If you are unable to retrieve the data, i can recommend to use the ontracks data recovery software. My book is a series of external hard drives produced by western digital. Here, select your external hard disk and click on next. This means that if any single drive fails or becomes unstable. Western digital provides data storage solutions, including systems, hdd, flash ssd, memory and personal data solutions to help customers capture and preserve their most valued data.
Dear dennis, i dont know whats going on but all my files on my external western digital my book are marked as read only. Click the western digital end user license agreement link and read the. Drag what ever you can get off it and onto another media. Thank you for helping us maintain cnet s great community. As you can see, you can also format western digital hard drive to exfat if you need to. Wd my book partition recovery rescue partition from wd. Rightclick computer manage to open disk management. I took it apart and ran crystal disk info on the hard drive. This isnt really a solution as far as data is concerned, so i decided to poke at it myself. I just connected for the first time a western digital my book essential edition 2. For now, i just want to back up my photos,music, video files and word documents. Reformatting western digital mybook to work on linux and.
Click apply and then proceed to execute the formatting. I have a several year old wd my book live that is having problems i cant connect to it its a nas ethernet device its out of warranty. Western digital my book problem question and answer dti data. I have a wd mybookworld 2tb network drive that was purchased and installed on my network as a backup drive for windows computers. Reboot pc to keep all changes and then check wd external hdd on your pc then. Innstall the external drive recovery application on your system and connect your wd hard disk to it. So there is no reason to throw away the whole thing if its just the hard drive that is failing. Just curious, because i got some various inputs from a few people. Suddenly today when i plugged it in it showed me you need to format the disk before you use it previously when it was working fine it shows. Heres a kb article you can take a look at if you want about that. Then, a list of lost or deleted partitions will be displayed.
Do not wary, the device should be reinstalled automatically the next time you restart the pc and connect the drive. Western digital my book recovery hard drive data recovery. From basic office supplies, such as printer paper and labels, to office equipment, like file cabinets and stylish office furniture, office depot and officemax have the office products you need to get the job done. I have a 1tb western digital my book hard drive and when i plug it in to the usb. Unbricking the drive is a moderately involved process, and risks screwing it up even further. You would need to go to disk management and then see if it is reporting as a mass. If you want to create a new logical drive drive letter and associate it with your new drive, then rightclick your drive and select create new volume and a wizard will open where the formatting is done. There is no letter assigned to this drive and when i try to assign one using disk management, the option to assign a letter is grayed out and therefore not usable. Solution western digital externalhard drive format recovery. The power connector, interface port, and a security slot on the back usb 3.
I am thinking of buying the western digital my book essential external hard drive maybe 160 gb. When you buy a western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard. Western digital my book essential drive is not shown under. After launcing it, select recover drives option from main window, as shown in fig a. External hard disks that i have used in the past have had no problems being mounted on either linux or windows. After some time, it was asking to format the drive so you. I need to use it for iphoto and it has the wrong format.
Im set in my ways and have been accustom to reformatting harddisks periodically sector maintainance, etc. Can i replace the hard drive on a western digital my book. Select disk management under the storage node of the entire tree in the frame on the left. Wd elements, wd my book western digital, my passport wd, we my. Essential edition, home edition, office edition, mirror edition, studio edition, premium edition, elite edition, pro edition, av dvr live edition, and the world edition. It will also display other disks volumes, typically they do not have assigned drive name, that is the reason, the computer can not display these disks.
To get started, choose the western digital brand you d like help with. You really need to check the device with another cable and on another pc. The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my book. Western digital my book duo recovery hard drive data. I have a situation where i have the dns321 with two 2tb wd20eads00s2b0 drives in a raid 1 configuration. You can confirm this by selecting the drive in the finder, rightclick it and selecting get info from the menu. I have a western digital my book world edition hard. Install clean hdd in white light my book world edition. Disk drive format your my book drive is formatted as a single exfat partition for compatibility with all updated windows and mac operating systems. How to tell internal hdd inside western digital my book. Western digital hard drive format recovery external wd. Other scenarios that lead to data loss from the wd my book external hard disk. I want to use time machine software to backup my macs.
Western digital my book opening the case removing the. I have a western digital my book world edition external harddisk with blue rings. Just in case i want to put in a larger drive later, or if the internal one fails. This utility will format a western digital external usb or firewire hard drive back. For example you will see windows c or any other partitions your computer has. Is it possible to change hdd for 4 gb wd red ifixit. Unless and until these files are overwritten, you can recover them with the aid to recovery tools. Disk utility fails to format the drive as max os x extended journaled with a format failed. You may use an equivalent formatting program, if it formats 27 sectors. Hi there, as explained on the manual of the mbw, log to the configuration page go to advanced mode system tab configuration restore to factory defaults. By default, your wd my book duo came in a raid 0 or striped configuration for capacity and speed.
Tried it in my computer, click l drive and it asks for format, but it wont. Western digital my book studio edition ii macworld. When you buy a western digital wd 1 tb my book external hard drive, they usually come formatted for windows using fat32. If you already have an older version of wd fat32 formatter installed on your. How to format wd my book live my book live wd community. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread. A series of gigabit nas desktop drives of 1tb, 2tb, and 3tb varieties, made by wd in 2010. Though its not obvious, you simply press on a spot in the middle of the my book mirrors top front edge and the cover will pop open giving you access to the drives. I want to transfer files to the external to free up spacein my pc. If you want to use wd my passport or any other hard drive on mac and pc. Third party this, format this, backup your data that. Western digital hard disk drive up to 2tb disks are supported by. Software and firmware downloads wd support western digital. Your my book drive is formatted as a single ntfs partition for compatibility with all.
