Water-Damaged WD MyBook Studio Edition II Quad Interface 6TB

SennaSempre · 31 Jan 2024

Hello, this is my 1st post and the reason why I joined. I have a water-damaged hard drive 6TB that had water on-or-in it for 1 day and then I dried it out. I see no water corrosion damage anywhere on the drive itself or the internal control board in the chassis or housing.

This hard drive will power up for 10 seconds and has the front light blinking but no spinning of the platters when plugged into any computer using the same stock AC adapter.

I read that it could be a problem with the control board in the housing unit and to use a SATA-USB connector straight into the computer which I've done to no avail. I've tried this 3.3V pin tape-hack explained in Step 14 here -

How to Shuck a WD Elements External Hard Drive - iFixit Repair Guide

...and still nothing on both drives. I don't know what else I can do which is why I'm asking you. Some extra links to the exact model I have with the online manual and attached photos. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you.

Online Manual - User manual Western Digital My Book Studio II (English - 36 pages)

Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II review: Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II - CNET

Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II 6TB Review

6TB Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II Review (WDH2Q60000) - StorageReview.com

townsbg · 31 Jan 2024

Since there are 2 drives the enclosure had to do a special kind of setup known as a raid. That can put 2 or more hard drives together and makes them look like one drive. That's why you can't see anything on the drives because you haven't recreated the raid set up. Look for raid in your bios settings and check your computer's manual. If there are no raid settings you'll need to get an external enclosure with raid built-in such as ones here: Just a moment...

This set up is only raid 0 (as confirmed by one of your links and the manual) and I would never use raid 0 since if you lose either drive you lose everything on both drives. If you can get the data back I would use the drives as single drives and not a single volume raid for that reason.

By the way it is a bad idea to get support for the same issue on multiple forums.
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SennaSempre · 01 Feb 2024

townsbg said:

By the way it is a bad idea to get support for the same issue on multiple forums.

Why is that a bad idea? I think the opposite, I think its a good idea. You also have a profile on those 5 other forums and ask questions or provide advice on all of them... just as I am right? So what's the difference since we are both doing the same thing?

townsbg · 01 Feb 2024

There's a difference between seeking advice on other forums and helping on different forums but I don't have an account on those forums. If we are trying to help you and DON'T know about the other forums we don't know what you're being told and what they are telling you might interfere or impact what we tell you as could our advise. It's easy to see here what others are telling you here but now that we know we have to read 5 other threads to see what they are telling you. I didn't know that you'd already figured out that it's a raid issue until I read the other threads. It also makes me wonder just what OS are you using because you asked at a Mac forum. However those other forums don't know that you are seeking help on the same issue at different forums. I only found out by googling your drive's model. It's too many cooks helping to cook the same meal in different kitchens.

Just to also point out that you've been working on this issue for a week at those other forums and didn't put the information you had learned from any of those forums here.

SennaSempre · 01 Feb 2024

Well that is EXACTLY why I DON'T want to use just 1 forum, for EXACTLY the reasons of what you said. I want differing opinions from others. I want to see who says to go this route or that. I want to gauge the knowledge of others. I'm seeking the best advice possible which could come from ANY source, but how do I know that I picked the right forum with just 1 posting on just 1 forum?

Some users don't know what the hell they are talking about, some do. Thus, I have to blanket mass post my question, gather all the information and then make my own gut-decision on what sounds best from who sounds the smartest. I think my approach is far more effective and timely rather than your approach of limiting my feedback and info results on just 1 forum. Why would anyone want to wait many days or weeks if no one responds back or gives bad advice. Then I would have wasted that critical time waiting on just 1 forum. Now all that makes tremendous sense!