Opening a WD My Book External HDD Case Guide
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- Опубліковано 20 жов 2012
- Need help getting into the case of a My Book 3,5" External Harddrive case? Check this out?
A quick and simple guide on how to open the case without smashing it to bits!
NOTE: I do not take responsibility if you manage to break your device or void the warranty. Do this at your own risk. - Ігри
Thank you, that was very helpful, gave me the confidence to prize it open with more force than I'd expected to use.
Thank you! I'm putting these unused external drives into an empty NAS -- Your video saves me lots of $$$ and trouble!
Am fixing one of these units for a friend. The micro usb socket has come away from the circuit board, so this was very helpful. Thank you :)
Very helpful indeed! And I like your accent and laid back way of speaking. You're a top bloke. Thanks.
This worked great in removing the external drive and putting it into my desktop PC. Thank you very much!
I laughed when I saw this video was exactly 10yrs old. But just used it to open mine.
Thanks.
Thank you Karl! I knew there was a simple trick to getting inside that slick case! :)
Loved the ending when you went and threw the components back on to the table XD really though it's a good guide
Thanks! Helped me out. There was a screw loose from the usb part of the thing so it couldn't connect anymore. Now it is good again, thanks and have a good day.
Managed to disassemble mine smoothly. Thanks man!
Thank you!! This was extremely helpful with getting mine opened up!!
Here's an update on the latest My Book 4 tb model. The clips that attach the outer shell to the inner case are longer on the back than on the top and bottom. It will be easier to unlatch the top and bottom clips first - simply pry the top-outer shell down (toward the bottom of the shell, which should pry the top-inner case up. This is a thin lip that catches the outer shell to the inner case. Do the same for the other side of the top, then repeat for the bottom.
My best guess for getting the longer clips on the back to unlatch without breaking is to try to force/pry the back of the outer shell toward the front, while pulling/prying back on the back of the inner case. Those clips are about 1/4" deep, which may not seem like much, but, it is when you're trying to pry that plastic outer shell.
Good luck.
Thank you! Your tutorial was very useful and helpful!
Thanks, you kept me from damaging my case!
Thank's feller from germany. It worked well. Unbelivable what you can find on youtube......
My WD used to work on 2.0 and 3.0 usb, some time later it stopped working on 2.0, then the 3.0 also broke, no guide worked and I even bought a new USB cable.
Thanks to your guide, I learned that External HDD are just regular ones, in a case with an adapater, the problem was the adapter.
Now I have 3 Internal HDDs, but even if I couldnt access my data from WD (because of a bootable problem with windows and only having 2 Sata cables), I can finally see it in the boot menu, and hopefully, it will be normally recognized whe after I plug the 3, my only fear is that it doesnt come with a jumper (don't know if will have any effect) and if the data is corrupted ( I hope not).
Anyway, I really appreciated your guide, it showed me the real problem with the WD I had and solved a puzzled that I spent hours looking for an answer. Great Job
Somewhere say that some disks encrypted and encrypt data stored on the disk, and that you can not read directly from the PC, unless you have created the encryption with a key, it will not, if so.
I'm thinking of buying one to disarm and put it on the pc,
if you do not see the fact that you already have, it may be for the encryption.
I think we should copy the case usb, and then format the pc and return to copy him things. : s
knowing the key, the program wd apparently you can access the same, but I read a lot of people step you had not put any key.
Much Thanks for the Video. Helped me switch out my Dead Drive..
Thanks for this video. I have taken out the hardrive our of the plastic case. The problem i have is that the usb port is broken so how would I connect this hard drive to my pc to copy the files over?
problem is all the data is encrypted and cant be accessed without the chip. This means you cant even reformat the full 3TB of the drive.... Anyone got a way around this?
Thanks for your explanation. Now, I'd like to see all those operations in reverse ;)
Thanks. It was just as easy as you said it was.
2:30 here people... thank me later!
Thanks - he just goes on and on doesn't he?
