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themaddoctor / linux-mybook-tools

tools for opening some encrypted WD My Book drives in linux
GNU General Public License v3.0
183 stars 26 forks source link

Encrypted - WD My Book Studio #76

Open kekobe opened 2 years ago

kekobe commented 2 years ago

Hi there, I used a wrong adapter and my external hdd stopped working 2 months ago. I bought an enclosure (brand is ugreen) however it was still not working. So I thought that it is related to PCB board on it and changed the PCB board. Now it seems to be working however due to the encryption, I am getting an error message stating that "not readable by this computer". Could you help me on this issue? I would like to pay or donate, if someone could help me on this. PS: I am not an expert on linux or on any programming language. Many thanks

themaddoctor commented 2 years ago

Which PCB board did you replace? The one screwed onto the drive, or the one that bridges between the SATA port and USB?

kekobe commented 2 years ago

Many thanks for the response. I have changed both but nothing happened (normally wd smartware should appear on the desktop). Then I removed sata usb board and placed the hdd into an enclosure.

themaddoctor commented 2 years ago

You need to put the original board back on the drive, then put it in the new enclosure. Then connect to a linux computer. If you initialize the drive in Windows, then I will not help you.

kekobe commented 2 years ago

Okay but if I use the original board, the hdd is not spinning and the light of the enclosure does not get on.

themaddoctor commented 2 years ago

Then you have a hardware issue, and there is nothing that software can do for you. I can only help if you can read the raw data from the disk in linux.

You can't just swap PCB boards, because there is firmware on them. If the firmware does not match exactly, then the drive will not work. A professional should be able to swap the relevant chips or flash the firmware to match your drive. Be sure to inform him/her that the drive has full-disk encryption and s/he should not try to mount or initialize the drive. That will damage the data on it.

kekobe commented 2 years ago

Many thanks, all noted. So I need someone to put the old chip (presumably bios chip) to the new board. I'll try to sort it out tomorrow, hopefully I can find someone to do it.