So, like many of you, my WD Mybook 3tb WDBACW0030HBK died. No lights would come on or anything. So foolishly decided to take the hard drive out of the enclosure. Well connecting the harddrive via esata to my PC showed the drive as unallocated. After numerous attempts and many programs to recover the missing partition I had given up...then I found this forum.

So it turns out (at least I'm guessing) that all WD My Book 3tb essential drives are encrypted via the chip on the PCB. Well my PCB is dead but the drive is totally fine (as far as i know). So after scouring the forum I found many posts on what to do.

Basically I think I need to go and buy either a new PCB on ebay, or a totally new drive on ebay and tear out the PCB on it. However a few questions:

Do I have to move the chip with the firmware to get it to work correctly? it seems some people say you do, some say you don't.

Secondly, maybe I can get my PCB repaired? I've attached a photo of it.

I think that the R97 ...thing..is busted. It looks popped or burnt. Maybe i can just fix that? if so what do I replace it with? Should I buy a new board and just replace that part? I have a lot of friends who are great with electronics so I'd take it to them to fix it. But is there anywhere I can find some schematics of this thing to help out?

I know a lot of this has been covered in the forum before, but I'm just trying to find the best solution for me. If I only have to replace the R97 thing that would be awesome.

So please someone help me...you're my only hope. I would really appreciate any feedback at all. Thank you!