I purchased a Western Digital 160GB "My Book" about a year and a half ago

It is pretty much a Hard drive that comes in its own housing already, it does have an external power source, and connects to my laptop via USB 2.0.

This has literally sat on my desk from the first day that I got it, I use it about once a month to backup everything on my laptop, never been dropped or anything of that nature.

Last night when I plugged it in, the light flickered and tried to brighten up, made a fan sound and then just slowly went out. It doesn't turn on any more, Ive tried different outlets and different computers as well.

My question the the smart folks on tww is, do you think it is possible for me to bust open the casing and pull out the harddrive and be able to use it in some other housing for a harddrive, or do you think they are setup differently inside?

This item is already out of warranty, so thats out of the question as well,

Thanks in advance

10/29/2007 7:11:02 PM

thats what it looks like

10/29/2007 7:21:22 PM

I had a 250gb My Book that did the exact same as yours one day. Took it down to a repair shop and they said the had drive had a power surge and that they could recover the data, but their $75 fee was higher than I could go.

10/29/2007 7:24:23 PM

yeah i figure its something to do with the power and not with the actual drive itself, thats why Im wondering if I could just buy a hard drive enclosure for like $20 at tigerdirect or something and see if I can still use this drive, its not like I neeeed the data, its mostly just backup

10/29/2007 7:27:32 PM

I would search google. Not in the i'm an asshole sense. But to find any message boards that might have "how to's" in pictures on how to a) bust it open and b) tell you what kind of drives inside which i'm assuming is a standard HDD. Just so you don't accidentally break something of importance etc.

thats the route i'd go.

Would you not recommend a my book to anyone else? I was looking at the 1TB my books at the apple store cause i'm in desperate need of a new external. I've heard other stories of this sort through comments on Apple's site. I've had my Seagate 300gb's for over 3 years now and both (fingers crossed/touch wood) are still running strong.

[Edited on October 29, 2007 at 8:26 PM. Reason : .]

10/29/2007 8:22:17 PM

I did bust it open, but didn't have a non magnetic screw driver in my room, so Ill just do the rest tomorrow, it looks like a standard HDD.

My mom has a 500GB Book for her office which they use to backup on everyday, and it has worked great for about 2.5years, I really don't know what caused my issue.

I read some forums online, a lot of people were complaining with Western Digital's support, saying that it takes weeks for service they claim takes days. I dont think Ill be buying another MyBook simply for the the fact that Ive owned this 13 months, and backed things up on it no more than 25 times...

Probably will go with a larger capacity seagate and might just get an enclosure for this one...

10/29/2007 9:04:20 PM

I bought one of those on sale a year or so ago and just busted it open to use as an internal drive when ironically later I put into an external enclosure... Anyway, it worked fine.

10/29/2007 10:57:27 PM

best deal imho:
buy a retail hard drive like a seagate with a 5-year warranty.
then buy an external enclosure.

doing it this way costs almost EXACTLY the same as if you bought a retail external drive and you get better coverage.

10/29/2007 11:44:16 PM

Quote :

"buy a retail hard drive like a seagate with a 5-year warranty. then buy an external enclosure."

Not only a better warranty on the HDD itself, but you can choose the look of the enclosure, if you're into that sorta thing.

10/29/2007 11:46:01 PM

I dont know if any of you even care now, but just an update on my situation:

I finally had some time this week, I took apart the MyBook and somehow got the hard drive out of there. I purchased an external hard drive enclosure from tiger direct for like $15 or something, and just put it in and its working fine. The only thing I had to do was set the hard drive to master, and I still have all my backed up data.

Thanks for that advice about the seagate, maybe Ill buy one with a larger capacity if I run across a good deal or something.

Thanks again tech talk

11/7/2007 11:12:37 AM

they make e-sata now doh!

[Edited on November 7, 2007 at 11:40 AM. Reason : i dumb]

11/7/2007 11:38:56 AM

I got my Seagate 320gb Free Agent for 70 bucks at Best Buy on an instant 60.00 Rebate a few months back. Talk about a steal, now I can store my music on there and save my internal space for my applications



[Edited on November 7, 2007 at 12:08 PM. Reason : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148234]

11/7/2007 12:08:00 PM

A few of you have mentioned just getting a seagate and putting it in an enclosure...would any type of seagate work? Any that are more reliable in an external type application?

12/12/2007 10:29:32 PM

any retail boxed seagate w/ the 5-year warranty

just be sure to match the interface of the drive with the interface of the external enclosure, your best bet would be a SATA drive with a SATA enclosure (w/ eSATA & USB2.0)

[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 10:41 PM. Reason : /.]

12/12/2007 10:40:36 PM

^^^ i've got that same one, but in 500gb...i have yet to use it (i don't know why i bought it...i think i made a mistake while counting how many external 500gb drives i have )

but yeah, seagate hdd and your own enclosure ftw

[Edited on December 13, 2007 at 8:55 AM. Reason : .]

12/13/2007 8:54:38 AM

well, since you don't use it, you should sell it to me on the cheap then.

12/13/2007 11:40:11 AM

seagates external free agent drives come with a 5 yr warranty.

12/13/2007 12:45:32 PM

^^ i'm giving it to my brother for christmas, sorry

^ yeah, but what i don't like about the freeagent drives is that there's no on/off switch...you plug it in the usb port and it turns itself on...no other way to control it (i guess they figure it should always be on for you)

12/13/2007 1:02:11 PM

does anyone have the newest 1TB Western Digital MyBook?
Says here that they're practically worthless over a network. The drive controller actually prevents the transfer of almost all media files to a networked computer, effectivelly killing the whole purpose of the drive.....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/07/western_digital_drm_crippled_harddrive/

12/13/2007 1:16:07 PM

12/13/2007 4:01:26 PM

wd passport 320gb

12/13/2007 5:32:14 PM

i though i was getting a deal when i recently bought a 250 GB WD external drive for $120.

now after reading this thread, i feel like a noob

12/14/2007 12:28:53 AM

Quote :

"I finally had some time this week, I took apart the MyBook and somehow got the hard drive out of there. I purchased an external hard drive enclosure from tiger direct for like $15 or something, and just put it in and its working fine. The only thing I had to do was set the hard drive to master, and I still have all my backed up data."

Which is one reason that if you do your own external+enclosure kit you might want to look at customer reviews of the enclosure and what kind of warranty it has. Sometimes it's the enclosure's power adapter that fails and not the drive- but this is the exception not the rule.

12/14/2007 4:28:15 AM

well to clarify, when you buy a MyBook, you are not doing your own hd+enclosure setup, furthermore, i purchased them when they first came out, not too many reviews to go off of.

when i took that drive apart, then i got the hdd out of there and was able to put it in an enclosure, which works absolutely fine now. The only problem was the power supply on the MyBook

12/15/2007 12:19:11 PM