Help with Western Digital My Books and Dual Enclosure Please

[Kaaji1359]

Hello,

Recently the USB connection on my Western Digital My Book 2TB broke off due to Western Digital’s brilliant engineering.  Here is the product:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&qscrl=1&q=western+digital+my+book+2TB&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=12630642155432567969&ei=hkQuTcflHILGsAPPioWFBw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ8wIwAA#

I decided that instead of calling support and using my warranty, I would buy a dual enclosure:

http://www.buy.com/prod/infosafe-usb-2-0-dual-3-5-sata-jbod-enclosure/q/loc/101/208172864.html

I received it today, opened it up, opened up my Western Digital My Book 2TB and removed the board connecting the HDD inside (WD Caviar Green) to the power and USB, and plugged it into the dual enclosure.  The dual enclosure drivers were installed and I could hear the HDD working, but Windows can’t see anything!

How do I get this to work?  Do I have to reformat, and if so, how do I go about doing that since I can’t even see the HDD?  Lastly, is there anyway to recover my data?

Thank you

[Lawrence]

Well first off its hard  to give support for a situation as yours because WD doesnt support putting a drive in a external enclosure. And removeing it from a non serviceable enclosure immediatly voids the warranty. The enclosre is special and It is made to recognized the VCD. So try to disable the VCD on your unit then write zeros. It should show up like a standard hard drive. let me know how that works out for you. Good Luck!

[Kaaji1359]

Thanks for your reply.  

How do I go about doing this since the drive isn’t even recognized by my computer?  I’ve googled it and many said installing a firmware update… Would that work in my particular circumstance?  

I don’t get this… It’s just a standard WD Caviar Green HDD in the WD My Book enclosure.  Why is it so difficult to put it in a different enclosure?!?  I’ve removed all the external circuit boards attached to it so it should not be this difficult… Sorry for my frustration.  I’ve just lost 1.5TB of data due to WD’s poor engineering.  /endrant

[Joe_S]

It isn’t a standard drive it needs that board the port broke off. It isn’t just WD I saw the same over on the Seagate forum on broken ports. Do you still have the board? If you check the posts by fzabkar you might find a solution. I believe he guided somebody in soldering wires to broken board and using something different like Esata to connect. He’s the only one here that truly understands the board.

Joe

[Kaaji1359]

I was told by a few people, including fzabkar, that it would work because I never told my WD My Book drive to encrypt the data and as long as I take off the circuit board it should act just like a regular HDD.  

I’m just hoping Lawrence can help me figure this VCD thing out and I hope that’s a solution… Losing 1.5TB is bad enough, but losing a whole $130 in addition to the $30 I paid for the dual enclosure makes me want to rip my hair out.  

Edit:  I do still have the board.  I might try soldering it back on to get the data, but seriously there has got to be SOME way to not have to use WD’s horrendous enclosure and to somehow use the dual enclosure I purchased

[Lawrence]

Here is how you remove the VCD click on the link

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_sid=P-5zm_jk&p_lva=&p_li=&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_page=1&p_cv=&p_pv=&p_prods=0&p_cats=0&p_hidden_prods=&prod_lvl1=0&cat_lvl1=0&p_search_text=3835&srch_btn_submit=%C2%A0%C2%A0%C2%A0Search%C2%A0%C2%A0%C2%A0&p_new_search=1&p_search_type=answers.search_fnl

[Joe_S]

Go with fzabkar told you. He is the only one who understands this area. Some of these drives the data is not acessible without the board it’s hardware encrypted. It is a nightmare for everybody trying to figure the mess out and the boards constantly change. This isn’t always the simple take the drive out fix that many think. Good luck I hope it works out for you.

Joe

[Lawrence]

@ Joe_S

You really know your stuff thanks for saving my butt… 

http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/Burnt-hard-drive-controller-Western-Digital-WD5000KS-00MNB0/td-p/67846

@ Kaaji1

Go ahead and click on the link  and see if you can get help from this similar issue or just send fzabkar a message

Thanks Joe_S

[Joe_S]

Lawrence

Glad to help this is a super complex area and hard to follow and fzabkar is the only one who understands it. There are a few of those threads. One other area that is short on knowledgable help is Macs.

Joe