WD My Book fubared! (Or so I'm told)

You can get a "universal" HD adapter cable that has connections for both older ATA types and SATA drives. The adapter is connected to any PC via USB. Less than $10 on Amazon ...

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However ... I had similar issues with an older HD Passport. The older ones had a standard 2.5" drive with an adapter board and would power up but no data read with a bare boot using the adapter. And yah ... you're pretty much fu ... fu ... screwed if you ever set a password to it using their bundled security software.

* The newer ones have a 2.5" drive specifically pinned for direct connection to their proprietary connector, so good luck with that.

(PS ... can I say the nasty "B" word? BACKUP! )
 
I use this and it works great as an external HD. It's not the prettiest, but it's a super inexpensive alternative if you can find a cheap computer at a thrift store and pilfer the HD. I myself purchased two 2TB HD's at a great discount from an AKer and now have plenty of room for my music (sorry for the WD plug there!).

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Huh ... I just got another 1tb WD Blue here and it don't look anything like that? <G>

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I also use their SATA drives with an expansion dock I cobbled into my Maggie DVR. Endless supply of movies that way as it's easy to swap disks. Also "video rated" for speed and quiet ...

PS ... those new fangled M.2 drives are pretty amazing - not much bigger than a memory stick with incredible capacity and some serious projected hours and writes, and the prices have gone down drastically as of late. No moving parts is a big plus as well. I remember my very first hard drive weighted a ton, cost over $800, and held a whopping 20MB. A 1tb M.2 set me back around $160, and I could have probably paid less if I shopped around ...
 
I've been looking online at adapters today but let me just make sure of this. The adapter (like in sKiZ's post and looks like a 40 pin plug) should have its own power supply and then that's powered by my PC thru a USB port (?) The control board in the adapter subs for the bad (40 pin plug) board in the WD HDD and (hopefully) I can move all my old files from the WD to my PC. I should power up the WD unit also.
Am I on the right track?
 
The adapter (like in sKiZ's post and looks like a 40 pin plug) should have its own power supply

No. The adapter is powered from the USB port.

The control board in the adapter subs for the bad (40 pin plug) board in the WD HDD

Well, you remove the existing connector from the actual HDD, and plug the adaptor onto the HDD, replacing the thing you've just removed.

I should power up the WD unit also.

Yes. You need to supply it with +5V and +12V, using a 4-pin Molex connector. In the existing setup, it's the connector with the red, yellow & black wires (these are the standard colours for this type of power supply). This supply can come from a desktop pc, which will have them if it's IDE-based, or using the SATA to Molex adaptor provided in the kit I linked if the pc is SATA-based.
 
Huh ... I just got another 1tb WD Blue here and it don't look anything like that? <G>

1tb_m2_topImage.png


I also use their SATA drives with an expansion dock I cobbled into my Maggie DVR. Endless supply of movies that way as it's easy to swap disks. Also "video rated" for speed and quiet ...

PS ... those new fangled M.2 drives are pretty amazing - not much bigger than a memory stick with incredible capacity and some serious projected hours and writes, and the prices have gone down drastically as of late. No moving parts is a big plus as well. I remember my very first hard drive weighted a ton, cost over $800, and held a whopping 20MB. A 1tb M.2 set me back around $160, and I could have probably paid less if I shopped around ...

Yep, sKiZ, I painfully remember that cost, and the ~ $1,300.00 per 32 Megabyte stick memory costs, as well, in the mid nineties, no matter the vendor, as I burned up the phone lines researching, whilst my first Win 3.5 FAT 32 tower was being built!, no internet here, and no computer, or experience !!

Damn glad, times/prices/experience has changed/inproved !!
 
wOw ... Win 3.5!!

Right on the bleeding edge that - I was probably still running DRDOS 6 on an AST286 with the Aboveboard memory expansion ... 512mg, baby cakes! <G>
 
wOw ... Win 3.5!!

Right on the bleeding edge that - I was probably still running DRDOS 6 on an AST286 with the Aboveboard memory expansion ... 512mg, baby cakes! <G>

DRDOS 6, I remember it well. Was a Beta test on MSDOS 5. Oh the joys of making Novell Netware work with MSDOS, the two did not like each other much.

As to the WD drive, it looks like using one of the IDE / USB dongles should work. I have one like was shown earlier and have used it to rescue data several times.

Mark Gosdin
 
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