Hello, I really have a couple of questions and hope someone actually still reads post here and would have a suggestion. My 1tb live hub stopped working, I opened and connected the hard drive to one of my sata ports on my pc and had no luck reading the drive. I have an external enclosure that is sata and it didnt read it either. The drive did spin up with no problems. I purchased another 1tb live hub that was working and opened it and tried the old hard drive and it wouldnt load. I took the new drive and put it in the old hub and still nothing. I put the one back and closed it and its working fine. Is there any other way to recover any of the data I have on the old drive? Would it only work with the usb to sata connector like has been shown as it didnt in the enclosure I have? Next if just changing the drive would it still have to be reformatted even if they are from the same type of hub and the same drives? Some type of drive matching that when it is formatted it match’s it to the hub?
I look forward to any info…
The WD TV live hub is not user serviceable. Opening the drive may void warranty. The setup that you are trying will not work. Probably you need to contact one of the data recovery companies.
peter.g, my live hubs are far from warranty, this is why i had asked since I have 2 of the exact same model hubs. By taking the hard drive out of the one that stopped working and put it in the good one didnt work so i put the working drive in the one that stopped and it didnt work. This does not validate the hard drive in the bad one is bad or good since a good hard drive did not work in the other one. To have more validation would be to find out if the drive is matched to the hub when it is formated thus keeping it from working in any other hub. We know that certian new drives can be used to replace bad ones and their formatted and work. This is where I am thinking that its matching the drive to the hub but I cannot find any info stating that is the case.
As for recovery of the files I will have to recheck but I thought there were other post saying they used a usb to sata connector to hook it directly to their laptops but I will need to make sure.
As for any recovery then I will have to research more on the specs as I have done some data recovery before, it is just easier when I can gather more about the format.
thank you for the response.
JoeySmyth: Firmware - to be honest I am not for sure. Since the live hubs worked in previous firmware to the last release with no change in how the drive is read then I did not consider this an option. I also believe that there has not been a firmware update for a long time as they are not making anymore of these. As for the internal database I believe it can be rebuilt in the firmware and would not effect what is written to the drive. If it is really 3 partitions then I would guess that the first is a unique master boot record and then directed to the second that maintains database files and the third storage. Again that is a guess since xbox, playstation (i believe) and tivo’s or digital recorders hard drives are formatted so it is hard to read anything from them. And replacing them are even harder except for playstation i believe.
For connecting it to the PC I have a few questions. What sata adapter was used? and what usb port was used? I did try a usb enclosure using usb 3.0 and had no luck. Again I didnt consider trying the slower ports as I have plugged the same enclosure into the 2.0 slots and it still worked fine with other drives. For me when I would connect, the drive would spin up and never seem to mount. I also rebooted the computer so it could maybe find it when booting and still no luck. I did also try this with the one that stopped working and the one that is working to troubleshoot and verify if the drive could be bad but neither one would read on my pc. I did put the good one back and the hub booted with no problems.
I dont know if formattting was for me, but it should never take 24hrs to format a drive. I have seen people low level format 1.2Tb drives faster then that and low level formats were not recommended. From another post where someone seem to of formatted the drive on a pc they said they had to set a few specific settings to get it to work but I cannot validate this myself.
Since these are not made anymore it would be nice if WD released some software so people can prep (format), or copy to the drives directly from a pc and it would resolve these problems. This is just my opinion as I feel it could resolve alot of peoples problems.
Any. I’ve used USB2.0 and USB3.0 without any issues … PC recognizes the 1TB Scorpio HDD fine and can see all the contents and partitions. What USB port ? … doesn’t matter, i have 4 on the back off my PC and just plug into any that are free.
