Water-Damaged WD MyBook Studio Edition II Quad Interface 6TB

SennaSempre · Post by **SennaSempre** » Fri Jan 26, 2024 2:36 am

Hello, this is my 1st post and the reason why I joined. I have a water-damaged hard drive 6TB that had water on-or-in it for 1 day and then I dried it out. I see no water corrosion damage anywhere on the drive itself or the internal control board in the chassis or housing.

This hard drive would not power up when plugged into a 15" MacBook Pro but it did when plug into a 27" iMac using the same stock AC adapter. The power status with the 27" iMac has the front light blinking but no spinning of the platters.

I read that it could be a problem with the control board in the housing unit and to use a SATA-USB connector straight into the computer which I've done to no avail. I've tried this 3.3V pin tape-hack explained in Step 14 here -

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Shu ... ive/137646

...and still nothing on both drives. I don't know what else I can do which is why I'm asking you. Some extra links to the exact model I have with the online manual and attached photos. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you.

Online Manual - https://www.manua.ls/western-digital/my ... -ii/manual

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/western-di ... -2-review/

https://www.anandtech.com/show/4759/wes ... 6tb-review

https://www.storagereview.com/review/6t ... wdh2q60000

SennaSempre · Post by **SennaSempre** » Sun Jan 28, 2024 3:59 am

Hello, this is my 1st post and the reason why I joined. I have a water-damaged hard drive 6TB that had water on-or-in it for 1 day and then I dried it out. I see no water corrosion damage anywhere on the drive itself or the internal control board in the chassis or housing.

This hard drive would not power up when plugged into a 15" MacBook Pro but it did when plug into a 27" iMac using the same stock AC adapter. The power status with the 27" iMac has the front light blinking but no spinning of the platters.

I read that it could be a problem with the control board in the housing unit and to use a SATA-USB connector straight into the computer which I've done to no avail. I've tried this 3.3V pin tape-hack explained in Step 14 here -

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Shu ... ive/137646

...and still nothing on both drives. I don't know what else I can do which is why I'm asking you. Some extra links to the exact model I have with the online manual and attached photos. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you.

Online Manual - https://www.manua.ls/western-digital/my ... -ii/manual

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/western-di ... -2-review/

https://www.anandtech.com/show/4759/wes ... 6tb-review

https://www.storagereview.com/review/6t ... wdh2q60000

: WD 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface 01.jpg (397.54 KiB) Viewed 6058 times

YouTube · Post by **lcoughey** » Tue Jan 30, 2024 2:37 pm

This post can also be found at:

...and many more.

fzabkar · Post by **fzabkar** » Tue Jan 30, 2024 6:46 pm

... and https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads ... b.3834952/

And it's all because the OP is trying to access the 3.5" HDDs with this:

https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sc1bdc00aeb9 ... -Drive.jpg

The OP would get much further if s/he would stop looking for a point-and-click solution and answer the questions that were asked in those other forums.

SennaSempre · Post by **SennaSempre** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 11:13 pm

to lcoughey and fzabkar ...yes, I have copied-and-pasted the same post in "many more" forums, thank you for pointing that out. But are you trying to say that, that is a bad thing? If so, why do you think that is morally wrong? And if that, then I'll tell you why you are wrong below:

I've sent this exact same post to 16 forums with 9 of them replying, 7 of them not replying, some threads responded by only 1 person, some threads giving bad advice, and some threads going cold. So in the end, I'm left with only a small handful of forums like 2 or 3 of them (out of 16!) that are actually producing good advice.

Now if I've done what I considered a wrong approach to getting answers from forums and posted my question in only 1 or 2 forums, then what if those 1 or 2 forums were the ones where no users responded at all, or the forums where I got only 1 response or bad advice, or whatever?

And what does that get me in the end? - Me waiting on no answers on how to fix my problem just because I'm limiting myself on posting to just a small number of forums. Users who come onto forums to post a problem-fix need to get users' answers as-soon-as-possible. They don't want to wait weeks on a per chance if someone replies or not, and so nor do I.

So what is the most effective approach to getting much needed and timely-answers on a forum? - to blanket forums with the same question and expand the conversations with the users which want to help out and make the most sense. Now doesn't that make the most sense? Don't try to make me or my question look bad or ethically wrong because I need numerous immediate advice.

fzabkar · Post by **fzabkar** » Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:41 am

@SennaSempre, if you don't have access to a computer with a SATA port, then get a USB-SATA adapter that supports your 3.5" drives.

Something like this ...

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61Q ... _QL80_.jpg

Power up each drive and show us the Partitions tab in DMDE. DMDE can reassemble your RAID and recover your data.

I have already asked you to do this at Tom's Hardware, yet you insist on pursuing some pointless and potentially dangerous ideas. Moreover, before you start suspecting "voltage diodes", at least get hold of a multimeter and measure them. You can't test these diodes by pointing-and-clicking a mouse.

A cheap meter like this is all you need:

https://www.wiltronics.com.au/wp-conten ... imeter.jpg

In any case, I doubt that these diodes are a problem.

SennaSempre · Post by **SennaSempre** » Thu Feb 01, 2024 8:35 am

I will look into this USB IDE/SATA Cable, so I will thank you for that image. But on the contrary, I don't "insist on pursuing some pointless and potentially dangerous ideas." ...infact, I'm not pursuing any avenue yet, I'm only in the discover phase at the moment, trying to understand how it all works. And then making what best avenue to take.

Your USB IDE/SATA Cable is no different than the purpose of a RAID Docking Station which I'm looking into. But how would my RAID 0 drives be readable if there is no WD code-matching RAID Controller in either this USB IDE/SATA or the RAID Docking Station? Don't I absolutely need to have that Controller to link the RAID 0 and see my data?

If that is true, then wouldn't my only option be to buy the exact sister WD MyBook enclosure and drives and just swap the new PCB's onto the old drives and then those BIOS chips would correspond with RAID Controller on the PCB in the WD enclosure? Theoretically wouldn't this work and be a better, safer route, or would the generic SATA hookups with no RAID Controller be better?

pclab · Post by **pclab** » Thu Feb 01, 2024 2:16 pm

If the drives are really good, you can recreate the RAID using software for that purpose.

But then again: why don't you contact a local lab and get that sorted once and for all?

fzabkar · Post by **fzabkar** » Thu Feb 01, 2024 5:01 pm

SennaSempre wrote: ↑Thu Feb 01, 2024 8:35 amYour USB IDE/SATA Cable is no different than the purpose of a RAID Docking Station which I'm looking into. But how would my RAID 0 drives be readable if there is no WD code-matching RAID Controller in either this USB IDE/SATA or the RAID Docking Station? Don't I absolutely need to have that Controller to link the RAID 0 and see my data?

You have no understanding of the hardware. Messing about with RAID docking stations is dangerous because there is always the question of how the bridge firmware will deal with foreign drives.

Just buy two USB-SATA adaptors and allow DMDE to assemble a virtual RAID. DMDE then acts as a software RAID controller. Once you get to this point, use DMDE to recover the files from the virtual RAID to another drive.

YouTube · Post by **lcoughey** » Thu Feb 01, 2024 7:28 pm

Assuming that the OP doesn't want to risk losing the data, the safest steps (short of sending to a pro) are as follows:

1. clone both drives (~ 12 hours + cost of 2 drives to clone to)
2. use data recovery software to virtually rejoin the strip, recover the data from the clones in ro mode and saving the data out to a new destination drive (up to a few days + the cost of the software license and the destination drive)

Any attempt to plug the original drives into anything that may write to the drives is a huge risk, especially if it is a RAID device that might immediately start to modfiy all the sectors without warning.