WD Community

Lost the USB adapter - anyway to recover?

So, I didn’t realize that WD encrypted their external HDs. I busted mine open, because it stopped working, and threw away all of the external components (including USB adapter). My question is, is there any chance of recovering the information on that hard drive?

It was a 2 TB WD My Book Essential external HD. Here’s the exact HD I bought in December 2012 from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041OSQBG/

I plugged the now internal HD directly to my motherboard via a SATA cable. I have not reformatted the hard drive as Windows wanted, so right now it just shows up as RAW.

Hi, I answered your post in the HDD gurus but my post still being review before it show up.

Anyway, I sees you have 2 options.

It is either you hunt back the exact same bridge board that you threw away, or you initialized the disk (not recommended) which will then wipe everything inside and you will have to use data recovery software to recover what you had.

This link will be useful if you want to search / buy for a new bridge board: http://www.harddrivesforsale.com/4061-705089-001-wd-controller-board.html

Hope this helps!

Support for Western Digital Hard Drives | Western Digital

Still Need Help?

Reach out to Support for more assistance.

Sign in to Your Support Account

Get up-to-date information about your products.

Western Digital Business Portal

Unlock benefits and tools for your business such as enterprise support, pricing and rebate tools, marketing, loyalty, rewards, and more.