Cuts box like it's his first introduction to cardboard... Yet surgeons hands with the plastic... Right before going butcher on the case... Got my attention. Well played
According to the Wiki - in new SATA 3.3 specification pin 3 isn't actually 3.3 V power, but instead Power Disable used for SAS compatibility or remote power cycling (could be useful in data center) and that's why the HDD locks up. Why they made new specification incompatible with old one is beyond me (they could have easily avoid this if they made line active low), but power supply shouldn't have this problem if they meet new SATA specification.
To sum up, for products supporting the optional SATA 3.3 power disable (PWDIS) function, the third pin (P3) of the SATA connector is now assigned as the Power Disable Control pin. If P3 is driven HIGH (2.1V-3.6V), the power to the drive circuitry will be cut. All drives with this optional feature will not power up if a legacy SATA connector is used. This is because P3 driven HIGH will prevent the drive from powering up. The easy, and not so elegant, solution is to use a 4-pin Molex to SATA connector or a power supply equipped with SATA connectors that follow the SATA 3.3 specification. Source-Toms Hardware Western Digital Whitepaper Pinouts for SATA 3.3 Pin 1: Reserved Pin 2: Reserved Pin 3: Power Disable Pin 4: Ground Pin 5: Ground Pin 6: Ground Pin 7: +5VDC Pin 8: +5VDC Pin 9: +5VDC Pin 10: +12VDC Pin 11: +12VDC Pin 12: +12VDC
@@IIGrayfoxII Thanks for the detailed explanation. I take it my 6 year old Raidmax power supply is probably not using Sata 3.3 compatible power cabling.
Back when I first did the same thing (different much older drive though, the USB to SATA adapter had failed me but the drive was fine), just took a screwdriver and used all the leverage I had. Damn that casing back then was robust compared to the one in the video.
Just ran into this yesterday. Bought the elements drive on Amazon and it was not detecting it. Did this step and it worked perfectly. Another 10 TB to my unraid server for about 160 bucks! Cheers! 🍻🍻🍻
My 2c suggestions: If you have / can get it, use Kapton tape - its thinner and has less gloopy adhesive than electrical tape and is less likely to move when you add the connector. Electrical tape can be really s***ty sometimes (3M usually good, Shenzen specials not so much) and the glue can end up "nearly impossible to remove"
Do you really think someone sat there and thought "How to prevent people from reusing external storage as internal"? It's actually a standard feature. Most decent drives are offered with and without pin 3 reset feature. When you first boot your drive it can require 3 times more current. That's not a big deal if you have one or two drives, but if you have 20 or 30 in a huge storage system you would want a way to power them one by one (or at least in groups) so they don't overload the power supply while spinning up. Why use it in external drive when it's just one? Because it's an easy way to power the drive off until the USB is plugged in. It would not be wise anyway to buy a more expensive external drive just to use it as internal. Unless you damaged the enclosure without damaging the drive - maybe you damaged the stupidly fragile micro usb connector...
Ok so YT just randomly decided to recommend me this video. I realised that all this hassle is to get the drive cheaper? After quick search how much this thing is and how much the 10TB drive itself is, getting that entire device is cheaper, weird, WD Elements 10TB external storage £200 and 10TB drive itself £250 wtf...
Warranty External drives have less warranty than standalone drives. Stand alone drives are also specific for design,(red=NAS, Purple=CCTV, Blue=Desktop, etc) Drives in these external enclosures might not be best suited to the given task, but will still work fine.
One difference is how long the spindle bearings are designed to last. A server-grade drive would be intended to run 24/7. A desktop grade is intended to run 8/5. And with these external drives, who knows? But typical use means it should be unplugged most of the time. Once the bearings start to wear out, the platters wobble. It doesn't take much wobble before the heads can't accurately follow the tracks. If you're using a backup service,you probably can afford the cheaper drive. If you're not using a backup service, you probably should. Oddly enough, these cheap drives are pretty good for backup, if you only have it plugged in once a day.
@@IIGrayfoxII If you don't need the warranty, great! Western Digital usually pack the Red ones in Elements series of external drives, which are perfect for NAS mass storage setups. Also, in other related topic, the 3.3 volt reset is actually within spec, lmao.
@@XenonG from what I know one aspect of this is how drives fail. Blue (and black) will aggressively try to recover data when failing while reds just fail. This is intentional as in a NAS/Server scenario you usually have a RAID and a single disk failure won't cause any data loss. However attempts to recover data on a single disk would massively slow down the entire RAID.
The pin layout on a Sata Power cable is; Orange (3.3v) Pin 1 - 3 , Black (GND) Pin 4 - 6, Red (5v) Pin 7 - 9, Black (GND) Pin 10 - 12, Yellow (12v) Pin 13 - 15.
WD has been (in the past) not objected to shucking drives they tend to honor the waranty. And the next thing is even if you need a drive after 2 years (external have 2 years in Americas/3 in EMEA) when you buy 4 of them to Raid them in a QNAP or such. 5x 210€ = 1050€ when shucked vs. 4x 320€ = 1280€. WD Reds only have 3 years at most anyways
Technically I don't think it's legal to void the warranty on the actual HD over that. Technically I think if consumers as a whole would challenge the "warranty void" stickers almost all of them wouldn't hold up in court.
FYI the reason for this is that pin 3 is online reset on SAS drives, which otherwise use identical and compatible connectors. 3.3V power was phased out of SATA 5ish years ago, and was never used by SAS. Since these are actually HGST Ultrastar datacenter-class drives, it makes sense that the drives expect server backplane power connections rather than legacy SATA power.
