Data recovery- how about buying the pieces to fix a hard drive

[bewildered1]

I have- first of all- the worst luck in the world. I have a Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB , just a little simple thing I bought  on sale a couple years ago as a back up....that I put a bunch of  work  files onto.... as a backup - and I need them because my original fies have been lost. BUT... now the backup failed. When I went to plug it in- the USB socket was broken. I opened the case and discovered it had snapped neatly off the little board. Thinking no big deal, I just put the hard drive itself in another enclosure case... and only then did I disocver what everyone else seemed to know- about this proprietary smartware and how it won't let you get at your data.

what???

is there any way for me to get to my data besides paying 600 bux to a data recovery place?

Like... does WD- or anyone-  sell the little circuit boards where the micro USB connects, so I can just replace it? Or are each of those boards only for  that particular drive?

I really can't believe this. I never NEVER would have bought it if I'd know this. It seems nuts to me that once your drive fails- you're just out of luck. really? No options at all? People who are buying a 100 dollar HD can't afford a 600-1000 recovery fee, IMO. At least  I can't.

 I'm seeing different opinions in different places so i decided to come to this forum and see if i got a straight answer.

Any help or suggestion appreciated. I'm more of a hardware girl than a software one- in other words,I can physically FIX the drive- but I don't know how to work my way around this at the keyboard end... i  am willing to try any software program people might think would work, too, since my stuff seems to be lost to me at this point i have nothing to lose. On it were work files that would have made me about the price I'd have to pay to 'recover' them.. not worth it.

Thanks for taking the time

[Joe_S]

The data is hardware encrypted by the board with the broken USB port. There are 2 things to try. One get an electronics repair person to solder on a new port and see if that works. The other is to try and find another board on Ebay. Search out the posts by fzabkar he has explained about matching up the numbers you can also PM him. The real problem would come if you used a password.

Joe

[bewildered1]

So.... I ended up doing a a VERY ghetto- time consuiming low tech and messy fix- by hand.  There were a few folders on there I had to have and no one seemed to have any real answers for me, although I thank you VERY much for replying at all. THANK YOU, Joe S. I appreciate your courtesy.

So... like I said- time consuming,not neat and ghetto to the max- I  actually HELD the broken usb port on by hand and I suspect it was my sheer bit of well deserved good luck that it worked. My hand kept cramping up, and I had to do this for an hour- holding it in place while I drug and dropped with the other.

but it worked- I got my folders. And in the meantime I am ordering a new circuit board with almost the same numbers off ebay and we will see if that does the trick for the rest of them. if not, i am going to write them off and call it a lesson learned- No more haha smart ware for me. EVER.

thanks.

Bought a seagate to replace it.

cheers!!

[Keith]

send me the board, I can repair that.

[bewildered1]

 .....wanted to come on and let folks in the same predicament know that i have had SUCCESS

sweet success!!! At this moment, my files, unencrypted and ALL there, are busily moving off my password protected MyBook, onto another hard drive.

First of all, during my ghetto transfer, I further damaged the little...tracks (sprry i don't have the technical terms) to the micro USB port, so it was no longer responding to that method.

I was not willing to give up a year's worth of work and literally thousands of dollars of files, so...I shopped on ebay as suggested by several helpful folks, and finally found a control board that matched my broken one- the numbers were the same. it was all the way overseas, though, so i gritted my tetth and bught it, had it shipped.

Today, I hooked that little sucker up to my PASSWORD protected WD MyBook harddrive. YES, I did have a password on it, and that was the debate- wheether or not I'd be able to accesss my files with a different control board, or if those were specific to the drive and my password would no longer work.

Well it did.

HAPPINESS.

Got ALL my files!!!!

so those f you in this predicament who are tech saavy at all and know your way around a harddrive and a screwdriver, try it!

I am so happy I did.

thanks again for the helpful advice!!!!(especiallly frank who did answer via PM)

i don't know if it matters or not, but I never removed the WD smartware software from my laptop while I waited for the control board to get here. even though it took up room and made my grit my teeth literally every time I looked at it!!!

[Joe_S]

Thanks for posting back with your sucess. Nice to know aboout the password working with a defferent board.

Joe