Question about Western Digital My Book Essential Edition (WDG1U5000N) 500 GB Hard Drive

1 Answer

Inaccessible external hard drive

I have a 500G MyBook (WD5000DO32) and two more days on my warranty. At first it sounded like the drive was constantly accessing, almost like it was in a loop. Now it powers up but can't be accessed. The files on the drive are all backups and I still have the originals so data loss isn't a concern. I would be willing to return it for a new one but I have files on this drive that I would not want anyone else to have access to if the drive is still readable. I don't think my older Dell PC will handle the 500G drive internally and I don't understand the procedure I saw on another post that someone else used (external SATA to USB cable set to bypass the controller board). Can you give me a suggestion on how to erase the files before I return it or what else I can do? How hard/expensive would it be to put the drive into some other case? I can be emailed at fotofanatk@yahoo.com. Thank you for any help!
PMcCoy

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  • PMcCoy Aug 28, 2008

    Thank you for your prompt reply. You have eased my mind re my concerns.

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1 Answer

Ryan Rogers
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If the drive has failed there will be no way of completely erasing anything from it. One thing that you can try is placing the drive on the speaker magnets in your car. I've had several hard drives come through my shop that were scrambled because someone left the laptop in the back window of their car and the magnetic field from the speakers erased it. I will tell you that data recovery from failed drives is very expensive, WD isn't interested in the info from warrantied drives, and isn't going to pay to have each returned drive recovered. Keep in mind that WD has thousands of returned drives on an annual basis, and the chances of someone recovering anything from your drive are extremely slim. Besides, WD has a privacy policy that all warrantied drives are to be destroyed. I have WD 250, and there is no way of removing the drive without breaking the case, voiding the warranty, so I don't recommend trying to remove the drive from the case. If the drive has failed it won't matter whether the drive is in the original case or a laptop, it's still not going to work.

Posted on Aug 28, 2008

  • Ryan Rogers
    Ryan Rogers Aug 28, 2008

    You're welcome, and if you need anything else, just ask.

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