My Book Home Edition - Taking out from enclosure

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for Windows
1

Hello, I have a 2008 My Book Home Edition USB drive:
http://support.wdc.com/product.aspx?ID=111&lang=en

I want to take out of USB enclosure but I heard that some drives are encrypted by by USB connection and I will not be able to read the drive after connecting in straight to the computer.

Is that true?

2

Yes it’s encrypted by the circuit board that has the USB connection.
Joe

4

Okay, thanks. If I make a copy and then take it out of its enclosure, can I format it and use without encryption?

5

Actually, My Book drives made before the use of Smartware should not have any drive encryption so you will be able to access the data on the drive by plugging into the computer directly.
If you already started to copy off the drive then just keep doing that.
As for your last question, yes, you will be able to reformat and repurpose the drive without any encryption getting in the way. It is just a standard 3 1/2" hard drive inside the enclosure.

6

Thank you!