WD My Book Live Replace Failed Drive

Hello community,

My WD My Book Live failed.I took the HDD apart (unfortunately the drive was one of those awful Caviar Green drives and there’s no warranty) and placed it on an external docking station.The drive cannot be recognized by the Linux computer reporting I/O error.Obviously the disk is dead.I do not care much about it since nothing important was stored in it.

I’ve got this question:

How can i make it work again after installing a new disk?

I connected the board to another disk but nothing happened.It should rebuild the partitions, filesystem and re-install Linux OS.

Is there any tool from WD to rebuild it?

Thanks.

George.

This guide will show you how to recover data, if possible and how to replace the drive.

  http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Book-Live/GUIDE-How-to-unbrick-a-totally-dead-MBL/m-p/435724

There is also a Version 2, which suppose to be easier.

Thank you very much.

I will give it a try.

Do not forget to give nfodiz some love!

Shabuboy wrote:

This guide will show you how to recover data, if possible and how to replace the drive.

  http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Book-Live/GUIDE-How-to-unbrick-a-totally-dead-MBL/m-p/435724

 

There is also a Version 2, which suppose to be easier.

Note that this Guide gives you the chance to choose the size of drive you put in. It’s easy to put in a 3 TB; there’s a 3 TB image. I suspect that you could do a 4TB by enlarging the 3 TB data partition. Partition enlarging is also described in the Guide.

Here is the Version 2 Guide. There are new-unit drive images you can download and the procedure for installing them.

http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Book-Live/GUIDE-Debrick-MyBookLive-v2-0/m-p/567582#M22126

For a single drive unit this should be very a straightforward operation.

nfodiz did a great job putting the guides together. He definitely deserves the love!

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Thank you all.

I’ve got one more question though.

Since on the failed drive i cannot see any partitions, can somebody recommend me what partitions i should create on the new disk sizes, filesystem etc.

The procedure is much easier for me since i already run Linux on my laptop and Gparted is already installed so i do not need th live CD.

Thanks again.

If you use the Version 2 Guide, minus the boot CD, and install the appropriate image file, it will contain all the correct partitions and the OS. I think all you would need to do is put the image on appropriately formatted external media, or somewhere you can address it if you are familiar with Linux drive designations and commands.

Be aware that the Version 2 Guide says to format the flash media to NTFS, while the earlier version uses FAT32. Of course, it doesn’t matter which you use so long as you give the right commands in the procedure.

If you use the script version Guide, the same changes should apply. Just make sure you are pointing to the correct drive target and the correct source.

One possible hitch, if you are working from a laptop, is that a USB connection may or may not work. I can’t speak from experience as all of my operations were on a direct SATA hookup to a desktop machine. There is a note about this in the guide.

Since you are not concerned with the contents of the failed drive, I would go with the Version 2 Guide and just install the appropriate image. The instructions in either guide are quite good. I managed to put two new drives in a MBL Duo, and it’s been a LONG time since I messed with Linux.

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Thanks once again Kieren.

I think i should start to get my hands dirty.

“testing to see if this forum is open to comments”

Note that this Guide gives you the chance to choose the size of drive you put in. It’s easy to put in a 3 TB; there’s a 3 TB image. I suspect that you could do a 4TB by enlarging the 3 TB data partition. Partition enlarging is also described in the Guide.

I have a 3TB model, which just failed an I want to put a 4TB HDD inside. I did all the operations for installing the firmware, but it only recognizes 3TB. How can I expand that to 4TB?

@morph8070,
The original question is from 2013, it’s better to open a new topic.
On a Linux machine (e.g. Linux Mint) use gparted to extend the 4th partition (typically /dev/sd?4, with ? being a, b,c,d…). That requires of course to take the drive out of the enclosure again.

It’s also possible to do on the MBL itself: log into the MBL using ssh/putty/kitty, unmount /dev/sda4 (the DataVolume), use the fdisk command to delete partition 4, create it again (now taking up all space available on your physical drive), create a new file system using mkfs and mount again. If you are unfamiliar with this commands, you might have to do some searching and read a few man pages.
Ewald

My 3TB MBL has been bricked for over 18months and finally found this info on how to fix it. To the original poster of the solution - Thanks, I’m now back up and running.

It was a little daunting using Linux but I followed the instructions and it worked a treat. To anyone attempting this, I came up across the following issues:
1 - I couldn’t get the boot Rescue CD to load, it just cam up with various error messages when trying to load the OS. Resolved by downloading the USB stick version.

2 - When I first booted up the re-imaged drive it wanted to do a firmware update which failed each time. I then downloaded the firmware image file to apply manually, but this would fail each time after about 10%. Resolved by doing a restore factory settings via MBL web interface. The autoupdate failed but the manual upload worked a treat. I doubt WD will be issuing any further updates but at least I’m up and running again :slight_smile: