My friend has a dead western digital MyBook (Essential edition 250 gb) that contains important data.
However it seems the HD may be still be good and the only reason it doesn't turn on is because the power supply is damaged.
To get the data back, I was planning on see if I can pry open the case and mount the HD as a secondary HD on my main computer. Does anybody have any tips or suggestion on how I should approach the problem?
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Just remove the four visible case screws, slide off the case and then loosen a retaining screw to slip off the drive bay cover. The drives themselves are mounted on rails, and slide out easily.
See: http://66.102.9.104/search
On the Western Digital Mybooks that I have seen the power supply is an external adapter.
You can easily check the output with a multimeter. The local Harbour Freight store here sells them for $5, radio shack has them for around $15-20.
You are much better off with a less intrusive repair, (replacing the power supply if bad) then trying to take something apart.
If the data is truly important, do it right.
You could try to raplace the powersupply (adapter) to check if that is the problem first.
If it doesn't, it could be the controller on the enclosure. If you are opening that enclosure, the warranty may be broken.
If you don't care and you want to find out if the disk is still ok, you could open the enclosure and unplug the disk and mount it in you main pc as another harddrive (or in an other enclosure/cabinet).
I did that myself with a Maxtor external disk where the controller stopped working (because of a damaged condensator). So I did all of this my self. And I broke the warranty, so I couldn't recieve a new enclosure. All my responsibility. But the disk is all ok and I use it as a slave drive in my computer now.
Hope this would help.
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by: r-kPosted on 2007-07-19 at 00:18:35ID: 19519895
If the files are important I would not attempt anything like this. Instead, send the disk to a data recovery place. One that I recommend is www.gillware.com. They have a $400 price for most cases like this and you don't pay if they can't recover.