Replacing the Disks in MyBook Velociraptor Duo

Hello everyone,

A couple of days ago, one of the drives in my WD Velociraptor Duo enclosure failed. I did a quick search online, and the drives are no longer available to purchase new. I now have two options (as I need a replacement drive asap). Option 1 would be to get two WD Black Drives (I use the disk for video editing, so I’m looking for something fast) and use them inside the enclosure, and option 2 would be to get a new RAID system. I would really like to go with option 1, however, the drives inside the enclosure have a sticker on them saying to “only use WD Velociraptor drives”. I did some digging, and came out with mixed results. Some people say that the enclosure will accept different drives, while others say there is a firmware block on the enclosure to prevent it from recognising other drives.

If anyone has tried this, could you please point me in the right direction? I’d hate to buy a new drive only to have it be rejected by the enclosure.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Hi moritzhochberg,

Maybe you should try contacting WD’s Technical Support about this.

To Contact WD for Technical Support
https://support.wdc.com/support/case.aspx?lang=en

The link below will allow you to call support.

Same here. I run raid 0, but I think I have a bad sector on one of the drives. The array won’t pass the diagnostics and one large 52gb file in particular will make my computer reboot when I try to transfer it. I’m basically getting boiler plate replies out of the manual from support saying they can only be replaced with the same model velociraptor drives, which of course are no longer manufactured. I have some 4gb HGST’s I may try when I have some time. I was able to transfer all but the one problematic file.

Hi dwiener, I ended up purchasing a new RAID system, but I still have the Velociraptor on my desk. Did you ever try the other drives in the VL enclosure? If yes, did it work?
Thanks a lot in advance!

Sorry for the long delay. I haven’t logged in here in quite awhile. Nope never did. I was able to use diskutility on my mac to repair the drives. I think NewEgg has vendors that sell Velociraptor drives.