I use my WD external hard drive mulitple times per day. Lately I have been having an issue with what seems like a loose connection from the USB onto the drive itself (I have had the same issue with my Blackberry and they told me it was from plugging the USB intot he unit and after time it got loose).
Has any one else had this issue? Fixes? Thank you.
If you mean that your drive turns off after a while and you have to wait a short time until you can access it, then it is normal. It is to save energy by making the drive hibernate automatically.
If you mean that if the cable is moved the drive suddenly disappears, then I would contact WD about this and see what they say. You can do so either by phone or email.
To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en
I would strongly recommend moving your data to another drive ASAP. If the USB connector fails completely, it is likely all of your data will be lost to you. WD plays fast and loose with your data when it writes it to the drive. In many cases, the data written is unreadable if the drive is not connected to the original USB interface board. I have just experienced this first hand (documented in another thread) and finally gave up ever recovering my data.
I agree with chperry. And if the USB port gets broke, data recovery will by your only option. You should have you data in multiple locations, anyway.
Just bought a 1-TB My Book and am experiencing the same problem with loosing connectivety to my PC if I simply tilt the My Book forward or back just a little bit…seems very touchy. I’m hopeing it doesn’t get worse with time and wear on the cable and components. I have no idea what to due to fix it…I think it’s just a design flaw, but I will try and contact WD support and see whatthey have to say. Regards and good luck!
If it’s not a bad cable it’s probably a bad port. Make sure you have everything on the drive backed up on another drive so if it gets corrupt you don’t loose it all. They also appear to be having problems with ports breaking off again so it may be a bad solder job there. I definitely would not trust important data to that drive until problem is solved.
Joe
I had similar issues with my WD My Book Home using USB. In Event Viewer (Win 7), a USB controller error was indicated. This is usually due to a poor cable connection though it can also be a problem with the external drive interface or the USB controller in the computer.
First I tried several different USB cables with Mini-B connectors. All of them were a somewhat loose fit when plugged into the back of the WD MBH. I ended up slightly crimping the Mini-B connector on one of the cables which resulted in more of a snug fit in the the back of the WD MBH. Since then I haven’t had anymore controller errors listed in Event Viewer.
It doesn’t take much force on the Mini-B connector so don’t overdo it. Only a slight squeeze with needle nose pliers is all that is required. Don’t make it too tight as it may damage the socket in your external drive.
I bought a WD My Book 3.0 2TB external HDD through Amazon and had a friend bring it over for me to India a couple of months ago. Last Saturday the female USB socket came clean off its mounting on the PCB inside the drive and came out attached with the cable.
Though the drive was registered as ‘Out of Region’ with WD, I was very happy with their effort to solve the problem by sending me details to register the drive in India and their latest has been a mail which I hope will lead to the replacement of the PCB with a properly mounted female USB socket.
Considering the massive volume of the drive and some confidential content, it would be a costly and a time consuming task to back up such a lot of data or send the whole drive (after formatting) for replacement to WD.
I would strongly urge WD to improve the design and manufacturing robustness of this particular part, such that it can give many years of trouble free service. Plugging and unplugging cables should be the last thing a consumer should be afraid of and what happens when we are out of any warranty?
The right and ethical thing to do would be for WD to completely redesign this parts mounting process to give alife-long service and ship these replacement PSBs to all My Book 3.0 customers. Much like the parts recall they have in the automotive industry.
That is the only long term fix that would yield any worthwhile solution to this (what seems from the forum) not a rare problem.
I only hope WD takes the required action and keep us as satisfied customers.
Aarmin Banaji
This is unforgiveable. I’ll never again by another wd product. The lack of quality engineering is laughable. I’ll simply trust online sites. Thanks for NOTHING wd!
