I’ll try to make this simple. First off I live in a land far away from data recovery people and sources of parts, which is why those options are not workable for me. My issue : the controller on my 2TB MyBook studio (bought in 2011) has died a death. Drives seem fine. I’ve taken out the drives (A and B, both 1TB caviar), but since the controller made them seem as one 2TB drive, it’s pretty useless to try plugging them into my pc one at a time since they just appear as uninitialized drives. The drive was never set up with a password, and I’m unclear whether that means it wouldn’t be encrypted, or WD did it by default.
So what I want to know is, is there any way (ie some sort of software maybe) that can help me to read anything off these drives?
The WD My Book Studio Edition II features no encryption. However, you are describing a span or RAID 0 volume, which is not recoverable by design. The volume is linked to the original controller with no fault tolerance.
If the data is a concern then it would be best to contact a professional data recovery service company. A RAID volume requires dedicated and specialized tools.
not to state the obvious, but OF COURSE the data is of concern lol. The whole point of having a backup drive is that it’s where you put important stuff. I would have never thought that the backup drive would be less reliable than the actual drives in my computer (all of which still working by the way). And it’s not like WD doesn’t know this is an issue. A simple search showed these drives are notorious for faulty controllers and have been for years.
A backup does not mean an external hard drive. It means a secondary copy available in a different location at the same time in case the primary source is compromised. If all your data is stored in an external hard drive with no copy somewhere else then it’s no different from having your files on your computer, which means there’s no backup.
thanks for that. Although I thoroughly enjoy condescending “lesson” type answers like yours, you’re off base on this one based on your smug assumptions about my situation. I know full well what a backup means. In my case the primary source of certain files (ie my friend’s wedding videos and a bunch of my family photos) is indeed compromised (as in the computer it was on got stolen). So I went to my BACKUP drive. Which has been sitting in a drawer not used for a few months. And as described in my original question, that backup hard drives themselves are fine but the controller no longer works. Hence my question, and my need to access this drive. If you had given as much effort actually addressing my problem as you seem to have given to typing up basic definitions and posting them as if you were talking to a grade schooler, my issue would have been solved by now. Seems criticizing the quality of the WD drives is a no-no?
I did not intend to sound condescending. I was under the impression you were referring to an external hard drive being a backup drive by default when you mentioned your original internal hard drives are still working.
On the other hand, you are free to criticize Western Digital within the boundaries of the WD Community.
