My Book Live 2TB not accessible. No green light

Jaymac · January 4, 2015, 2:09am

I’m a newbie here. I have read a significant number of posts in the last 48 hours but nothing quite the same as I have experienced. I have tired to provide all relevant details including what I ahve attempte to resolve.

Device was purchased on 01/05/12 and has been installed more or less since that date. Runs on XP and Vista. It has had little use but contains many important backup files. I tried to access it a couple of days ago with no success. I have spent most of yesterday (Jan 02 and today Jan 03 trying to find a solution with no luck. First thing I noted is that I do not see a green light. I am not sure when the green light was last visible as I have not used the drive much in past few months. The blue light is on constantly but every 6 or so seconds it turns to a quick yellow flash. The device is connected thru a DLink 8 port switch and has been so since first install. All other devices on the network (3 desktops and printers) all work fine. There are also wireless devices such as phones that access the network directly thru the router/modem.

Things I have done.

Checked light on front of router as explained.

Checked light at ethernet cable connection. Bottom is amber and top flashes green.

Used Reset button for both 4/5 seconds and at times 20 secs to see if that had any effect. Many times.

Powered device off and on after trying the reset. Many times.

Moved cables around and tried two other cables for connection btwn switch and device.

Connected device directly to the router.

Tried a direct connection to one computer making sure that the UPnP Framework is Enabled.

Tried using http://mybooklive and the http://default IP address to find it.

Using my router services I checked all devices visible and no sign.

Felt for vibration on repowering the device and I could feel that and heard (not loud) disc action for a few seconds and light vibrations for longer.

Device is warm but not hot.

Powered down complete network and left it “down” for about 8 hours overnight.

Plugged device directly into wall outlet.

Downloaded some discovery utilities from the WD site - no luck.

My last attempt was to insert the setup CD to see if it would discover the device - no luck.

I read stuff on the WD user forums and tried some suggestions there. I don’t know what else I can do.

I have been very close to the device for the last 36 hours (how I love it!!) and not once have I seen the green light. I know the light may burn out but the blue light with intermittent yellow is there all the time and so it never goes dark.

I am not sure how much “action” I should be aware of in doing a reset but I have not noticed much.

The reset “plunger switch” seems to be enabled as I can feel the movement.

Needless to say the concern is the data on the device.

Thank you for reading this - any suggestions appreciated. I already own bricks and an anchor!!.

decider · January 4, 2015, 3:10am

I believe that file system is linux. I think my approach would be to remove the drive and assuming the fault is with the enclosuer and that the drive has a standard sata interface I would take an image of the drive or clone it. I would then work with the clone or the image I took to recover the data. But assuming the drive is ok, I would probably go for a clone, I have had many successes doing it that way.

decider · January 4, 2015, 3:59am

You might try looking in to this too:

http://driesve.tumblr.com/post/1560794187/how-to-mount-an-ext4-drive-in-windows-7.

decider · January 4, 2015, 4:04am

Forgot to add that it was from another forum (can’t recall where now, I was just looking everywhere to try to help you out, it may have even come from an older post here from WD community), but you would need to extract your drive from the book enclosuer and isntall it into your computer (and I assume you have windows 7). But be sure to read those directions in that url reference I provide good. Doing a lot of assuming here but I will assume the file system on yoru books is ext4 and from what I reviews of that reference I gave you, you need ot install a patch they make reference to to read your book drive if it does have the ext 4 file system.

Jaymac · January 4, 2015, 5:54am

decider wrote:

Forgot to add that it was from another forum (can’t recall where now, I was just looking everywhere to try to help you out, it may have even come from an older post here from WD community), but you would need to extract your drive from the book enclosuer and isntall it into your computer (and I assume you have windows 7). But be sure to read those directions in that url reference I provide good. Doing a lot of assuming here but I will assume the file system on yoru books is ext4 and from what I reviews of that reference I gave you, you need ot install a patch they make reference to to read your book drive if it does have the ext 4 file system.

Thank you for your 3 replies. I have seen some other posts related to removing the drive from the book and using linux. I would have to take it to a techie together with the instructions I get here. I am hoping that there may be a way of fixing the issue without doing that.

Jaymac · January 4, 2015, 6:15am

I found a lot of useful info about extracting the data of a failed drive here:

http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Book-Live/Data-recover-on-a-My-Book-Live-2TB-HELP/td-p/430120

Shabuboy · January 5, 2015, 5:48pm

Funny how most dont think about checking the manual to see what the LED colors mean. Not that it will solve the problem but it will provide some idea.

In your case, from manual:

Yellow blink = Disk thermal issues or network cable not inserted.

Blue on boot = Power applied

If you are 100% sure there is nothing wrong with temp and/or network. You might have a failed unit, either HD or device.

To debrick, follow debrick V1, it also deals with data recovery. If it fails, try V2.

And last, I know I know, people have yelled at me for saying it all the time, but here we go again…

backup backup backup:

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/digital-storage-basics-part-3-backup-vs-redundancy/

Jaymac · January 10, 2015, 11:48pm

Funny, how you don’t have the imagination to assume that after all of the detailed investigation I had done that this did not include checking the lights. But thanks for taking the time to call me out.

Shabuboy wrote: