My Book makes clicking noise and does not show up anymore

This might be a good thing to check before you start voiding warranties, opening cases, or panicking, AND if you have recently reorganised your setup.
I found that my drive was making the dreaded clicking noise about once per second when I turned it on, and that it was not recognised by the computer. I later discovered that I had plugged in the WRONG power cable. The MyBook was plugged into the seemingly identical cord for a cable modem that I have. The current and voltage were different so of course, the disk didn't work. Funnily enough, the cable modem worked fine. Switching the cables back solved everything.
So as a first guess, assume your own stupidity is at fault - mine was.

Hi, I have a potential solution to this problem. I don't know if it will work for everyone, I just know it worked for me.

I had the same problem as everyone here. The MyBook wouldn't be recognised by the computer. Fornutately for me I was merely moving file using it, so I wasn't totally screwed. I figured I'd just move less files at a time.
So, I plugged in my USB stick and low and behold, my system starting recognising the MyBook as well!
My guess is that plugging in a USB device that's not so unstable woke the system up and made it look harder at the USB ports.

So, there you have it. Like I said, I don't know if this will work for anyone else, but I thought I'd put it up here in case it did.

Signed
sgh

My issue was in fact a USB power problem. The WD drive works fine on my (1 year XP old) Dell and iMac but will not work on my old Powerbook G4. The only activity I get is a clicking sound and a continious flashing blue light indicator. I will try the dual-head USB cable option to see if that helps.

My Book just did this today, was working before lunch, died after I got back. Click click clik! Found this online:
http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-mybook-open-case-recover-data.htm

I think mine is a power issue, so I'm going to try this as soon as I get back home and have access to phillips screwdriver and get extra sata cable.

I need an external with a higher crash rating anyway, like a solid steel case or rubber so it'll bounce next time I drop it. You'd think the my book was steel for all its weight.

I don't have a fix for the problems with the WD MyBook 500GB drive (my issue is very similar to many listed here), but I do have a solution on how to extract data when you can't access it. I found a program called GetDataBack that I used to pull all the data off my drive. It took roughly 17 hours for 104 GB of music, video and other files, but at least I got it off of there.

WD's support is a joke. I'll just pay the 50 extra bucks and get a better drive next time.

THIS WORKS....Here try this...unplug everything including the power cable...press and hold the button on the unit for 10 seconds. after that hook the unit back in the power cord first..and it should work...files and everythin are there...I got this from tech support and it worked for me

OMGOMGOMG!!! PAY ATTENTION! I have been depressed all day reading these reports on the click of deat. I had the same noises in the same 6-2-2 pattern. As i contemplated suicide i decided to fiddle round with the cables and it miraculously came back to life!!!!

1) Unplug everything

2) plug in the power cord yo your wall outlet and make sure its flush

3) plug in the adapter to your hard drive

4) Press the on button (this is where it gets exciting)

5) i heard one click and the drive started running

6) in nervous anticipation plug in you Usb cord to your hard drive

7) praise whatever god you want that your hard drive has risen from the grave!!!!!

Same happened to me this morning (Christmas). My Books generally come with a 3-year warranty, so let me know if any of you manage to get ahold of Western Digital support for a replacement. I currently can get onto their website, it appears down for my area.

I've read that if you need the files they refer you to a third-party disc recovery service that starts at $500 and goes higher to retrieve the files. Sounds like a hell of a scam. Sell a $150 500GB drive, have it break in 3-6 months, then charge $500 to get the files off. Turns quite a profit.

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/selection.asp?custtype=end

I have a 500 gb My Book Premium Edition WD5000N that wouldn't show up and was continuously clicking every 1-2 seconds. I discovered it as soon as it started to malfunction and tried several ways to get it to show up on the MAC Desktop by trying different cables/computers/USB versus Firewire/turning on and off multiple times/using DiskWarrior and Disk Utility/Applejjack to do repairs for about an hour or so. Nothing worked. The disk wouldn't show up on the Desktop and continued to click.

I then read about others who removed the hard drive from the external unit and mounted the drive internally so I decided to try this.

Mine differed from these enclosures:

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/7/t819501-how-to-take-apart-your-wd-mybook/

http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-mybook-open-case-recover-data.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FlySnyJ0CQ

It is closest to this one:
http://www.sigg3.net/b2perma.php?p=1185&c=1 but no rubber band - only glued on metal cover.

I had to destroy the case to get the hard drive out as mine differed from the ones described above (and they are not built to take apart!!!!). First there are no external screws. Pry off the metal perforated grill that covers the back of the unit. This is just glued on. Instead of a rubber gasket, my unit had vinyl that was all part of one piece so I couldn't peal off the gasket. Taking off the metal perforated grill reveals 3 tabs on the bottom (these were covered up) plus the readily apparent 3 tabs on the top. Press these down and hold them down by wedging something in the perforations. On the long edge close to the connectors, pry outward with a screw driver since there are tabs here that prevent you from sliding the hard drive out. Then try to slide out the hard drive away from the metal skin. This method is based on the disassembled unit. I had to pry the whole plastic unit away from the metal front casing so if the above method doesn't work, try brute force (just don't pry on the hard drive.

One you get the plastic holder away from the metal front piece, take out every screw you can see. Be careful with the flat screw that holds the on/off switch (if your unit has one) since this is easy to strip. Take out the 4 screws holding the SATA circuitry to the hard drive and unplug the wires, the 3 screws holding the front switch, and the 4 screws holding the hard drive to the plastic piece. This allows you to remove the metal holder and the hard drive. Now take off the 4 screws that hold the hard drive in place. Then pry off the silicone washers. This releases the hard drive which is covered with a metal film. Carefully pry/peal this off. Don't damage the controller board.

This revealed a WD5000ks caviar drive se16 which is a SATA drive made April 22, 2006.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

No jumpers were installed.

I installed the drive into the internal slot of my PowerMac G5 and it now shows up on the desktop. I rebuilt the drive with Disk Warrior (it had minor errors) and checked it with SMARTReporter which reports that the drive passes the SMART tests.

It's has been up for 5 hours and works fine, no data loss.

So, I think that the problem was with a defective SATA connector/circuit. If you catch the drive early when it begins clicking (don't leave it on long with it clicking as this may mess up the hard drive heads), you can remove the drive and use the SATA circuits in your computer to mount the drive.

Hope this helps. Again, my advice is the minute you hear the clicking sounds, try fixing via usual techniques but if these don't work, take the hard drive out of the enclosure (sooner rather than later) and try it internally. This will void your warranty but might allow you to save your data (and maybe even the hard drive).

Ok, I got it. its a plug and play driver issue. I had the same problem and just considered it dead. Recently I had to do a complete reinstall of windows on my laptop and when I plugged in the Mybook it reinstalled its plug and play driver and worked. Lasted about 1 week and has died again. If you desperately need your data back you'll need to reinstall windows and it will work.

sounded like mine was dead too. spent a day just plugging in the power and turning it on and then back off whenever i heard the second click. watched die hard 2 and after about the fiftieth time i heard only one click. so while it mite not be dead i think you casn get another run at. it done shutdown after being on for a few hours tho. but i managed to copy all the data before that. so just try turning it on and off a bunch of times and it should eventually kick back on long enough for you to maybe extract your data. a solution for those less tech savvy unable to open up there hard drives.

Clicking is usually caused by bad heads and in this case drive needs heads swapped by a pro.
Check out this page with sounds hard drives make with problems explanation. Hope it helps.

Ok, my myBook started making the 3-clicks...3-clicks. The drive is dead. It is now a race against time to save your data. Believe it or not, this worked (once) for me. Put the drive in the freezer and then plug it in while its cold. Ice cold. I had mine in the freezer for like 2 days. Make sure you have another drive to transfer the data to as this trick worked for me once and only once. I tried to put it back in the freezer and it is just clicking now. This is actually an old hard drive data recovery trick. It has nothing to do with the myBook in particular.
I have been a loyal Western Digital customer for years. This drive is about 18 months old; warranty just expired. I have been reading online and it seems many people are experiencing drive failures immediately after the warranty expires. I will never buy Western Digital again. Buy Maxtor - 5 Year Warranty on my new OneTouch!

dfah

My my Book 160G was clicking-spinup-spindown-clicking spinup-spindown-turnoff and was not recognized.Thanks to the above post from Janeydoey with this link! (and Thanks Again!)
http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-mybook-open-case-recover-data.htm
I was able to recover all data. Mine had an IDE connector instead of the SATA in the article. There was no clicking going on while connected to the computers power supply and IDE. This was a lot cheaper than the $790 quote I got for data recovery!