The real explanation. Long ago, I yad some SATA drives that wouldn't work without the 3.3v supplied. They almost worked, but would have problems. I was using a molex adapter cable, so no 3.3v. Plugged them into the proper power supply and they never acted up again.
1/8 inch kapton tape works beautifully here. Bought a roll on Amazon for $7 and its covers the first three pins, Did this last night on a 8TB Easystore I bought from Best Buy.
Chirs P : External Drives cost less ??? and thats why some do this to save some Bucks? thinking of trying since you also confirmed it works, does it work for all brands or certain one only?
Rom3 in 2.5“ you can only shuck Seagates, Maxtors and Lacies (they share the same internal drives, and with regards to Seagate which is the mother company even the same partnumber than the internals). Where WD and Toshibas aren’t shuckable in 2.5“. In 3.5“ inch WD MyBooks, Easystores and Elements are shuckable as are Seagate Backup 3.5“
@@ThisOLmaan This deals with the Western Digital external hard drives that are incassed. Seagate drives do not have this issue. I have been able to install Any 3.5 Seagate Sata drive into my 8 Bay Mediasonic hard drive enclosures.
Just a heads up: If you want them to honor a warranty on that drive, you’ll have to put it back inside the enclosure first. They won’t warrant the bare drive itself. I don’t recommend stabbing the enclosure. Open it carefully.
Jeff Sadly, XP cannot handle that big a drive. You will need to upgrade to Vista 😆 And, while you are at the store, bag yourself a bidirectional SATA-IDE adapter. If they have any in stock, try getting an extra 28 bits for your BIOS. I guess that's all you need to get that rig running. Do try the extra bits for the BIOS last, after you've spent money upgrading everything else first...
@{// WTF! //} Max disk size in XP using NTFS is 256TB. Max volume size is 2TB. Are you all smoking crack or something? Yes the BIOS detects the drive. Yes, P4 chipsets supported SATA. YES, WINDOWS XP WILL WORK WITH A FUCKING 8TB DRIVE. What is this, amateur hour?
WD also uses custom PCBs for some of their 2.5 external drives. These boards do not have a SATA port, but a USB plug. While the need to make the drive smaller partially justify this choice, it means you can't use the disk as an internal one.
They use it on all of their 2.5 external drives. It's terrible because when the controller fails you can't just connect it to a SATA port to recover it. Best to avoid WD 2.5" drives and stick to Toshiba or Seagate.
I have done this and I like to use the Molex to Sata adaptor(Have too many anyways) since this does not have a 3.3v power line anyways. this is the least destructive option I found since you do nothing except plug it in plug it in.
Molex and SATA power specifications are different. Besides, many power supplies (rightly) don't have Molex anymore. And as Jacob mentioned, those adapters suck. All of them. The pins inside them have too much slack and they don't plug in snugly, which can easily cause arcing and sparking.
Thank you. I just schucked a drive last night after watching another video and the drive wasn't recognized on my PC. Now I know why. Would have been great if other videos actually made mention of this.
Wow! I honestly couldn't believe how you opened the package! In addition to cut randomly through the package you also headed straight in the direction of your arm! This should be shown in a first aid video on how not to do that!
The 3.3V power off thing is because these are on the same enterprise platform as the HGST/WD Helium 7200RPM Enterprise drives. The 3.3V specification is specifically so technicians can shut the drive off completely remotely by sending 3.3V to that pin, without having to walk over to a machine to pull out a drive to fully power it off. 3.3V on consumer grade SATA drives is literally not used for anything, so if your PSU is out of warranty, or you have some extra SATA power cables for a modular one, snipping the 3.3V line and insulating the snipped wires is an option, although it's more logical to do this if you have multiple of these drives, like in a NAS build.
@@Dan-TechAndMusic I have done both, I built with an Ryzen 3 2200G and a ASUS B350 in an Inter-Tech 4410 that has a Molex Powered Backplate so its 3.3V is not connected by default. That box has drives from many different drive manufacturing dates and drives I picked up at local retailers, amazon to spread the risk as I only RAID-Z1 this 15 drive box (5 Drives are added in an IcyBox MB455SPF.)
Worked like a charm, thank you very much! I was wondering what the issue was after I chucked my WD 8TB HD yesterday because my ios wouldn't detect it, but it was working fine if I plugged it into the eSata port on the top of my case, so I'm glad that thanks to you MY HD can go inside my PC!
Thank you for making this video, I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why my PC wasn’t recognizing my HDD. I did your tape trick and it worked like a charm! Thanks again
the 3.3v pin is used to power down the drive completely in case of it not being used at all by the pc (host) so it saves power and also prolongs the life of the drive by not running non stop and overheating in that plastic case
Well most drives in Enclosures die from spin downs and Parking (remember when WD had the Greens who were constantly parking?). But if that is the case why don't they set APM and AAM to mid tier performance as Seagate does with the Baracuda Computes (you can find in and easily shuck from Backup Plus 2.5" (the updated 2019 case model is more complicated than the 2018 model though) and M3s from Maxtor)
I did the same thing to convert a graphics card from PCIe x16 to x1. Just cover all of the pins after pin 7 with electrical tape and shove that sucker into the slot. The computer it went into was an old P4 Lenovo ThinkCentre horizontal desktop which had a riser card that included a full-length PCIe slot, but it was electrically x1 and would not boot with an x16 card installed. Covering the pins worked perfectly. I have also used a Dremel to grind a large notch into an x16 card and fit it into a physical x1 slot, works equally as well. Fun fact: the WD USB board in these external drives WILL overwrite the service area of whatever drive you decide to plug into it. So if you take a 1TB drive and connect it to a board from a 500GB enclosure (and power it up), you now have a 500GB drive that doesn't work. Hopefully you backed up the service area and have the tools and knowledge to re-write the original information back to it.