@@ScottPearce1976 I thought it was just me being impatient. Glad I'm not alone.
dang saw this too late! I was like holy cow!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate this video!
My external closure died, so I need to pull the still working drive out. Thanks for this video.
my mom had a different model but it was constructed the same way. the USB port on the shell broke off so i needed to get the drive out so she could still access the photos saved inside of it. i found this vid because i wanted to disassemble the shell without risking damage to the drive itself. And honestly, it was a big help, thank you.
Did you end up being able to get the photos off?
@@ourbrickhouse7338 no, i wasn't. No idea how but it came up like it was completely empty and no amount of recovery software between me and my dad could get anything off of it.
@@killer13324 probably removing the controller made "invisible" all the data, you have to use a recovery data tools to take it back
@@claudioberti1212 that's the thing, i DID use data recovery software, myself and my dad both with a total of 5 programs between us but to no avail
@@killer13324 so probably there is a sort of cryptography made by the controller 🤔
Thank you for the video, really helpful!
Great video mate! Thx for sharing :)
Great video! I just discovered that I’m missing some pieces with mine though… :(
Great video!!!
Thanks mate. This worked on my Western Digital My Book. However my 2TB drive was a HGST SATA 6Gb.
i have a 8 tb model, but the hard disk inside looks very different. canm that be mounted internally on a pc?
Thanx, perfect, it worked. Made my day.
Easy-to-understand instruction.
Do you think one can change the hard drive to a new one from nowadays?
Thank you. Mine stopped working after 9 years. Took it apart and verified the drive is still good, the board is just bad.
Try baking the board controller in an oven @ 200 °C for 10 min to see if it comes back to life. 🤔😆
Thanks, man, very helpful!
can i ask some a few question....
that WD My Book External HDD Enclosure can fit any hard drives brand???
Thanks you, this video helped a lot!
The USB port on my HDD was failing badly. There wasn't a clear solution to that problem. Decided to disassamble the My Book after seeing this video.
A WD Caviar Black 2TB happened to be inside and after simply putting it in my PC I had all my files restored. Thank you very much!
Is there a video on how to install it into your computer??
Thin guitar pick worked great to unlatch the clips. Just slide it all the way to the edges and it will unhook everything without damaging it.
what's better, my book or the desktop element? Thanks
Do they still make external hard drives with proprietary connectors on the inside, or is everything pretty much guarenteed to use SATA?
You might not even remember making this video, but it helped a lot
thanks
thx for this helpful teardown👍
Thank you! Very useful video for me :)
I was just looking this up to confirm my theory that I can take the hard drive out with ease. Time to go get a NAS setup going ;)
I liked your video, but if I want to put another album from another brand. In this case Seagate. Do you think it works?
The actual tutorial begins at 02:33 !
Thanks mate, i have problems with this drive. I will gonna try it as an internal drive.
Thanks dude. This video just made me look the hero and my senior colleague an ass because he's broken so many of these before :)
Thank you for this!! My moms wouldn't turn on and I wanted to get it out so I could get here data off and I couldn't figure out how to open it lol
I guess you found out that the enclosure encrypts the drive contents (even if you haven't set a password) thus your approach was doomed to failure. Very lame of WD to do this.
Thanks dude very helpful.
thanks cause i dropped mine it stopped working but i see there is a hard drive inside these things i can use
Thx Man u have safed my Data!
There is an easier way to open the case without damaging the clips. Insert a spudger or small screwdriver at the top and bottom of the case sections at the front. If you keep a little pressure on at those two points, sliding a thin case opening tool or credit card down the sides at the rear of the case will allow the clips to pop loose without breaking them. You can then slide the outer case off of the unit.
that's a brilliant tip mate, thank you very much! worked perfectly!
Sweet video. Super helpful. 😊
Thanks for the help with the physical disassembly. After disassembling a 3.0TB WD Book and removing the HDD (had 2 power adapters from them, both were so bad quality one fried and the other one's wire lasted only a couple of years), I found out that the HDD contents are not accessible plugging them into another external bay. The bastards to some kind of encrypting so that (at least for me) an NTFS partition does not show, instead Windows offer to format it, as it cannot see a valid partition. After plugging it back via the stupid circuit they have to do the SATA passthrough, it again can be accessed normally. How "#$* up is that ??
