1TB Ultra spins but not recognised

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for macOS
1

Hi all,

I’m having trouble with my 2 year old WD ultra. When I plug it in to my Mac, it’s either not registered at all or it turns up for at most a couple of seconds before it becomes unavailable. Even if the Mac doesn’t see it as a hard drive, the system report shows a USB device connected with the right name. The drive also spins up and the LED flashes every time. I’ve opened it up, assuming that the SATA to USB electronics were busted, but that I could still get the data off by using an adaptor. However, I don’t see the SATA connector.

From a cursory search it appears that there might be a way to solder a SATA connector to the board and bypass the USB, but I can only find instructions for an older model of drive, and I suspect that the pin assignments are different now, not to mention the fact that soldering wires to something this small will be a nightmare. Does anyone have any suggestions? For instance, can some of the 14 pins which aren’t connected to anything be used?

Thanks in advance,

Zac

2

Hello,

I have never tried this and I don’t recommend anybody to try it either. Attempting any repair services may damage the drive even more and make the data irrecoverable. If you need to recover the data that’s on the drive I recommend you contact a data recovery company.