I am trying to recover data from my WD drive. It has a strange connection attached directly to the drive
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I thought it would have just been a SATA connection but apparently WD has changed their products. Has anyone ever dealt with one of these drives? Any input appreciated.
Looks like you've been given the internal HD of a WD Elements External drive. It's still a regular SATA with regular SATA connectors
Check out this link
http//www .devincollier. com/2010/01/04/how-to-open-a-western-digital-elements-500gb-2-0-portable-hard-drive-case/
Scroll down to the bottom it will show you how to slide out the connector.
Good luck!
-Art-
Unfortunately the link you supplied is of a different model. My drive's connection does not slide out.
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I have taken out laptop drives before with a proprietary connection adapter that slides off, I was assuming thats how this drive would be. I read in a random forum that WD did away with the standard SATA connection for these portable drives. Not sure on the validity of that information.
Looks like what he/she has is the full encasement (I can see those pesky rubber bumpers in the pic). Some of the drives like the one here, have the controller card as single piece that goes to the mini-USB connection and no SATA adapter to slide off. This leaves USB as an acquisition but with a caveat - power. Certian write-blocker devices such as the T8 may or may not (I have an early generation with latest firmware) power the drive if it is plugged in just to the bridge. You can get a USB "Y" cable
FYI for those that get these still in the clamshell, the rubber corner bumpers make it a treat to put back together.
Ok, this is NOT a connector. At work, we currently have a few of these to process and ordered a few for testing. You might need to purchase a Mini/Micro USB cable (WD). I am not sure if it is proprietary to WD, but that is where we purchased ours a few weeks back.
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douglasbrush - For us, the T8 works about 75% of the time with these drives. We are currently trying to figure out the differences between the drives that work with the T8 and the ones that don't.
Today, our Damaged Media Repair tech attempted to rewire the circuit board on one of these to make it a standard SATA interface, but it failed to work.
Ok, this is NOT a connector. At work, we currently have a few of these to process and ordered a few for testing. You might need to purchase a Mini/Micro USB cable (WD). I am not sure if it is proprietary to WD, but that is where we purchased ours a few weeks back.
In my experience the WD Passport drives need the WD Cable to work. I cant recall if they will work with a non-OEM micro USB cable. But I do remember the drives were a pain and I was always looking for the a WD micro cable…
Also beasleyjt - the cable for passports, and the one you linked to is a micro. Mini is larger.
I've never had my hands on a WD Passport so forgive my ignorance.
Where was the WD originally housed? You say it's your drive? If IN a computer then I'm kinda surprised that the computer manufacturer has a 'non-standard' connector that you could connect the WD to.
If OTOH the WD was in an external enclosure (assuming USB) which is implied by 'portable drive', if it's yours why not put it back in the enclosure and connect to the T8?
Mebbe I missed something. Like for example the enclosure is pooped (but you didn't say that). Mebbe you could get a substitute enclosure?
Cults14
Its an external USB in a PIA to open clamshell case. The problem with these and other non-flash USB storage devices is that they don't get enough power from the bus alone though the T8 and supplemental power is needed. This is why I suggested a Y cable to add power from another USB source. Careful of a port on a computer because of the potential of the device mounting - I use a cellphone charge instead that goes into the Y cable to give power. This doesn't always work however and a Linux or LinEn option is a good alternative.
Saw something like this in the DR department yesterday. It required a USB3 cable. Not sure if that's the same thing here…
Saw something like this in the DR department yesterday. It required a USB3 cable. Not sure if that's the same thing here…
I don't believe it's USB3, as the USB3 cable looks like this
Micro USB3 looks like this
OP Can you give us a better connector picture? It's hard to see but it looks like an older USB2 drive.