Step 4: after formatting is complete … the drive is now ready for use in the WDTV Live Hub (go to “Disk Manager” in the WDTV Live Hub’s menu to confirm)
Step 5: to see what partitions and format the WDTV Live Hub has created on the HDD … power off the WDTV Live Hub, remove the HDD and connect back to the PC (via the sata adaptor/enclosure)
Here you can see Disk 4 with the created partitions and standard NTFS format
JoeySmyth let me say WoW, I am greatfull for the in depth explanation with pictures to help with the instructions. The picture seems to show you use a special program “AOMEI Partition Assistant” and I wonder if that could be some of the difference as I am just using the default utilities in windows 10 x64. And I did open my pc and connect my drive directly to the motherboard the last time instead of through the usb.
Now what would be even more is if you can show that you can read and write to and from the drive on your pc. If so it would be easier to backup the drive and faster to move files to the drive.
Also please note that I am trying to take a drive from the hub that stopped working so there are files on the drive. I have not been able to determine if the drive is bad as I get the same result with the one that I know is working. (trying to read either of them from the PC)
I am going to try and clear up space on one of my pc drives and backup all the file on the working hub. I will then pull it out and set another drive with no format and see if the wd preps the drive and copy a couple file back and make sure it all works. After I will change the drive back to the original and see if it will still work without having to format and start all over again. My other option is to save some money and buy another hub some day.
this has been great, I have found out more in a couple of days then in years.
Yep, drive appears in Windows Explorer fine … read and write, no problems
In fact, in the old days. that’s how i used to copy a lot of movies to the hard drive as it was a lot quicker than doing it over the network and also via the Live Hubs USB2.0 ports.
My TC live hub died about a year ago. I just bought a 120Gb drive, popped it in and got it to work no problem. Just follow the prompts to format and it’s working better than when I first bought it. I no longer store anything on the internal drive. I have just bought a Seagate personal cloud and dumped everything on that. I used to use the live Tv hub as a poor mans server but that’s possibly what wrecked it. It would sometimes fail to spin down. If it ever breaks down again I’ll just buy another Scorpio blue hdd. As for my old 1Tb hdd I’ve yet to try to access it as I don’t have a dock that works at the moment but I’ve got a feeling it’ll be bad news. What’s really disappointing is that tech support offered no solution at all. I’m so glad that I found the answer in these forums.
JoeySmyth: again thank you for the additional help. My enclosure was 13$ US and I like it so much i bought a 2nd one but they are more for ssd drives. I can get the one to from the wd on there and it will spin up but it wouldnt mount so I could read anything. I tested this on both drives just to make sure. Then I tried connecting directly to a extra sata port on my computer directly and neither one of the drives worked with that method either. I put the one drive back in its wd live hub and it booted and worked fine.
For me I am trying to find any differences between what you are using and what I have. This is why I pointed out the partition program. I know you are working with windows but I am not sure what version? and since your boot drive is ntfs I was guessing your running a x64 bit system.
So to continue to try and find any differences, what ver. of windows are you running. And if you have the ability could you try and hook up your drive directly to your motherboard via sata cable? If it works I would then be curious as to the make and model of the motherboard.
I am running an asus sabertooth with the older chipset i think its the x59 i would have to look it up again.
Have to run, and again thanks for the assistance, I have learned a lot
I loved windows 7, the only reason I went to 10 was that it was free I have been blessed as most of my computer stuff has been in trades or swapping work for a part or computer. It has taken almost 20 years to get to what I have now and I have given away quite a few computers to family’s that couldn’t afford one. The were nothing special but it helped the kids with their schoolwork and to learn how to type.
I also noticed that a lot of people seem to post using their hubs with laptops so I will try with what I have here and if that fails I picked up in another trade an older apple laptop that I am waiting for a child’s birthday and will gift it to them. Its not alot but to them it will be like getting a car.
I might not be on for a few as I will not have much time to test because of doctor’s appointments and some physical problems. As soon as I can I will post what I have been able to find and let you know the results. Thank you so much for all the time you have put in to help with this.
I have been blessed as most of my computer stuff has been in trades or swapping work for a part or computer. It has taken almost 20 years to get to what I have now and I have given away quite a few computers to family’s that couldn’t afford one. The were nothing special but it helped the kids with their schoolwork and to learn how to type.