I have a MyBook Live Duo which has been sat on my desk working perfectly fine for years. I really was very happy with it.
This afternoon I was working at my PC when I suddenly noticed a strong burning smell and quickly traced it to the MyBook. There were wisps of smoke rising from the top of the case. I panicked and unplugged it quickly. Once it cooled down I realised the electrical connection on the back was red hot and melting. I have attached a picture below.
I am just so relieved it happened while I was home. Imagine if I was out and it burned the house down.
I don’t know what to do now. I’m not sure if the contents have been damaged. The drives themselves look okay but they may have been damaged internally? I tried disconnecting the electrical plug but it only rotates - it won’t pull out. So I can’t replace the power supply. In any case I’m not sure I would want to because there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again.
This has really freaked me out. I bought the MyBook Duo because I thought it was the safest way of keeping my data. The last thing I imagined was it catching fire spontaneously. Now what do I do? I don’t suppose WD are going to be interested as I must be out of warranty by now.
One of two things could have happened with this: 1) you had a power spike from outside, or 2) your power adapter shorted and sent 110 volts through instead of 5 volts.
I agree with Bill, and in addition, the My Book itself could have failed internally and started drawing more current (i.e. more electricity) so as to burn up itself and the power supply along with it.
In any event, too much electricity was in the darn thing and it sure was a possible “burn down the house” kind of event.
Do NOT try to use this thing again! If you can get in to case to remove the disk and put it into an external disk enclosure, it could be possible to copy the data to another disk so you can save it. The power supply components are definitely fried, but the disk could still be OK. BUT, do not try doing this until you have spoken with WD Support to notify them of problem and possible solutions. WD needs to examine all the parts to determine what failed.
Well, WD support have been in touch…once. Meanwhile I have a drive that is unusable and all my data stuck on it.
I really wasn’t expecting to have to replace the device so soon and frankly I can’t afford to but it seems the only option I have to get my data back is to buy a new My Book Duo and plug my drives in to it?
A few weeks ago I did plug in a USB hard drive and create a safepoint so I have that to fall back on. Can I just plug it in to my PC and transfer the files? Or is it not as simple as that?
I just managed to get the power supply plug out. The plastic end is scuffed but otherwise looks okay. I guess the heat caused the plastic to expand or something.
Anyhow, in doing that I realised my power supply is rated at 1.5A but according to the WD website it should be 3A. This is definitely the original one that came with my MyBook. It’s been plugged in to it since the day I first set it up.
So I wonder if this power supply has been inadequate for all that time and what I experienced was it finally coming to the end of its life? Why was I supplied with an inadequate power supply in the first place? Did WD realise it is inadequate after they started shipping and switch to a higher spec later on?
I advise all MyBook owners to check their power bricks ASAP.
As I said above, CALL WD Support, and tell the person who answers your call you have a major issue with the unit and to please transfer you to Level 2 support. Call during a weekday.
To give them their due, WD contacted me and offered to exchange it. They sent me a replacement unit in the post, I swapped the drives from my broken one in to the new one and it worked so I sent my broken drive back.
I called WD this morning and finally talked to a human after waiting 30 minutes. Since the My Book Live is out of warranty (2015), the guy basically said, “Do whatever you want to. You’re on your own.”
Ben, did they contact you because of this thread? I’d be happy if they just told me the best way to get my data back. They don’t even have to replace the unit.
Thanks so much! I was able to recover the photos of my kids (whew!) from the Shared Photos section. However, the program is/was unable to recover any files from the Shared Music and Shared Videos folders. Odd. Any ideas there?
