My Book Elite damaged usb plug

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

Hi,

When I plug the external HDD to my computer, it won’t even recognise it. /It’s a damaged usb plug./  People at the computer service store tried to use a different external HDD box, but the disk  appears to be blank with no data. Is it because of drive encryption in original HP external box, or it;s just corrupted and I need to recover data?

So - should I get another same brand My Book Elite and put the drive with data I need inside and backup?  

2

that is correct. the product uses an encryption that only that enclosure can read…

3

thank you! I also have the WD Sharespace and Mybook Studio Edition II. I will try to put the HDD in them and I’ll see.

4

Lots of luck they keep changing the board. Opening the drive without permission voids the warranty.

Joe

5

will do!  I’ll let you know when I get my hands on the drive. I know about the warranty, but what the heck. 

6

If your previous external drive supposed to having data encryption, changing USB/SATA interface board from any identical device would not do the trick.

Most of the encrypted drives employ encryption key and algorithm to write data to the disk. As I heard before, security key or ID is written to sector 0 of the disk drive. Besides opening other WD products under warranty would void their warranty replacement options.

So STOP whatever you plan to do and try to mend the broken USB socket on the interface PCB. That is the best option you have. Get help from a skilled electronics repair guy in your local area.

7

Anyone wishing to recover data from a damaged My Book Elite or similar drive please contact me. I am able to re-solder the usb port and/or replace board level ICs.

8

 This is ridiculous. I am having the same problem. How the heck is WD allowed to sell these things when they CLEARLY cannot be used in a normal way without breaking. The mini USB is a piece of ■■■■ and now my hard drive is bricked because of a useless encrypytion board? Come on!

I hope someone SUES Western Digital for a knowlingly selling a defective product and then when you use customer support they replace the drive and offer data recovery from one of their partners. Oh gee thanks knumbskulls a new drive but now all my data is GONE? WTF???

Anyway, HELP! I don’t know how to solder the usb connector to the board (it broke off). I read in another post that buying another identical drive and connecting my old MyBook essential to that PCB  will work. Can someone else please verify? I bought my drive 6 months ago so there is a new model I am guessing. Does anyone know if it still uses the same USB to SATA board? I don’t want to go all over looking for someone to solder the connector. I rather buy another drive back up the data, and THEN NEVER BUY ANOTHER WD external drive again.

SHAME ON YOU WESTERN DIGITAL. what a pain in the **bleep**!!!

9

If it works it’s only luck. They constantly change the board. Most who tried haven’t had any luck. Well you shouldn’t trust important data to one drive internal or external no matter who makes it.

Joe

10

Agarwu,

I don’t think you need to change hard disk drive PCB as My Book Elite should have separate interface board for SATA & USB. If you don’t care about the warranty, you can open the casing (Look YouTube) and access the drives directly on SATA connector by using a desktop internal SATA or eSATA connector. 

If the thing works, you could buy a separate HDD enclosure with SATA/USB for lot cheaper.

11

Thanks for the offer it may help somebody. Delicate soldering is a skill. Most of mine was at the other extreme learned over 40 years ago in the navy rewinding motors. I think my old 1500 w might have been a little large it was the size of a cold chisel.

Joe

12

I tried to contact the usb cable manually with the board that has the power adapter, usb output connection and encryption. Remember my usb cable connector dislodged from the board and needs to be soldered.

Well if I hold it at just the right angle the drive gets connection and my pc recognizes the drive and opens the Smartart program. It’s too hard for me to hold it long enough to transfer any data. I mean it has to be touching perfectly at the weirdest angle!

My question is…and please know I do not have experience with electronics beyond basics, is there any way to connect the wires to the 4 pins on the little board so I can at least back up my data off the drive? if so, please can someone explain to me how to do this? How difficult would it be?

Like I said, it’s awful WD will not offer to repair or replace the seperate USB to SATA baord. It’s ridiculous considering how many people have suffered this same issue. I can’t believe there hasn’t been a bigger stink about this. Once again pain in the **bleep**!

13

Caelum:

(Anyone wishing to recover data from a damaged My Book Elite or similar drive please contact me. I am able to re-solder the usb port and/or replace board level ICs.)

I have a Mybook Elite 1TB that has this problem. How can I contact you to have you fix the USB port? I too found out that without the original interface board it WILL NOT READ ANY PARTITION STRUCTURE AT ALL. In other words, I can connect the HDD to another USB interface board (generic, or another enclosure) and the PC will recognize the HDD, but will think it’s a brand new drive with no data. Pretty tricky. So it looks like the only way to get into the original data is to get this board fixed. Email me at jake@rjia.net with your contact info. I need this fixed. I still have the board with the broken off USB port, I don’t care how it looks, as long as I can access and extract the data. Once I do that, I’m just gonna replace the enclosure and re-use the HDD and chuck the original board. PLEASE CONTACT ME ASAP! THANKS!

14

Can you tell me excatly ehat I need to do that?