Super timely, as I just bought two of these at the recent Amazon day! You just saved me time having to look this up again as i had forgotten about this. Thanks.
Using some kapton tape would be a lot better but understandable why you use other tape since not everyone would have it... Regular scotch tape or even cheap package tape would work too.
I recommend just taking a small SATA power extension, and removing the 3.3v pin entirely. (or cutting the wire to the base of the connector and covering it with liquid electrical tape.) Or you could just use a modern ATX 2.2 power supply which doesn't put the 3.3v pins on the SATA cable. The problem is that the SATA standard changed the purpose for the underused power supply pins, and in a half-voltage state they are in forced standby. This is to allow incremental boot of the drives.
I have 6 of these shucked 10TB white labels in my server so far and haven't modified any of them. Plug 'n' play. EDIT: model WDBCKA0100HBK-NESN EDIT 2: From Best Buy a few months ago for $159 each
Easystores come with a WD100EMAZ those are definately affected so you had luck with your PSU for either being compliant with S-ATA 3.3 or not even powering the 3.3 lane..
Wow, I was so pissed off last night, I spent 4 hours with this drive trying everything, and all I needed was a small piece of tape? WTF WD???????!!!!!!! Anyways, thank you so much, recognized and working just fine now. I made a mess of my system for nothing Trying different sata ports, different power cables, all for not, it never would have worked...just dumbfounded. Thanks again!
I didn't click on the video because I needed to know how to do this; I clicked because I wanted to know what in the world was a 3.3v pin and why you would disable it. Fortunately the video is succinct.
It’s as if they don’t want you to be able to reuse the drive. It’s as though they don’t care about the consumer apart from their money. Totally money grabbing and uninspired. Thank you mate! You’re doing good work out here :)
I really wish I would have found this video months ago. I thought the bios on my Dell 7010 just didn't see it, so I went all kinds of routes to get it to work, and none of them worked. So I kind of chucked it in my F-it bucket and bugger off to something else. Tried this and low and behold it is working just fine.
it's 2am and I have no black electrician's tape but I used a bit of ReadyPost Clear mailing tape and covered pins 1,2, and 3, and all is right with the world, now I am hooking up the 4TB drives that were in Bays #2 and #5 that were no longer showing up, one drive is already showing up with the controller card from the WD USB board, and I'm pulling the data off it, and praying I can do the same with the other 4TB one :) wish me luck and you just gained a new Subscriber and member of the Bell Squad!
Electricians vinyl tape isn't the best choice for this application. It is thick and made to withstand hundreds of volts, The adhesive is slippery (compared to Scotch tape) which can cause the tape to slip when plugging in the connector. Regular Scotch tape stays stuck where you put it and can easily withstand a great deal more than 3.3V.
@@pierreuntel1970 That's incorrect, kapton tape should be very sticky and is commonly used in the electronics industry as an insulator. It's also good for high temperature use, but that is certainly not it's only use.
....or just don't buy a WD external hard drive if you plan on removing it and using it as a normal desktop hard drive. Thanks for the video, I had no idea WD did this.
Westen digital mechanical hard drives from cable boxes are awesome and almost SSD fast! I can't complain about a terabyte of storage for free and it's fast!...
Many Backplates don't have a 3.3V Pin connected. I have tried this on QNAPs and and InterTech Backplanes so far. While the Intertech uses Molex for the backplane I have hyd luck with both a TS-413+ and a TS-431Xeu from QNAP)
I didn't have this issue. I took the drive out of the WD "My Book(?)" case and put it in a different external case. (I had my reasons, leave me alone :-P) Anyway, I discovered the hard way that just swapping the drive into a different case, the computer couldn't read the data... At all... The system considered it blank (no formatting, no partition).. So I hooked the drive up to the WD board, and boom, everything was there.. Evidently WD finds it necessary to use some proprietary way to read/write data to its' drives. So after painstakingly moving everything to a temp drive, I reinstalled the WD drive to my new case, re-partitioned, reformatted and moved the data back. No problems after that. I'll never buy one of these drives again.
With the 3TB elements I have, the drive itself is 512/4k (logical/physical) but the Enclosure makes it look like 4k/4k. So you can't just pop out the drive and read your data if the enclosure fails.
@@GewelReal not to mention, some of us even have the know-how to repair the cable should the need arise, though as far as I can tell most SATA devices do just fine without 3.3v
I wasted so much time trying to figure this out. Should have just combined the two videos, because i know someone will watch the first and totally miss the follow up. HAHAHA, all good though. Thank you for the follow up video
To sum up, for products supporting the optional SATA 3.3 power disable (PWDIS) function, the third pin (P3) of the SATA connector is now assigned as the Power Disable Control pin. If P3 is driven HIGH (2.1V-3.6V), the power to the drive circuitry will be cut. All drives with this optional feature will not power up if a legacy SATA connector is used. This is because P3 driven HIGH will prevent the drive from powering up. The easy, and not so elegant, solution is to use a 4-pin Molex to SATA connector or a power supply equipped with SATA connectors that follow the SATA 3.3 specification. Source-Toms Hardware Western Digital Whitepaper Pinouts for SATA 3.3 Pin 1: Reserved Pin 2: Reserved Pin 3: Power Disable Pin 4: Ground Pin 5: Ground Pin 6: Ground Pin 7: +5VDC Pin 8: +5VDC Pin 9: +5VDC Pin 10: +12VDC Pin 11: +12VDC Pin 12: +12VDC
ZachFB Studios Definitely, I’ve always preferred seagate disc drives due to their durability, and for solid state I use Kingston or Samsung. Either one makes highly reliable SSD’s. Corsair for all other hardware. 👍🏻
Same when my Wii died i took my Seagate from the external enclosure and slapped it into my PC, sadly had to reformat, so i lost all my backed up games, no tape required
People misunderstand the purpose of ideas like this. People make idea videos typically to make you think. Do you have a white label drive you don't do anything with anymore? Why not use it in your computer, afterall, it's a regular drive with just a few extra pins we will bypass. He may have bought one specifically to show you this, but he's not telling anyone to buy one specifically to do this.
