Is there any way to use the HDD inside a My Book in a PC? The hardware encryption prevents it from being read properly, so is there a way to disable that? Will reformatting the HDD while it’s hooked up to a PC work? I don’t want to keep my data on a drive that will become inaccessable when the enclosure fails.
You can’t disable the hardware encryption without removing the hardware.
Yes, plugging it straight into a SATA connector will not work with the stock drive.
Yes, re-formatting it while connected to the SATA, it will behave like any other internal.
But if you just want to connect it internally via SATA, why pay extra for an enclosure at all?
And if you don’t want the password and encryption capabilities, due to “what if” fears, why not buy a drive that doesn’t have them?
All drives will fail eventually, whether encrypted or not… data is not always recoverable. Trusting data to any one single drive is an accident waiting to happen. If the data is backed up, then the enclosure failing is a non-issue, whether there’s encryption or not.
>You can’t disable the hardware encryption without removing the hardware.
What hardware do I have to remove?
>But if you just want to connect it internally via SATA, why pay extra for an enclosure at all?
I didn’t, it was cheaper than an internal drive of the same size.
>And if you don’t want the password and encryption capabilities, due to “what if” fears, why not buy a drive that doesn’t have them?
It wasn’t made clear in the promotional material that the drive would not work outside of the enclosure. This was not the case in past WD external drives I’ve owned, which have worked outside of the WD enclosure.
>If the data is backed up, then the enclosure failing is a non-issue, whether there’s encryption or not.
It is an issue, because drives can removed from a failed enclosure and continued to be used. I see no benefit in designing an external hard drive that becomes completely unusable when an easily replacable part stops working. Well, obviously, I can see the benefit to WD, since they want me to buy another My Book. Which I would never do, if this is their policy.
when you bought the drive is there any kind of sale ?
if not, the bare drive (OEM) should cheaper around $30 (mybook use caviar green)
if there no sale, then you might see the price wrong
even caviar black should cheaper than external drive
you can open mybook, i ever read somewhere on internet, that someone open mybook
remember tampering you mybook will void your warranty
and when you open it, because most of case is made of plastic, it seems it won’t like before anymore (there is a part that making some sort of gap)
redthree wrote:
It wasn’t made clear in the promotional material that the drive would not work outside of the enclosure. This was not the case in past WD external drives I’ve owned, which have worked outside of the WD enclosure.
you can if you not encrypt the drive
i think not only WD, all drive that have encrypt capabilites same
when you encrypt the drive, you can’t using the drive without formating it
because if you can use the drive even you encrypt it, then the reason for encrypt the drive become useless, right ?
imagine, when someone steal your mybook, then they found out you encrypt it, then they just break the case and plug to get your data
and you can remove the encrypt function using WD software (smartware)