The reason I don't use the case, I don't want to lose the drive's contents if the case board goes bad. I've read they stopped doing this in the newest enclosures; the drive contents are stored normally so you can pull the drive and connect it any normal way.
I damaged the usb port on the back of one of these...20 years of mp3s on it and I had messed up the backup earlier that day by plugging it into the tv (bad day, don't ask).
I got an exact model number off ebay for $40, swapped out the drives and it worked.
Hardest part is getting them open and getting the little rubber chocks back into place. Also, sliding it back together. Peer down the side to make sure these 4 tabs slide back into these plastic rails on the top and bottom and reassemble while it's upright.
Also, the $40 one off ebay was a random fluke. No power cord with it, but it worked before I put my old drive in it! Plan to plug into tower soon.
Just get yourself another same family style external drive (i.e. My Book Essential) or just the controller for it. You'll be able to access the files with no problem. 😊😆
But yeah they use hardware encryption (even if you haven't specifically set this in the WD SmartWare software). 😒
Thank you very much for your information.
Thanks for the video!
Thanks...this was very helpful....
You really inspired me to go ahead and open it. Thank you cause i was scared to make the first step. Indeed it's a pity to throw a "My book" (Elite on my case) due to the actual HDD failure. Now let me ask, what's your opinion on changing the HDD inside? It was a 1.5 TB Caviar Green (32MB cache) and i' ve on scope to replace it with a 2TB (256MB Cache) WD Blue. Does it matter if i change the capacity and cache? Million thanks in advance
A++.. I reversed engineered it to put my drive back together since I forgot where all the pads and led reflector goes. What's incredible is those LED reflectors, they are so cool the way it functions, makes you think how creative human brain is. WD and Intel one of the best companies on earth.
That would be two companies.
its cool but how did you think fibre optics worked?
It's easier to yoink the side fully and pull it out instead of doing ALL the sides. After that, you're better off breaking the other part of the black box, this way the HDD will be freed and much more accessible without force. This way you can remove the rubber much easier including all the other unnecessary parts. Other than that, thank you. The little humor was kinda nice too haha! ^^
noob here. Do you have a video on how to hook it up to a lapotop? Thanks.
Nice work many thx :)
Got a 1tb western digital green hdd, thanks!
i tried to install a 16TB Disk in the WD 3TB Version. But unluckily it seems that it does not support Drives with higher capacity.... did anyone solved this?
I think 6-8 TB should be the max it can support but even this is a good guess. Most likely 4 TB would still be recognised. 😉🤔😕
Nice tutorial!
THANK YOU FOR GREAT VIDEO!
It's was very helpful.
There are 4 bolts on the hard drive, how do you remove them so I can put it in a enclosure rack tray?
Unscrew them? Show us a picture .. and was your drive exactly the same?
Depends on how you open it. Most plastic clips are held on by tension, som if you just open carefully you should be able to put the case back together again.
Thanks for this video. I have taken out the hardrive our of the plastic case. The problem i have is that the usb port is broken so how would I connect this hard drive to my pc to copy the files over?
Yessssss, it works as an internal one and found all the data back :D
If I remove the HDD can I connect it to a pc via a sata/usb cable? The data on the HDD has no password protection. Thanks.
SevenDaysToNoon your PC will not recognize it and require you to initialize it and once you press go, you will lose all data on it.
Wow, this is awesome, but unfortunately I dropped my book and broke the case and managed to fix it but could not put it back all together. Is it possible to make a video of how to do so, thanks a lot for your video.
Thanks man!
great job thax
Thank you! :)
i see you have a 1TB model, if you put in a 4TB hdd will it work?
i have a 2TB model with a dead hdd, i am pretty sure WD mybook still work. but i need to know if a 4TB hdd will run on this old mybook box.
