Hey all.
I’ve got a My Cloud Home device, thinking of getting a different NAS device.
The My Cloud Home still works, but I was thinking of extracting the drive from it to use elsewhere. I still want the data on it, does anyone know the best way of going about this please? Both for the data and how to remove the drive from the casing. Would really appreciate the help. Thank you!
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Copy the data from your My Cloud Home device to another device before disassembly. You should have a backup, anyway.
The safest way to keep your data from a WD My Cloud Home is to copy everything over the network while the device is still working. The drive inside uses a Linux EXT4 file system, which won’t open directly on Windows or macOS without extra software. If you want to reuse the drive, you can pry open the casing with a flat tool, remove the 3.5" SATA drive, and connect it to your computer with a SATA-to-USB adapter or docking station. On Linux the drive will mount normally, while on Windows or macOS you’ll need tools like DiskInternals Linux Reader, UFS Explorer, or Paragon EXTFS to read the files. Once your data is backed up, you can reformat the drive, but make sure nothing is missing before wiping it.
Thanks for the response, appreciate it and the help.
Is there a guide to shucking the drive at all? It looks tricky. I will try backing everything up first like you’ve suggested. Do you know if after shucking I can put another drive in there and use it as normal?
In terms of the disk being read on Windows, would it not show at all so I can format it then without those tools?
You should be aware that My Cloud Home hard drives feature soldered-in USB ports and encrypted firmware. Standard disassembly won’t allow direct data access. Data recovery requires using the original device’s PCB or contacting WD Data Recovery Services.
