Seemingly my USB jack on my external is loose/broken.
I took it to best buy and they said they couldnt open it with out breaking the casing but they think the data is fine just the usb is broken. They offered to sell me a new one ($80+) and then break mine open and transfer the data to the new one ($100)
I was wondering if I could open it myself and repair the connection assuming thats the problem, or if I should drop the almost $200 via geek squad and best buy or if there is a place that can do it cheeper or sell me a new casing for the external drive.
First opening the case voids the warranty. Look on youtube there is probably a video on how to open the case. You might be able to solder on the USB port or use fine wire between board and USB. If the drive came with Smartware it’s hardware encrypted. If it’s an Elements you can connect it as an internal. You can try buying a board off Ebay this http://community.wd.com/t5/Off-Topic-Discussions/Bridge-Boards/td-p/353839 explains a bit about the boards.
Not sure how to tell if its an elements or not, it doesnt say anywhere on the box unless I looked right past it.
Anyways I think we discoverd the problem, the pins coming from the board to the female usb connector are broken off so Im guessing I can take the connector off and put a new one on. I just need to know what kind of female mico/mini usb smd part I need / where I can get one.
Thanks Westen Digital for the lousy quality control and lousy cold solder!
@bad.clock, the same thing happened to me as well, and I called Western Digital to seek help, for I am sure the drive is fine, but the usb literary peeled off from the board. I didnt want to open it, to avoid voiding the warranty, but they told me to send it to them, but I wasnt guaranteed that I wasnt going to loose my data. I asked the tech guy there if i could purchase another one of the Harddrives and swap the board. he wasnt sure whether that would work, but he didnt say no.
Long story short, i ended up buying another Hard drive, and on swapping the little board, it didnt work. only to read up more on this issue and found a lot of people who had the same problem. I haven’t given up on trying to recover my data, but no one seems to be able to re-solder back this USB port because the connection are too small. This is the only way btw, if you have a password set.
Dont bother buying a board, it’ll be a waste, BUT PLEASSEE if anyone out there knows how I can have this thing soldered back, help us. And thanks WesternDigital for a lousy job on the usb ports in these hard drives.
My WD USB port has broken. (It is inside the case). What can I do? WD refuses to warrantee it. And it is still under warrantee until August. I have many photos on there, am professional photographer.
