WD external drive connecter fell off, connecting It via sata  

Hello, My WS external hard drive mini usb connector fell off.

Iv'e tried to weld It back to the usb adaptar on the external hard drive, but without succssess.
thus Iv'e totly dissconnected the usb adaptar from the hard drive and tried to connect It directly to the pcs motherboard via a SATA connection.
The Drive shows up on my computer as D: and seems to be empty...
From what Iv'e read from the web, WD drives could It be the encrypted, In that case how do I deal with It?
If you know somthing that might help, It'll be great.

Please help the info on this drive Is very important

Welcome to Seven Forums.

Just WD external drive. No model name, number.

Anyway, if it is other than "Elements" , it is hardware encrypted. You cannot take the drive out, direct connect and get the data.

Take it to a nearby computer shop professional and check whether they can fix the connector for you and get the data out..

Else, you need to contact the WD Data Recovery partners in your region. Only they have the decrypt key to recover the data. You can contact over the phone and obtain a quote. Needless to say it is going to cost heavy. https://support.wdc.com/Warranty/dat...y.aspx?lang=en

Thank you jumanji for the tip, Earlier today with much struggle Iv'e managed to hold still the usb connector on the It's belonging place on the chip using a Laundry hook for enought time to reopen the hard drive encrypted contact and restore It's info using EaseEA Data Recovery software.

Needless to say that the WD external hardrive is useless now without the connecter holding tigth on It

hmmm.... looks like you have seen the many youtube videos I saw, holding it with a clip. :)



I thought you can't do it or better you don't do it under tension and that is why I was driving you to the computer shop but you did it. Congrats.

You can now use that HDD as an internal HDD. Just do a cleanwipe ( write zeros) using WD DataLifeguard Diagnostic for Windows and then format it. Software and Firmware Downloads | WD Support (Exercise caution in selecting the correct drive to wipe and do a full erase.)

You may also check the drive's health. If everything is OK, you have an internal drive now.(The encryption/decryption chip is actually in the broken PCB which you will throw away now.)