There is a 4TB model of this WD book and there is a 4TD WD drive m.newegg.com/products/N82E16822235128
The only thing I'm not sure is if the Controller IC is able to work with 4TB drives
Thanks alot for this video.
There is a tool designed for opening clip held cases. The tool is called a Spudger.
god bless you sir
My checked baggage was inspected by Southwest Airlines and they took my MyBook External HDD apart, probably looking for bombs or some other nasty thing. They did not put the case back together the right way (upside down) and the clips are staggered inside so it can only go together one way. Man, they can be stupid sometimes. I don't know if they did anything to ruin yet, but hope not. Thanks for the video, which helped me with understanding how the case comes apart!
Couldn't they have just xray the drive?
I don't know why they wouldn't have done that. However, there was a notice placed in the bag that this stuff was taken out and dismantled for possible threats. So far that is the only thing they took apart.
Awesome. A WD Red 8TB by itself is $315 at the cheapest online retailer. I'm just gonna get an 8TB WD My Book that has that same drive in it and take it out to save myself $65. Why it's that much cheaper for the same drive + the external enclosure is beyond me, but whatever, I'll take the savings d:
I have the same mybook, it's password locked, if i removed the HDD from the case, will it be password-free?
No. The drive needs the controller (small circuit board inside the enclosure) to communicate with the computer. At least, it is the case with the My Book Essential I am currently working on.
Thank you !
Thanks so much.
Hey my wd my book is not accessible... will it work if I use a third party hdd mount so it can be read properly.
The Game Stampede if the hard drive itself havent gotten deffective it might be some fault with the sata to USB converter in the case.
If it is a problem with the USB to sata board you can always buy a new drive enclosure but remember to find a drive enclosure which is for 3.5 inch drives
I was thinking about taking apart my book and putting it into my computer as a second hard drive. I have windows 7 on the one hard drive and I plan on using the second hard drive for windows 10 so I will be dual booting (my first time doing something like this). Anyone's thoughts? I was going to put windows 8.1 on the second hard drive but seeing as we are pretty close to the release of windows 10 I will hold off on that.
You could of just made a second partition on the drive
Do you also have a video on how to install it into your computer
After you remove the USB/SATA interface, it installs just like any other SATA Hard Drive. These USA drives are, essentially, just SATA drives in an exterior enclosure, with a couple of small circuit boards that turn incoming/outgoing SATA signals into USB data streams. The hard drives are exactly the same, once you take off the USB circuit boards. If you get as far as he did, and you have installed SATA drives into your computer before, it will look completely obvious.
Wow.. Nice video bro..
Thank you
Where is part two of this video?
thank you
thanks, i just ripped it open with my fingers, no scratches, no nothing. just grad the rear and rip it to the outside.
Nice tutorial on how to open an external WD ... For the rest you are a wild to try an external WD ... Classic lackluster technical returning damaged the producer that "repairs."
Nice to know that it uses caviar black hdd
Thank you. Words cannot desscribe my feeling about this method of sealing a drive, with no indication of pressure points. Next thing we'll have is caulking seal to lock everything in 'a la Apple'. The future is bright. Another POS from WD like the new WD red's weasely marketing.
Thanx!
"I don't know. Maybe a hammer?" LOL. Just bustin sum chops--no worries. I used a sledgehammer to open mine. But you can't be too careful when using a sledgehammer--just put it on your anvil (everyone has an anvil in there basement), an give a nice whack! Pops right open and bob's your uncle! But seriouslessly, nice video.
Hi I have taken out the hardrive our of the plastic case. The problem i have is that the usb port is broken so how would I connect this hard drive to my pc to copy the files over?
Quick question for anyone that can help. Will the hard drive I take out be readable when I install inside my computer even though I installed the smartware password program. Im hoping the answer is yes, as the smartware is part of those other boards that are in the case connected to drive.
I would say that the smartware password program will be handled by a SOC on the the controller board
get on with it please