Many NAS like the QNAPs don't connect 3.3V anyways. Have 4 Whites in a TS-431Xeu and 4 Whites in a TS-431P. No mod required (though I switch the 12cm Fan on the 431P to a BeQuiet SilentWings 2)
Thank you so much for this video ! I appreciate it , I have bought so many of these WD’s and I have yet to do a recovery on one of them this has helped me out a tonne load ! 🧐🇬🇧🤔🤔🤔🤝🤝🤝👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻❤️❤️❤️🤓🤓🤓
I have a few drives, so it was easier to use the alternative method of cutting the corresponding cable on the power connector, which essentially does the same thing of disabling power to pins 1-3. Cover with electrical tape and job done, but I recommend only if you use (semi-)modular PSU in case you cut the wrong cable. (Also, try pulling out the cable first as it less destructive.)
Hey man, I just want to say thanks because I bought these HDD and when arrive to my country were not working and is so difficult for me return it, with your video I solved it.
Ah thanks, don't have a drive that had this problem though. Its just not beyond me to buy an external and rip it apart as I did with my 6tb drive. It had no disable pin however the drive enclosure which I wanted to reuse was coded for use with only that drive. I ripped the chip responsible for this off of the usb adapter board and all went well, just lost the ability for it to power down when the PC is turned off. No big deal because I only use It for backups. Also, the format/commentary of this video is perfect.
I'd like to say thank you very much!!! Glad I searched RUclips and found your video even though the thumbnail would throw anyone off lol. This works stay away from from the kid on the net saying use a molex to sata adapter this was far easier
nahhh!!! just cut off yhe 3.3volts output from the SATA Power cable or the Orange one and thats it!!! or use a SATA Power Cable with two black wires which is the ground or -12volts!!! one yellow wire which is +12volts and red wire which is the +5volts!!! thats why there are two types of SATA Power cables from the power supply!!!!
man found this on accident just trying to search on "how to open western digital enclosure" glad i clicked this one or else I would have assumed I killed the drive ha
I actually had to replace my new FSP power supply because all the SATA connections were only 4 pin and all of them lacked the 3.3v orange cable. I had to replace because I actually needed the 3.3v for my Corsair AIO cooler's RGB.
Perfect thanks. Was able to get the damn electrical tape on despite my fat fingers thanks to this. Was trying to avoid touching 1st and 2nd pins before watching this
It is likely easier for them to repurpose drives as externals with firmware changes than to develop an external specific bit of hardware. More cost effective, since their HGST drives cost less to make than they are selling them for as externals so they still profit. The R&D it would take to develop a whole new model specifically for external usage isn't worth the cost, I would imagine.
I use enamel paint or super glue to cover the connector. It works well if you have to connect and disconnect the drive often. I would not trust a drive sold into a "external case" for a long or reliable storage :-(
I think WD is the company that started putting encryption chips on their external drives. It's not something that's controlled by the user either - it's an automatic encryption - meaning if your external case's power blows out or breaks you're stuck with a drive you can't easily recover anything from.. the recovery place I went to told me they would need the old "blown out" board and would have to buy a new identical board, move the chip over and then try to decrypt the drive - SUPER expensive (we're talking well over $1000 easy). It's not something that you will hear or know about until you need something recovered, they kept it on the hush-hush. They started doing this with the MyBook series drives a few years ago.
Which case would that be? Hardware encryption is a feature of the Mybook non Elements I guess. I remember those can be shucked too, but you need a Torx screwdriver. But the encryption Chip is on the USB board...
Likely five or six years ago, I bought an external Wd 4 Gb hard drive from an Amazon seller. It was a scam and the drive did not work out of the box. Sent it to WD and they sent me a refurbished drive as a replaced. Only reason they did was because the sale was through eBay. The refurbished external drive within six to twelve months, but had no warranty. With nothing left to lose, I broke the enclosure apart and put the drive in my computer. Still works today. Looks like they changed things with these even larger drives.
The western digital MyBook 6TB With white label drive Doesnt need the voltage pin disabled it seems to be only on the WD elements Drive cages they went with the weird voltage pin. How bizzare the model of cage i had was. Western Digital Mybook 6TB 6GBps Usb 3.0/3.1 S/N: WX51D890LU61 P/N: WDBBGB0060HBK-NA E4C MAAHLA 3320Q Product of Thailand this is the model of the WDMybook you find at walmart stores for 129.00 to 140.00 u.s its the model with the usb port and the power supply plug out the front of the case not the back its a white label drive no 3.3 volt pin disable no issues in windows 10 64 bit now i have 10 terabytes of storage thanks to this trick
What sort of madman opens a cardboard box like that?!