Unbricking a western digital mybook live endless turtles. Cant open western digital my book studio wdbc3g0020hal 2tb. My book drives are designed to look like a standard black hardback book, with the exception of the. It comes with all the software you need to help protect your data, including wd backup and wd security software and is compatible with time machine. I have looked but there is no tab or switch on the usb drive to unlock or disable the write protect. Fix wd hddexternal hdd not initialized, unknown with io. With right click you should get the option to uninstall. Western digital my book essential 640 gb,external,7200 rpm external hard drive wdh1u6400cn. Find the not initialized wd hddexternal hard drive rightclick on it and select initialize disk.
Then set the disk to initialize and set disk as mbr or gpt. It isnt visible in my computer or disk management but it installs when i plug it in and it can be safely unplugged from the safely remove hardware icon. Western digital advanced format drives read before you buy. I have a western digital my book world edition hard drive 1tb that has stopped working and i want to recover the data. Im using 2 wd green wd7500aads drives in my dns321 in a raid1 configuration and have had no problem with eith the.
Utilize our custom online printing and it services for small. However, if you should need to reformat your drive, western digital provides a format utility, wdfmt, that allows you to perform a lowlevel format of the drive. Its worked for me as ive luckily have not had a disk crash in 25 years. Why is my wd my book prompting me to format the disk. I was wondering if anyone knew if the hard drive is user replaceable.
Unfortunately, this wasnt an obvious process and this excellent article by scott cramer didnt apply to the newer version 1 tb drive enclosure i have. Excellent way to perform western digital my book partition. When i look in computer it does not show up under removable storage, which is where i thought it would be. Western digital wd also has telephone and email support available. D2 thunderbolt series, blade runner, 2big quadra, mini disk, portable.
It seems that my pc wont allow me to use my external hard drive. Western digital and time machine set up how to format how. I filled it up and now want to delete the data and start over. Mostly, none of the multitude of threads in the forums have any real solutions, or suggest to rma the hard drive with western digital. I have wd my book essential external hard drive, 2tb and was using it regularly in windows 8. In this video i take apart the western digital mybook, install another hard drive, and then test it. Western digital offers an expansive portfolio of technologies, storage devices, systems and solutions for businesses and consumers alike. Tips for getting started with the wd my book backup drive mikes. It means recovering your favorite songs, restoring those documents you need for the project you re completing and returning photos.
You can format a western digital my passport external hard drive to exfat or. Right click on the drives partition and choose the option that says open or explore. When you click on my computer, it freezes the system. If the drive started out on vista id assume it has been formatted using the ntfs filesystem. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for. Its visible in device manager as both a wd drive and a usb mass storage device and when i double click on either the device status box says the device is working properly. The secret to reformatting a western digital wd 1tb my. Formatting wd my book world edition external harddisk with. I bought this western digital my book 640gb external hard drive usb connection this last winter. The other answer does a good job of how to use disk utility to format a normal drive, but not all of wd external drives will work with that. How to format an external hard drive to work with mac and pc.
The first time this happened, i found an obscure firmware update at western digitals forums. The info window will list the format under general. Why isnt my wd my book external hard drive being recognized. When you looked in my computer it shows up as local disk f instead of it saying my book l like it used to.
If the western digital showing up as unallocated, please right click it and select create partition to create a new simple volume with fat32 formatted. I recently needed to removed the drive from a western digital my book external usbesata drive enclosure. Should you encounter any problem, please give us an opportunity to address it before returning this product. Malware attacks by downloading files from suspicious sites into the western digital my book, can cause harm to your files and makes the partitions inaccessible.
You have made a sensible investment in a western digital my book duo drive for its powerful dual drive performance, and builtin protection but right now, none of that matters to you. Good afternoon, i am sure this has been mentioned on here many times, but every time i search for my problem, i always get the same results. I found a chat stream on the web that indicated the wd controller might be the problem and the drive and data may still be good, and recoverable using ubuntu. Save on printer ink and toner to keep your office efficient and productive. At least their passport series has a feature called smartware that prevents you from doing anything useful with the drive, even something basic like formatting it. I have tried formatting the my book drive using file explorer, but it tells me the drive is write protected.
Wd external hd error you need to format the disk before. Cant open western digital my book studio wdbc3g0020hal 2tb external hard drive i reformatted it from mac to pc and it doesnt show up on my computer this thread is locked. Apparently the cd has a disk formatter on it, but i never inserted the cd the drive works fine. Hard drive replacement for western digital my book world edition ii. I am trying to decide between a generic external case and the western digital one. Recovering data from your western digital my book external hard drive means more than just getting back a few files. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. Twice now i have had problems formatting a new western digital my book external drive under 10. So here you go, the steps required to disassemble a newstyle western digital my book drive enclosure. Help with western digital my book external hard drive. Hard drive replacement for western digital my book world. Reformatting western digital mybook to work on linux and windows unfortunately, i have found that it has this socalled smartware that prevents it from being used on linux. Disk verification, surface analysis, and bad track entry routines are also included in this utility. As an option to recover the data on the drive, you can try by opening it from disk management.