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How to revive a dead Western Digital MyBook

I’ve had some bad luck with external hard drives.  For a while I was using a 100gb as my primary photo drive.  Well, it died.  Fortunately I was able to take it apart and plug the drive into an EIDE controller and keep the data. It was backed up on DVD, but getting it off the drive was much faster and easier. 

Next I bought a 250gb Western Digital MyBook to use as a backup drive.  After about a month it started clicking which was indicative of a hard drive failure.  Back to WD it went under warranty and they sent me a new one.  To their credit their customer service was very good about replacing the drive. About a week ago my backup routine started sending me emails that it couldn’t find the drive.  So this morning I took it apart to see if the drive was still good (it was).  So it’s still going to be a backup drive, but moved to my Linux server where I can keep a little more airflow on it and hopefully not have the issues.

But since it was such a pain to take apart I figured someone out there might like to see the steps.

This is the drive the way it looks laying over on its side ready to get taken apart.  There are a lot of different MyBooks and I wasn’t able to easily find instructions on how to take apart this particular model.

1-frontshot

And here’s the back.  The model I have is the one with only a USB connection.  Some of the newer models also have firewire or ethernet, but not this one. 

2-backshot

The biggest catch is that you can’t see any screws.  Usually that means that there are plastic catches that just pop apart so off I went with a small flat head screwdriver.  Oops.  There’s one screw painted over on the back, top, left corner if you’re looking from the front.  It’s the one closest to the power connection.  There are 8 little dimples, but the rest are just indentions.  This one has a screw.

3-hiddenscrew

So with that screw out, now it’s time to pry off the cover.  A small flat head and a little patience and it comes off.  Easiest place to start is the middle of the backside.  Once it’s loose all the way around the front cover just slides off.

4-pryoffcover

5-coveroff

And the disappointing part.  I was hoping the drive was SATA so it would work in my new computer.  I’ve got an EIDE controller in it as well, but that controller is already full with 2 drives. 

And here’s the guts of the drive.  The drive is surrounded by a metal casing with the USB to EIDE controller on one side.

6-theguts

4 screws and the whole assembly slides out of the plastic casing.  A few more and the controller board flips off.  One catch here is that the button and LED assembly for the front of the drive is screwed in on the side so there are 3 extra screws to remove before pulling.

7-controllercard

Then it’s just a matter of pulling the power and EIDE cables out and the controller card is loose, and not of any more use.

8-controllercardoff

And we’re left with just the hard drive and a cover.

9-harddrivecase

And now we need to pull off the drive covering.  It had 4 screws around the side that held the top on and then 4 more that held the drive in.  Taking off the first 4 let me open up the case like a clamshell.  The top and bottom covers were taped together so they didn’t totally separate.

10-harddriveopen

These are the screws that held the drive in.  No clue what the little side pieces are for.  They didn’t seem to serve any purpose.

11-removescrews

And now we’re down to just the drive.  It’s just a normal 250gb EIDE Caviar.

12-justthedrive

And out comes one of my toys.  It’s one of those geeky things I’ve wanted for a while but didn’t have an excuse to buy until a few weeks ago.  It’s a USB adapter with connections for power, 3.5″ EIDE, 2.5″ EIDE (notebooks), and SATA so it’ll hook up to pretty much any internal drive and let it temporarily act as an external.  Not a good permanent solution, but works great for what I’m doing.

13-usbcontroller

Plugged it in and it worked without a snag.  Windows found the drive and all of the data appears intact.  Now I’ve just got to install it in my Linux machine and start using it as a backup there. 

ndrive

Published inComputers & Internet

11 Comments

  1. So, on a whim I decided to plug the drive back into the controller card from the external enclosure and it worked! I took pictures of the steps for this blog post, and I’m glad I did. Made it much easier to get back together. Hardest part was getting the plastic catches on the case to click together. Took a little more force than I was comfortable with, but it worked.

  2. Roopak Roopak

    Hey i have a WD1000H 1 TB disk… when i plug it in it is supposed to be recoginised.. but all of a sudden it is not recognising my disk… want to open and take the hard disk out.. this model does not have the screw like in yours.. think its one with plastic clips.. cos in the casing have a small lock looking symbol..messed with it but no luck

  3. Actually bought one of those last week. The lock slot you’re seeing is probably the slot for a cable lock and not related to the cover. Best bet is to get it fixed under warranty if you can. Western Digital was very easy to work with the first drive I had that had to be RMA’d, although they will just send you another so you’ll lose any data. Otherwise, best guess is that the plastic cover is just clipped on and a little careful work with a small flat head screwdriver should be able to separate. There are pages out on the internet on taking apart the newer models. Those were the ones I found before putting mine up.

  4. Jonathan Jonathan

    Ryan, I have this exact HDD and I was thinking about upgrading. My question is, is there anything stopping me from buying a larger EIDE HDD and putting it in this enclosure? However, after doing some research, large EIDE drives are more expensive than SATA are so I have no plans on doing it. But, I would be interested in hearing what you think.

  5. I would expect that you could, but no promises. Seems like they would have made the electronics that same in all of their EIDE externals.

  6. Now that the drive is back together, it’s been running as an external on my media center for about 2 months now with no hitches. Of course, I probably just jinxed myself…

  7. Good to see your step by step guide, unfortunately I came across it after taking apart my ‘Myworldbook II’ 350gb white case blue ring version.

    It took me a little while to work out how to get the casing off. A rubber edging strip needed to be prised out before two plastic catches could be depressed (one on top and one on bottom)a two screw driver method required for this, one to press the catch and one to prise the casing apart.

    Unfortunately after getting to the drive I found mine was a SATA I had a spare EIDE drive which I had hoped to try out to work out what had failed. I’ve tried to find your 3 in 1 device, can you tell me where you got it from and a rough cost – thanks.

  8. It was 20 or 30 bucks. Bought it at a store in Houston called Altex Electronics. They’ve got a website, but tend not to have the more obscure geeky stuff on it. The brand I bought was i dot Connect, but I’ve come across other brands on other websites.

    Sites like Buy.com have similar devices that look a little more permanent. I think that ThinkGeek has one as well.

  9. Thanks for the info, I’m a UK user so I’ll do some research online.

    Whilst looking for your 3 in 1 I came across the “PogoPlug Network USB Device / Hard Drive Adapter” on play.com looks like a more flexible alternative to the worldbook devices, might give that a go if it turns out that it is the card rather than the drive that has died on my worldbook.

    I’m pretty relieved that I purchased another 1TB WD drive as a USB add on a few months ago and made sure I duplicated all my data on that as well – phew!

  10. I managed to get an ‘IOMAX’ utility kit from Amazon (uk) for £19, it covers most disk types and sizes. Using this I was able to confirm my whole worldbook was fried, disk and card – that PogoPlug is looking more interesting now I nolonger have a networked backup drive.

  11. gregg gregg

    I am in the process of doing this with my 500Gb drive. similar construction, however no screws holding the case together and board configuration is slightly different. Really easy to disassemble.

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