That was tame compared to how AvE opens boxes...
Dan Roberts Ave is great! One of the few I Patreon to for frog snacks.
@@danroberts7975 TIME!!!
@@danroberts7975 the mini chainsaw of death
Cuts box like it's his first introduction to cardboard... Yet surgeons hands with the plastic... Right before going butcher on the case... Got my attention. Well played
Pin 1-3: 3.3V
Pin 4-6: COM
Pin 7-9: 5V
Pin 10-12: COM
Pin 13-15: 12V
thank you both
nested in one of the coms is the drain for an activity led.
According to the Wiki - in new SATA 3.3 specification pin 3 isn't actually 3.3 V power, but instead Power Disable used for SAS compatibility or remote power cycling (could be useful in data center) and that's why the HDD locks up.
Why they made new specification incompatible with old one is beyond me (they could have easily avoid this if they made line active low), but power supply shouldn't have this problem if they meet new SATA specification.
To sum up, for products supporting the optional SATA 3.3 power disable (PWDIS) function, the third pin (P3) of the SATA connector is now assigned as the Power Disable Control pin. If P3 is driven HIGH (2.1V-3.6V), the power to the drive circuitry will be cut. All drives with this optional feature will not power up if a legacy SATA connector is used. This is because P3 driven HIGH will prevent the drive from powering up. The easy, and not so elegant, solution is to use a 4-pin Molex to SATA connector or a power supply equipped with SATA connectors that follow the SATA 3.3 specification. Source-Toms Hardware Western Digital Whitepaper
Pinouts for SATA 3.3
Pin 1: Reserved
Pin 2: Reserved
Pin 3: Power Disable
Pin 4: Ground
Pin 5: Ground
Pin 6: Ground
Pin 7: +5VDC
Pin 8: +5VDC
Pin 9: +5VDC
Pin 10: +12VDC
Pin 11: +12VDC
Pin 12: +12VDC
@@IIGrayfoxII Thanks for the detailed explanation. I take it my 6 year old Raidmax power supply is probably not using Sata 3.3 compatible power cabling.
The least destructive and safest way xD
2 minutes earlier: *stabs the F-in' hard drive enclosure with a knife*
Well, it was a safety video on opening cardboard boxes or christmas presents.
I am sure it was an anti-static buck knife ;D
Back when I first did the same thing (different much older drive though, the USB to SATA adapter had failed me but the drive was fine), just took a screwdriver and used all the leverage I had. Damn that casing back then was robust compared to the one in the video.
God this was me when I tried this before. I was all, "Let me be very very careful, and maybe use something like a -- fuckit!!! 🔪🗡️
Just ran into this yesterday. Bought the elements drive on Amazon and it was not detecting it. Did this step and it worked perfectly. Another 10 TB to my unraid server for about 160 bucks! Cheers! 🍻🍻🍻
@Hazards De I started with a 4TB and an 8 TB and thought I would never use all that space. Now I have 38TB and am worried about running out.
I’m at 44tb now. And still reads in mb free space.
Have fun running a RAID on high-latency low-write-throughput archive drives.
Ted that doesn’t even make sense.
I remember my first build. My buddy teaching me asked why I bought such a big HD! Well that 13gb filled up fast, lol.
this is how tutorials ought to be done. clear and right to the point.
might as well just buy a sata female to sata male adapter and just pull out the pin 3 on the power cable.
Agreed
That only works if installing it in a normal computer. I have these in my server and cant do that with the back plane
Always Bolt the Bird why would i use ehite label drives on a backplane slots, it may even damage the port and crack it, so no thanks.
@@AlwaysBolttheBird Ummm... Who asked for your opinion? The correct answer is "nobody."
@@MFKR696 Ummm, nobody needs permission to comment on RUclips. So who cares about your opinion? The correct answer is "nobody".
My 2c suggestions:
If you have / can get it, use Kapton tape - its thinner and has less gloopy adhesive than electrical tape and is less likely to move when you add the connector.
Electrical tape can be really s***ty sometimes (3M usually good, Shenzen specials not so much) and the glue can end up "nearly impossible to remove"
+1 for kapton tape. Amazon ships it quick in the States.
I feel incredibly intensely aggravated when that happens...
"Nearly impossible to remove"
Where have I heard that before?
@@cinnabarsonar2072 I believe it was a Genius Bar technician who received that call and uploaded it to RUclips, right?😂
I would probably paint the pin instead so the tape can't come off inside the plug.
WD: "Ok chief, that hard drive is unusable in normal PC"
Byte My Bits: "Well yes but actually no"
Do you really think someone sat there and thought "How to prevent people from reusing external storage as internal"? It's actually a standard feature. Most decent drives are offered with and without pin 3 reset feature. When you first boot your drive it can require 3 times more current. That's not a big deal if you have one or two drives, but if you have 20 or 30 in a huge storage system you would want a way to power them one by one (or at least in groups) so they don't overload the power supply while spinning up. Why use it in external drive when it's just one? Because it's an easy way to power the drive off until the USB is plugged in. It would not be wise anyway to buy a more expensive external drive just to use it as internal. Unless you damaged the enclosure without damaging the drive - maybe you damaged the stupidly fragile micro usb connector...
Ok so YT just randomly decided to recommend me this video.
I realised that all this hassle is to get the drive cheaper?
After quick search how much this thing is and how much the 10TB drive itself is, getting that entire device is cheaper, weird, WD Elements 10TB external storage £200 and 10TB drive itself £250 wtf...
Warranty
External drives have less warranty than standalone drives.
