Hi all,

A friend has given me his WD Elements 1TB usb drive to fix.
The part No is WDBAAAU0010HBK-01. He says he tripped over the usb cable and damaged the mico usb connector. He asks can I replace the connector for him. The centre part of the connector does seem loose, so looks to me like it has been damaged.

When I applied power to the drive I notice the blue power led only comes on for 1 second or so. Is this normal? I dont hear any clicking or buzzing sounds - it seems quite dead!

The other thing is its in a nice shiny black case with no obvious way of entry. Can anyone tell me how to open it up?

Apple has a nylon tool used to open iMacs and such. Similar tools for opening cell phones should work, too.

There are clips inside of the case holding it together.

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

to open it you will need to look closely at each edge and find where to pry with a spudger (plastic wedge tool).

but really you should be googling these things yourself before asking:

google search "western digital elements 1t open case"

five results one being:
"Well, I just dived in and tried it. If you use an exacto knife or something similar you can slide in on the bottom around the seem. I just went all the way around with that, and then did it again but gently pried outward a bit, and it popped off. "

another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZUMh_H3B_Y
"Open (Take Apart) WD Elements External Hard Drive"

You might be able to hold the USB connector a few different ways and see if the connection is better, but you probably should open it first and look to see where it is broken. You dont want to power up the drive if there is a change the power will be constantly interrupted due to the broken connector.

Bear in mind the circuit board is possibly multiple layers, so might be a real pain if the board is broken. It is not usually a great idea to help out freinds as it can cause you to have to either "take blame for not knowing what you are dooing" even though you tell them up front you are not an expert.. they coerce you to look then sook when you cant fix it for free(even though it may be a few hundred dollar job from a specialist)
I find it puts pressure on yourself that really you dont need, and you dont get any benifit from. My advice would be to have a quick look, see if you think you can fix it and then give it straight back telling them to go to a specialist. Let THEM go as then they will see the real cost and value and maybe not so flippant asking you to do work.

Nothing gainst helping freinds, but I work in a school and I get students, teachers and parents constantly just trying to get free work because it seems like a trivial job. I have 2 HP touchscreens, 10 USBs for recovery, 2 laptops and an LCD right now so I cant really give a real sermon!!

good luck

Thanks HaQue.

Got the case open with some hobby knives!
I take your point about getting involved with such things, but it is on the understanding that if I completely wreck it he wont mind. So I cant resist having a go. So far so good.

After a good look, I can see broken track under the legs of the usb connector, so it is beyond my soldering ability to fix. I notice that its mounted on a small plug in adaptor pcb which describes itself as OASIS DESKTOP 1607P part no 4061-705078-001 rev af.

Assuming I could get one of these, would it be a case of plugging a new one in and away we go? (assuming the rest of the disk is ok)

99% chance, no.

Search about ROM adaptives on WD here in the forum.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Thanks labtech

I looked up references to ROM adaptives on WD and it took me somewhat out of my comfort zone...

So that I better understand the scenario here, is the problem with swapping the pcb that there is a ROM on it which needs the correct firmware installed? Presumably a new pcb is supplied blank, or if it has come out of another drive the ROM's firmware may be incorrect?

Correct.
The idea is that the version of the firmware in the ROM has to be the same as the firmware stored on the platters.
Plus, there are some more complex structures that are unique to that native ROM/drive.

Do a little reading, you will understand..

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Since my friend does not have any critical data on this disk, I think I will abandon this project, as its not really a diy repair.
Thanks to all for your help. It has been a useful learning experience.