For the benifit of forum members I can but quote verbatim, the last mail I just sent to WD Support in final acknowledgement of threir inability to resolve the problem… It is quite self-explantory and I suppose anyone faced with their shoddy product will have to do something similar to save his sanity and move ahead with productive work. Dear [deleted], I am afraid that we have receached an impasse. As mentioned in my very first mail or so, I being more than reseasonbly proficient technically and to protect my data, I seem to have already voided your warranty. Though I fail to see how any Data Recovery center would have done anything different to retrive the data without opening your case and removing the drive? Besides there is the absurdity of not a single WD approved Data Recovery Center available in India according to the link in your mail. With the socket having come clean off your PCB, again I emphasis due to a very poor design and/or manufactureing process, there is no way without putting the basic HDD in an external casing (in the present circumstances I fixed it in an external SATA USB 2.0 casing and accessed the data as well as got to see the poor quality of mounting on the PCB as well as of the socket itself). I am afraid with the typical bureaucratic approach adoted by WD, you have just left a dissapointed and unhappy customer who will now think twice about investing in any WD product. Till such time that an external casing supporting USB 3.0 becomes available, I shall have to make do with the lower speed but that is my misfortune in having invested in a poorly made product from WD. Yours sincerely, Aarmin Banaji
I start by emphasising that the following is my text sent to WD Support, since the issue seems to be heading somewhere, maybe due to the escalation mentioned by the moderator in the previous mail. Nowhere is there any quote from a third party but only what I have written. The following is a self-explanatory text sent to WD Support - Dear [Edited], I am truly heartened by your response and hope you do mean and act upon what I think is implied in your mail as follows:- 1. I can keep the defective drive to recover my data as and when possible. 2. In the meantime through the RMA # [Edited] created you will despatch a complete replacement drive. May I suggest that only the drive be sent without the cable and power adaptor, as the original have nothing wrong with them. 3. I have already provided to you my postal address and phone no. Would appreciate your informing me the despatch details at the earliest. 4. I am copying this reply to the 2 previous mails received, one from [Deleted] and the other from your RMA sectrion. This should brief them that the RMA is being processed without my having to return the drive and my RMA request thus has been made before the 24th April 2011 deadline indicated. If, this works through (specially in a short time frame) as you seem to imply, I can assure you that my opinion of WD and its customer support will change for the better. As another friendly suggestion may I request you to take up the matter of looking into the design and quality aspect of this particular component at the earliest, incorporate the change and have a programee of product recall/replacement. I am sure WD would stand to gain in reputation for such a measure. Thanking you, Yours sincerely, Aarmin Banaji
HELP! I think it happened to me. When I went to attach the cable to the USB port on the back of the drive it popped inside of the drive and now I can’t plug in. I have a ton of movies and pretty much all my music on this. No, I’m an ■■■■■ and didn’t back it up-- Is there any way to either fix it or recover the stuff that’s on there?
My heart bleeds for you as the circumstances and situation are so identical. Please go over all my 3-4 posts which should take you through the sequence of events in my case. As of now, the last I heard from WD they have agreed to my keeping the defective drive , they will send a replacement and I will then transrfer the data. If you want details on how to open and access this defective drive write back on this forum and I shall post a reply. However, I do not take any responsibility of how that action effects your case with WD and a repalcement. I cannot emphasise enough, again and again how this whole problem has roots only in the poor quality of design and/or manufactering on the part of WD. As and when they rectify it, it would be very good customer PR on their part to replace these drives with their customers the world over. Aarmin
Thanks for your reply. Contacted them and I think it **bleep** that I have to pay a ton of money for data recovery for something that is their fault. Does anyone know of a quick, cheap way to recover data? I don’t mind if I void the warranty, becuase it looks like data recovery is going to cost more than I paid for the drive in the first place…
That is exactly what I wanted to point out. If you care ‘bleep-all’ about the warranty and your problem is exactly that of the female socket mounted internally in the drive having come -off, then it is a simple matter of opening the case, removing the drive and fitting it into an external SATA compatible case (should not cost more than $10) with its own power supply. The data recovery folks are just making a killing out of a necessity. That is exactly what I had to do as the data could not wait for their data recovery as well as is too confidential to be sent here and there. Wish you good luck.
Thanks sooo much for this. I’ll try it–don’t have a lot to lose and everything to gain if it works… Now, why couldn’t the Western Digital people tell me this?
Again, thanks!
Welcome. In case you need technical assistance or pointers on how to open the drive cover, etc. without damaging the case, note that there are no screws holding the external black cover. It is just pressed fit, so you need a discarded credit card or similar to run it across the edges and gently prise and slip it apart. After that to get at the innards, to remove the PCB, the indicator light, and the packaging from the side, is a simple matter of observe and proceed with gentleness and caution.
This is exactly what I am going through. I don’t think it is WD’s fault as much as it is the designer of the USB 3.0 micro B connector. Not only is it flimsy and unreliable, but unnecessary. I’ve been scrambling trying to get a replacement enclosure for my WD 3TB MyBook essential USB 3.0 ext. drive just because of that ridiculous connector.