Stand alone drives are also specific for design,(red=NAS, Purple=CCTV, Blue=Desktop, etc)
Drives in these external enclosures might not be best suited to the given task, but will still work fine.
One difference is how long the spindle bearings are designed to last. A server-grade drive would be intended to run 24/7. A desktop grade is intended to run 8/5. And with these external drives, who knows? But typical use means it should be unplugged most of the time.
Once the bearings start to wear out, the platters wobble. It doesn't take much wobble before the heads can't accurately follow the tracks.
If you're using a backup service,you probably can afford the cheaper drive. If you're not using a backup service, you probably should. Oddly enough, these cheap drives are pretty good for backup, if you only have it plugged in once a day.
@@IIGrayfoxII If you don't need the warranty, great!
Western Digital usually pack the Red ones in Elements series of external drives, which are perfect for NAS mass storage setups.
Also, in other related topic, the 3.3 volt reset is actually within spec, lmao.
@@jordanrodrigues8265 empirical evidence for "better bearings for drives expected to run 24/7" is lacking though... Lookup backblaze stats
@@XenonG from what I know one aspect of this is how drives fail. Blue (and black) will aggressively try to recover data when failing while reds just fail. This is intentional as in a NAS/Server scenario you usually have a RAID and a single disk failure won't cause any data loss. However attempts to recover data on a single disk would massively slow down the entire RAID.
The pin layout on a Sata Power cable is; Orange (3.3v) Pin 1 - 3 , Black (GND) Pin 4 - 6, Red (5v) Pin 7 - 9, Black (GND) Pin 10 - 12, Yellow (12v) Pin 13 - 15.
thank you
Awsome. I watched this because I was thinking why "disable the 3.3v pin". Now I know. Tnx.
Paul Sim Right?!?!!?
"Non destructive and doesn't void warranty" ...after you destroyed the enclosure voiding the warranty. 😂
Western Digital warranties the drives for 2 years outside of the enclosure :) (At least in the US)
Right to repair.
WD has been (in the past) not objected to shucking drives they tend to honor the waranty.
And the next thing is even if you need a drive after 2 years (external have 2 years in Americas/3 in EMEA) when you buy 4 of them to Raid them in a QNAP or such. 5x 210€ = 1050€ when shucked vs. 4x 320€ = 1280€.
WD Reds only have 3 years at most anyways
@@Michaelisinachair Does this modification count as repair? Because it should, clearly this is a design defect...
Technically I don't think it's legal to void the warranty on the actual HD over that.
Technically I think if consumers as a whole would challenge the "warranty void" stickers almost all of them wouldn't hold up in court.
FYI the reason for this is that pin 3 is online reset on SAS drives, which otherwise use identical and compatible connectors. 3.3V power was phased out of SATA 5ish years ago, and was never used by SAS. Since these are actually HGST Ultrastar datacenter-class drives, it makes sense that the drives expect server backplane power connections rather than legacy SATA power.
The real explanation.
Long ago, I yad some SATA drives that wouldn't work without the 3.3v supplied. They almost worked, but would have problems. I was using a molex adapter cable, so no 3.3v. Plugged them into the proper power supply and they never acted up again.
1/8 inch kapton tape works beautifully here. Bought a roll on Amazon for $7 and its covers the first three pins, Did this last night on a 8TB Easystore I bought from Best Buy.
Chirs P : External Drives cost less ??? and thats why some do this to save some Bucks? thinking of trying since you also confirmed it works, does it work for all brands or certain one only?
Rom3 in 2.5“ you can only shuck Seagates, Maxtors and Lacies (they share the same internal drives, and with regards to Seagate which is the mother company even the same partnumber than the internals). Where WD and Toshibas aren’t shuckable in 2.5“. In 3.5“ inch WD MyBooks, Easystores and Elements are shuckable as are Seagate Backup 3.5“
@@itmkoeln :: Thank you for relaying the information, good to know this for only some brands.
@@ThisOLmaan This deals with the Western Digital external hard drives that are incassed. Seagate drives do not have this issue. I have been able to install Any 3.5 Seagate Sata drive into my 8 Bay Mediasonic hard drive enclosures.
Just a heads up: If you want them to honor a warranty on that drive, you’ll have to put it back inside the enclosure first. They won’t warrant the bare drive itself. I don’t recommend stabbing the enclosure. Open it carefully.
I have the 8 TB version of this drive. Now to install it on my Pentium 4, 1.2 ghz Windows XP PC!
Please do tell me on if you were able to get the BIOS to detect that huge of a drive. Let alone by XP
y'all talking about size limits but not the fact that a computer old enough to have a 1.2 GHz Pentium 4 probably doesn't even have SATA support
Jeff
Sadly, XP cannot handle that big a drive.
You will need to upgrade to Vista 😆
And, while you are at the store, bag yourself a bidirectional SATA-IDE adapter.
If they have any in stock, try getting an extra 28 bits for your BIOS.
I guess that's all you need to get that rig running.
Do try the extra bits for the BIOS last, after you've spent money upgrading everything else first...
I think you mean you have the 20GB maxtor version of this drive ready for windows XP.
@{// WTF! //} Max disk size in XP using NTFS is 256TB. Max volume size is 2TB.
Are you all smoking crack or something? Yes the BIOS detects the drive. Yes, P4 chipsets supported SATA. YES, WINDOWS XP WILL WORK WITH A FUCKING 8TB DRIVE. What is this, amateur hour?
