Linux.

Thanks for any help you can offer…

It won’t show up in Windows 7.  You might see it in Disk Management, though, if the drive is still good.  If I remember correctly, the drive is formatted in Linux EXT3.

14

I never had an interest in learning about Ubuntu, but desparation to recover files from my failed Blue-Ring has drug me well out of my comfort zone.

I’ve followed your directions, “SeanB”, and have been able to “mount” and view my files from one of the harddrives that was in my Blue Ring chassis (using Ubuntu in demo mode from a DVD, not permanently installed mode). The external drive is displayed under Places>Computer as “Array”. When I double-click on “Array”, a pop-up states “Unable to mount location. Can’t mount file”. So it appears I cannot view the files on the harddrive that was once in my WD MyWorldBookII Blue Ring chassis.

If it helps, the two 500 GB harddrives in my blue ring are configured in a RAID1 (Mirrored) array. I’ve plugged only one harddrive into a ineo SATA-to-USB external dock.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

15

http://randomlylearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/recover-data-from-my-book-world-edition.html

This blog is VERY simple to follow.  I just recovered all my data after the enclosure failed from my 1 TB WORLDBOOK.  Just follow the instructions to install Ubuntu from www.ubuntu.com best to do with Windows…makes it a lot easier.  Just choose to load ubuntu after install.  My first time with it.  I loaded with what looked like an erro message, but eventually you get the choice to load the linux o/s.

Then find your drive with the drive path.   I hooked it up to a internal Sata port after removing it from the enclosure as instructed in the link above.  In ubuntu the drive path looks something like this /dev/sbc4

Then just follow the 'TERMINAL" lingo in that post and it will mount your drive.   Then copy over to external HDD or other internal SATA HDD and your done.  Hope that helps someone.  I spent days and many anxious moments with recovery.  I learned the hard way to back up, back up, back up!!!