Has anyone ever had a WD10EADS (WD green 1TB serial) drive just come up as needing formatting? My Brother in law just dropped a WD MyBook external USB drive in my lap and said it's dead. I t really isn't though. I removed it from the case and connected it up through a serial usb adapter. It shows a virtual cd disc but nothing else. I tried connecting it to my mac and it wouldn't even show the virtual cd. I'm in the process of running WD diagnostics on it now. So far it's passed the quick test and still workin on the full test.
Interestingly enoough, when I look up the s/n on the WD website for warranty. They mention that it is in "partial" warranty..... The comment was something like customer satisfaction or a similar comment.... I think that means they know the drive is a piece of crap and they don't want the end user to run to the other guys....

So back to my question: Did my B-I-L do something to the drive and isn't telling the whole story or did the drive just wake up and forget all its data?

Thanks

The drive is encrypted, and the enclosure's small PC board that connects it to the outside world does the encrypting and decrypting.

I'm not sure what "partial" warranty means -- perhaps it is a customer satisfaction issue. Not the other thing.

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Usually, partial warranty means that, in case of failure, it can't be sent to RMA only the HD. The warranty covers the whole system (enclosure and HD).

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I know that the drive isn't encoded. My B-I-L cant spell it let alone understand how to accomplish it. The extended test completed with a fault code of 08, Too many bad sectors...... He's got a rma for just the hd... so it looks like his data is toast.

Thanks

For a moment, just think what you've done: You've come to a place where there is lots of expertise & experience, to ask for help (so you recognise that you don't know enough on this topic yourself) - and then you ignore the help you receive and decide it is wrong! Is that really a good plan? Do you go to the doctor and then ignore what they say?


As you were already told by someone who works with these enclosures much more than you & me, this encryption is done by a PCB inside the enclosure. Your B-I-L doesn't need to understand it - it is done automatically! It would be possible to gather further info to prove that this applies here, but your mention of a virtual CD is a very strong indication of this situation.


That's not necessarily true, but I'll avoid wasting my time trying to assist any further, in case you decide to ignore me too. If you acknowledge that you've been a bit hasty and that you would actually like some further advice, then perhaps someone else will help you... Good luck with whatever you decide