Windows 7 laptop. Tried to restore a backup from the 1TB MyBook Essentials to the laptop using WD Acronis and it formatted the laptop hard drive! Had to reinstall Windows 7 from the Dell DVDs. Now it won’t recognize the MyBook so we can’t even retrieve our data! Error message: “No writable WD Smartware partition found”. (The Smartware software was disabled.) Have plugged it into 4 other computers and none of them recognize a drive letter for the MyBook. Also none of them show it in Disk Management. The hard drive light comes on and it spins.
Since the MyBook was no longer under warranty I searched the Net for solutions and some said to take the hard drive out of the case and use it as an internal drive. Tried that but it is still not recognized nor it in Disk Management. Is this a difference between these hard drives and the ones you buy to install in a desktop computer?? Or does it have something to do with the small circuit boards that were attached to the hard drive in the WD case? I removed the small one and plugged it into a USB to SATA adapter, but it still wasn’t recognized. What’s the trick? Any ideas?
That drive is an encrypted drive and needs the case it came out of to unencrypt it. The unencryption is part of the case hardward board the drive connects to.
When the drive spins are you hearing any noises, like clicking or grinding?
Thanks for your reply. No clicking or grinding… just a low hum. When I removed it from the case there were two boards. Took the first one off and plugged my SATA adapter into the 2nd board. I could reassemble it but none of the computer recognize it. What if I remove the 2nd board… could i put it into a desktop computer then??
Okay, thanks. As I said to Bill, I removed the 1st board and the 2nd board does have SATA port… that’s where I plugged in my adapter. Just checked and there are 4 star like screws holding the 2nd board to the hard drive… I don’t think I should take that one off. I did read on a forum that the hard drive cannot be accessed if the controller board fails. I’m assuming that the 1st board is called the controller board, is that correct??
The board with the USB connector is the bridge board. The controller board is the one on the drive with the SATA connectors. Joe is suggesting that the bridge board is bad. However, that is the board with the hardware encryption. If it is bad, you won’t be able to access the data on the MyBook drive.
I’m a bit confused with the part about a USB > SATA adapter. Your USB connection to the computer has to go through the USB port on the bridge board which was part of the original case setup in order to decrypt the data. Connected directly to SATA all you can do is format the drive, which of course destroys your data.
Make every effort to get the drive working in its original configuration. The only possible alternative will be professional data recovery.
