Took apart WD Mybook Essential 2TB and connected as internal. No partition? Help!!

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nextlcder

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Feb 16, 2010
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Hi there,
I took apart WD MyBook 2 TB and connected it as internal sata hdd, but once in Windows 7, the WD20EADS disk appears as unallocated (Oh my God!!). When connected by the WD enclosure, it had a single 2TB NTFS partition.
Is this normal? Have anyone tried this? Maybe should I put some jumpers to configure it in another way or something?

Plz help!!!
 
Maybe theres some controller in there, try formatting it after backing up, i say.
 
not gonna format it, man

all my data is supposedly there but when connecting it as internal SATA, it doesn't show any partitions.

Anyone knows the steps to take in order to connect WD MyBook HDD to internal SATA?
 
I have the same drive and no, there are no extra steps. ive ripped several out of those black WD enclosures without issue. if you reconnect it to the external controller does your partition return?
 
greengolftee87 said:
I have the same drive and no, there are no extra steps. ive ripped several out of those black WD enclosures without issue. if you reconnect it to the external controller does your partition return?
Click to expand...

hi,
maybe u tried that with an older version of mybook. My version is the one with the white lights (WDBAAF0020HBK), not the previous version that had a blue light. Here is a pic:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=730

And yes, I connected it back with the WD enclosure and the partition and data is there like before. Then, I connected again using SATA and the disks shows no parttions.

So, there's must be some kind of WD's custom partition formatting or data encryption that prevents the data to be seen when connect it as internal HDD.

If anyone knows how to do solve it, plz tell me.

PS: I could transfer my 2TB of data to another drive by using the slow USB 2.0, but I don't have another drive, and I don't want to lose all my data by reformatting it.

PS 2: And of course I don't have the password set for the drive.
 
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From the site you posted that drive seems to have WD SmartWare. It lists 5 great reasons to love it, however you seem to have found a reason to hate it (and im with you on that). My only guess is that there is something residing in the adapter that's more than just a SATA to USB adapter.

Someone else did have this problem but was more unlucky than you since his data did not return upon reassembly here. Though I wouldnt follow any of the advice posted there unless its a last resort.

Just for the sake of asking, did you hot plug it in or did you shutdown, connect, then startup?
 
greengolftee87 said:
From the site you posted that drive seems to have WD SmartWare. It lists 5 great reasons to love it, however you seem to have found a reason to hate it (and im with you on that). My only guess is that there is something residing in the adapter that's more than just a SATA to USB adapter.

Someone else did have this problem but was more unlucky than you since his data did not return upon reassembly here. Though I wouldnt follow any of the advice posted there unless its a last resort.

Just for the sake of asking, did you hot plug it in or did you shutdown, connect, then startup?
Click to expand...

That reminds me that I forgot to mention that I also tried disabling the WD Smartware Virtual CD (it's an additional drive embedded somehow in the MyBook disk) before disconnecting the USB, but that also didn't work.

I shutdown, connected to SATA and powered on the computer, like any internal SATA hard disk.

Any other suggestions?
 
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it looks like youre rapidly approaching dumping your data somewhere else and formatting. if you dont have the space maybe a friend or something can help you out. or buy another external, use it for the dump, format it and return it
 
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