WD also uses custom PCBs for some of their 2.5 external drives. These boards do not have a SATA port, but a USB plug. While the need to make the drive smaller partially justify this choice, it means you can't use the disk as an internal one.
They use it on all of their 2.5 external drives. It's terrible because when the controller fails you can't just connect it to a SATA port to recover it. Best to avoid WD 2.5" drives and stick to Toshiba or Seagate.
I have done this and I like to use the Molex to Sata adaptor(Have too many anyways) since this does not have a 3.3v power line anyways. this is the least destructive option I found since you do nothing except plug it in plug it in.
Cheaply made Molex to SATA adapters have been known to start fires. Some people feel more comfortable avoiding them all together.
Molex and SATA power specifications are different. Besides, many power supplies (rightly) don't have Molex anymore. And as Jacob mentioned, those adapters suck. All of them. The pins inside them have too much slack and they don't plug in snugly, which can easily cause arcing and sparking.
None of my computers even have 3.3v orange wires on the SATA power cables.
Thank you. I just schucked a drive last night after watching another video and the drive wasn't recognized on my PC. Now I know why.
Would have been great if other videos actually made mention of this.
That 3.3v pin is part of the new revision of sata, so expect internal drives to have the same pin functionality.
You mean revision 3.4?
You mean revision 3.4?
@@TheMrZirkon I believe it's 3.3
yeah if you kapton tape this Pin or use a Powersupply that has no 3.3V connected they run in older power specification
Wow! I honestly couldn't believe how you opened the package! In addition to cut randomly through the package you also headed straight in the direction of your arm! This should be shown in a first aid video on how not to do that!
It's actually a part of the SATA 3.3 specification
Bro, your commentary alone makes me always hit the like button 💀🤣
Those drives took a $40 price hike from 1 month ago on Amazon.
The 3.3V power off thing is because these are on the same enterprise platform as the HGST/WD Helium 7200RPM Enterprise drives. The 3.3V specification is specifically so technicians can shut the drive off completely remotely by sending 3.3V to that pin, without having to walk over to a machine to pull out a drive to fully power it off. 3.3V on consumer grade SATA drives is literally not used for anything, so if your PSU is out of warranty, or you have some extra SATA power cables for a modular one, snipping the 3.3V line and insulating the snipped wires is an option, although it's more logical to do this if you have multiple of these drives, like in a NAS build.
Many NASes (can speak from QNAP only though) don't have the 3.3V rail connected so you won't notice it any ways...
Yeah, but with NAS build, I meant people building a NAS with dedicated computer hardware.
@@Dan-TechAndMusic I have done both, I built with an Ryzen 3 2200G and a ASUS B350 in an Inter-Tech 4410 that has a Molex Powered Backplate so its 3.3V is not connected by default. That box has drives from many different drive manufacturing dates and drives I picked up at local retailers, amazon to spread the risk as I only RAID-Z1 this 15 drive box (5 Drives are added in an IcyBox MB455SPF.)
Worked like a charm, thank you very much! I was wondering what the issue was after I chucked my WD 8TB HD yesterday because my ios wouldn't detect it, but it was working fine if I plugged it into the eSata port on the top of my case, so I'm glad that thanks to you MY HD can go inside my PC!
Thank you for making this video, I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why my PC wasn’t recognizing my HDD. I did your tape trick and it worked like a charm! Thanks again
thank you! I got that exact 10TB drive last year, and now I can finally put it into one of my Level 10 GT hot-swap bays! I could kiss you!
Is it working properly? These drives are not thaat expensive and I liked the idea.
oMendigoPadeiro all is working right
😂 “The knife as a pointer”
Genius lol
the 3.3v pin is used to power down the drive completely in case of it not being used at all by the pc (host) so it saves power and also prolongs the life of the drive by not running non stop and overheating in that plastic case
Well most drives in Enclosures die from spin downs and Parking (remember when WD had the Greens who were constantly parking?).
But if that is the case why don't they set APM and AAM to mid tier performance as Seagate does with the Baracuda Computes (you can find in and easily shuck from Backup Plus 2.5" (the updated 2019 case model is more complicated than the 2018 model though) and M3s from Maxtor)
I did the same thing to convert a graphics card from PCIe x16 to x1. Just cover all of the pins after pin 7 with electrical tape and shove that sucker into the slot. The computer it went into was an old P4 Lenovo ThinkCentre horizontal desktop which had a riser card that included a full-length PCIe slot, but it was electrically x1 and would not boot with an x16 card installed. Covering the pins worked perfectly. I have also used a Dremel to grind a large notch into an x16 card and fit it into a physical x1 slot, works equally as well.
Fun fact: the WD USB board in these external drives WILL overwrite the service area of whatever drive you decide to plug into it. So if you take a 1TB drive and connect it to a board from a 500GB enclosure (and power it up), you now have a 500GB drive that doesn't work. Hopefully you backed up the service area and have the tools and knowledge to re-write the original information back to it.
Super timely, as I just bought two of these at the recent Amazon day! You just saved me time having to look this up again as i had forgotten about this. Thanks.
Note the vid states try the drive first AND IF the drive does not work/is not recognized then try this method.
Using some kapton tape would be a lot better but understandable why you use other tape since not everyone would have it... Regular scotch tape or even cheap package tape would work too.
I recommend just taking a small SATA power extension, and removing the 3.3v pin entirely. (or cutting the wire to the base of the connector and covering it with liquid electrical tape.)
Or you could just use a modern ATX 2.2 power supply which doesn't put the 3.3v pins on the SATA cable.
