"Brand New" 4TB MyBook rec'd by Disk Management but not My Computer (also already partitioned)

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I purchased a 4 TB MyBook on eBay. The seller (high feedback, longtime member) listed this as “brand new Sealed”. Everything looked brand new when I got it. I purchased on eBay because I got it for the same price as a special that was being run at Best Buy and I was able to avoid tax.

However, I plugged this into my computer and while it is recognized by Disk Management and the “Safely Remove Hardware” applications (even makes the sound of a USB device plugged in), and I can hear the hard drive running, it is not recognized by my computer. And not only that, but in Disk Management it appears to have already been partitioned, with 4 “blue bar” partitions and 1 unallocated “black bar” partition (screenshot below)

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Two questions for this.

  1. I assume WD hard drives do not come out of the box like this. Does that mean this seller inaccurately listed this as “Brand New” and it had in fact been opened and partitioned beforehand?

  2. Will deleting all the partitions to turn them all into unallocated space allow me to format this with a Simple Volume and make it work (after filing a dispute with eBay and Paypal if the seller did indeed lie about the listing)

2
  1. Our drives do not come partitioned out of the box like that. They were partitioned before you got them.
  2. Yes it will. Once you delete the partitions, you can then create a simple volume and format it.
3

Thanks for the quick reply Bill. Do you know of any way to see how much use this drive has received in its lifetime so far (like, drive spin time, something like that)? I’ll probably work to get a partial refund from the seller but keep the item as long as it hasn’t had a ton of use (I imagine it hasn’t since the drive still has the plastic on it)

4

You could do a warranty check to make sure you didn’t purchase an out-of-warranty drive. If the ship date isn’t too old and you have at least one year warranty, then you should be fine. You could also run our DLG diagnostic utility to make sure there are no hardware issues. I can’t think of any other way, other than check to see if the model number reflects one of our newer My Book drives.

[edit]

If the drive checks out, but the warranty time is less than a year, you can do a proof of purchase to update the warranty from your purchase date. However, you will need to have purchased the drive from an online store. We don’t do warranty updates from personal sales.

5

The model is WDBBGB0040HBK, WD warranty check says warranty is valid until October 2019.

6

That’s one of our new drives. You could delete the partitions and reformat it. It should be fine. If you have any concerns later, you could RMA it and get another drive.