Hello HDD Experts,
A few years ago I bought a 3TB External (Western Digital My Book Essential 3 TB USB 3.0/2.0 Desktop External, Model WDBACW0030HBK-NESN). About a year ago, the enclosure started failing. I dis-assembled the enclosure, took out the drive, and plugged it in. Of course, I couldn't access anything because it turns out the WD does encryption at a hardware level. Having figured this out, I found the old USB board, plugged it back in, and salvaged what data I could. The USB board then proceeded to fail completely.
Now, I'd like to re-use this 3TB disk as a regular hard drive in my NAS. The disk itself is a WD Green 3 TB, according to its markings. I am not sure (would do SMART tests before putting it in the NAS) but I think the disk is physically in fine shape. Unfortunately, I am unable to format it in Disk Utility in Mac OS X. I get an error that it can't write to the last sector of the drive, and the format immediately fails. Also, the size shows up as 2.2 TB. I have a feeling the disk is still encrypted, and the size difference is the WD VCD partition. How do I turns this into a normal HDD so I can re-use it?

~ M.

How are you erasing in DU? Did you go to the "Partition" tab, click "+", Select partition format (i.e., GUID), Type volume name, and then click "Apply"?

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Many systems are limited in relation to 3TB disks. You should check that both your Mac and the NAS unit actually supports the high capacity.

Hi all,

I am in a similar situation - except that I have 2x 2TB drives, and 1x 3TB drive WD mybook essentials.

For a while now I have been thinking about moving to a NAS solution once the 3TB drive is filled.

However - I'm hearing alot about this encryption, and do not want to be in a situation where I can't reuse 7TB worth of storage when the time comes.

Is it possible to re-format / blow away or otherwise scrub the drives to use in a NAS at some point in the future?
I'm guessing I will need to copy off everything from the mybook before removing it from the enclosure and attempting to format it?

Are there any instructions out there on how to re-use a WD Mybook Essentials drive once removed from the case?

Thanks in advance!