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WD External HD Problems...

A

amk320

n00b
Joined
Apr 27, 2010
Messages
50
Hello,

I have an external hard drive that's driving me bonkers. It's a Western Digital MyBook, 1TB, USB 3.0. It worked without issue on my desktop computer for over a year. It's still working without issue on my laptop and on friend's computers.

However, on my desktop, one of two things happens. Either 1) no matter which USB port it is plugged into, I will get an error message that the USB device is not recognized, and the hard drive will not show up in My Computer. It will show up as an "Unknown Device" in Device Manager; OR 2) after trying any number of things (rebooting, unplugging the computer from the wall, reinstalling the motherboard's USB drivers, etc.) the hard drive will be recognized and accessible, but will keep disconnecting and reconnecting itself randomly before finally disconnecting permanently, and giving me the "USB device is not recognized" message.

I've reformatted and run virus and malware scans, and I'm clean. I've also disabled USB power saving settings, so I don't believe that's why the drive keeps disconnecting.

I'm running Windows 7.
 
Check your 5V voltage rail, it may be below spec.
If you have other USB devices plugged in, try moving them to another USB controller or unplugging them to see if it makes a difference.
(they could collectively be overloading the USB 5V supply on that USB controller)
 
FYI, a little note about WD MyBook drives you may want to know...

I had a MyBook 2TB drive power board blow out.. the power boards they use are not very good quality. Problem is, the controller/power board of the case contains an encryption chip which encrypts everything you put on the drive (even if you don't enable or use encryption)... The only reason I know this is because when the power board failed, I was unable to recover ANYTHING on my drive! I even took it to a professionally certified HD recovery place and they were the ones that told me about the encryption chip and that nothing on the drive could be recovered without the chip... I would essentially need to purchase an EXACT duplicate model and give them both the old and new cases so they could re-solder the chip from the old case to the new one so the drive could be accessed.. a process that would have cost me $1,000+. How can you avoid this with your MyBook? Copy *everything* off your MyBook, take it out of the crappy case, put it in a DECENT external case ($20-30, ya seriously they are that cheap) and REFORMAT the drive. That will treat the drive like a normal empty drive, eliminating the encryption issue so it no longer will be a problem if you need to recover anything from the drive. Trust me, if you do this you will SAVE $1,000+ and your precious data! WD SUCKS!
 
LtDarkstar said:
! I even took it to a professionally certified HD recovery place and they were the ones that told me about the encryption chip and that nothing on the drive could be recovered without the chip... I would essentially need to purchase an EXACT duplicate model and give them both the old and new cases so they could re-solder the chip from the old case to the new one so the drive could be accessed.. a process that would have cost me $1,000+.
Click to expand...
Assuming labor is $100/hour, why would it take 8 hours? Numerous YouTube videos show that resoldering surface mount chips, even those in BGA packages, takes 5-10 minutes (maybe that's why OnePCBsolution charges only $50 to transplant internal HD BIOS chips to new circuit boards), and cracking open external drive cases maybe 5-20 minutes, with Seagate cases being the hardest, WD desktop Elements the easiest.
 
larrymoencurly said:
Assuming labor is $100/hour, why would it take 8 hours? Numerous YouTube videos show that resoldering surface mount chips, even those in BGA packages, takes 5-10 minutes (maybe that's why OnePCBsolution charges only $50 to transplant internal HD BIOS chips to new circuit boards), and cracking open external drive cases maybe 5-20 minutes, with Seagate cases being the hardest, WD desktop Elements the easiest.
Click to expand...

Most likely the typical taking advantage of the uninformed consumer approach.
 
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