The problem is that the SATA standard changed the purpose for the underused power supply pins, and in a half-voltage state they are in forced standby. This is to allow incremental boot of the drives.
When you do so many shucking videos that you start stabbing the packaging just to keep it fresh
I love how casual this guy is
I have 6 of these shucked 10TB white labels in my server so far and haven't modified any of them. Plug 'n' play.
EDIT: model WDBCKA0100HBK-NESN
EDIT 2: From Best Buy a few months ago for $159 each
Easystores come with a WD100EMAZ those are definately affected so you had luck with your PSU for either being compliant with S-ATA 3.3 or not even powering the 3.3 lane..
Ahhh, the devslp pin. Not a WD idea, but from the SATA specification.
i just pull the 3.3 volt wire out of the power supply
Pulls out the cable straight out of the PSU cause this is peasant stuff. Yeah right
My Powersupply does not even have 3.3v on the sata connector. Only 5v/12v
I would just pull the connector of the plug I want to use for that drive. In case something else on the cable wants the 3.3v to be present.
Molex puller
Wow, I was so pissed off last night, I spent 4 hours with this drive trying everything, and all I needed was a small piece of tape?
WTF WD???????!!!!!!!
Anyways, thank you so much, recognized and working just fine now. I made a mess of my system for nothing Trying different
sata ports, different power cables, all for not, it never would have worked...just dumbfounded.
Thanks again!
ohh the good old tape, it can also be used to overclock older processors like the q6600
I didn't click on the video because I needed to know how to do this; I clicked because I wanted to know what in the world was a 3.3v pin and why you would disable it.
Fortunately the video is succinct.
I never knew this, thank you for the advice but I think I will modify a cable instead of using tape. Cheers
It’s as if they don’t want you to be able to reuse the drive. It’s as though they don’t care about the consumer apart from their money. Totally money grabbing and uninspired. Thank you mate! You’re doing good work out here :)
Never had to do that before it's all ways worked for me
John Kinder lucky
I really wish I would have found this video months ago. I thought the bios on my Dell 7010 just didn't see it, so I went all kinds of routes to get it to work, and none of them worked. So I kind of chucked it in my F-it bucket and bugger off to something else. Tried this and low and behold it is working just fine.
i thought this is one of those videos where they demolish them but i was wrong but good video
it's 2am and I have no black electrician's tape but I used a bit of ReadyPost Clear mailing tape and covered pins 1,2, and 3, and all is right with the world, now I am hooking up the 4TB drives that were in Bays #2 and #5 that were no longer showing up, one drive is already showing up with the controller card from the WD USB board, and I'm pulling the data off it, and praying I can do the same with the other 4TB one :) wish me luck and you just gained a new Subscriber and member of the Bell Squad!
Electricians vinyl tape isn't the best choice for this application. It is thick and made to withstand hundreds of volts, The adhesive is slippery (compared to Scotch tape) which can cause the tape to slip when plugging in the connector. Regular Scotch tape stays stuck where you put it and can easily withstand a great deal more than 3.3V.
Use kapton tape if you're looking for the best for this.
@@smileyguyz kapton tape are made for withstanding high temp and they're not very sticky, not suitable for this
@@pierreuntel1970 That's incorrect, kapton tape should be very sticky and is commonly used in the electronics industry as an insulator. It's also good for high temperature use, but that is certainly not it's only use.
....or just don't buy a WD external hard drive if you plan on removing it and using it as a normal desktop hard drive. Thanks for the video, I had no idea WD did this.
Thank you so much, I’ve been following you for a while and finally decided to shuck one of my drives, and it works too
Westen digital mechanical hard drives from cable boxes are awesome and almost SSD fast! I can't complain about a terabyte of storage for free and it's fast!...
500gb and I did the re write test to destroy all data I just want the drive and jut it! your data is done for! Nope!
in the apple 2 days we called it disk verify and thank you Steve Wozniak yup!
My PSU does not even have 3.3v connected to sata, that might be why i never had this Problem
Many Backplates don't have a 3.3V Pin connected. I have tried this on QNAPs and and InterTech Backplanes so far. While the Intertech uses Molex for the backplane I have hyd luck with both a TS-413+ and a TS-431Xeu from QNAP)
The intel backplane in the server I just built only has dual Molex Power and no 3.3v lane, so those Drives should work fine.
I didn't have this issue. I took the drive out of the WD "My Book(?)" case and put it in a different external case. (I had my reasons, leave me alone :-P) Anyway, I discovered the hard way that just swapping the drive into a different case, the computer couldn't read the data... At all... The system considered it blank (no formatting, no partition).. So I hooked the drive up to the WD board, and boom, everything was there.. Evidently WD finds it necessary to use some proprietary way to read/write data to its' drives. So after painstakingly moving everything to a temp drive, I reinstalled the WD drive to my new case, re-partitioned, reformatted and moved the data back. No problems after that. I'll never buy one of these drives again.
With the 3TB elements I have, the drive itself is 512/4k (logical/physical) but the Enclosure makes it look like 4k/4k. So you can't just pop out the drive and read your data if the enclosure fails.
Assuming you don't mind damaging a cable(most power supplies come with extras anyway) could you not just cut the wire leading to that pin?
Why tho
@@GewelRealmildly easier than getting the electrical tape on such a small pin for people(like myself) with big hands or no dexterity.
@@GewelReal not to mention, some of us even have the know-how to repair the cable should the need arise, though as far as I can tell most SATA devices do just fine without 3.3v
I wasted so much time trying to figure this out. Should have just combined the two videos, because i know someone will watch the first and totally miss the follow up. HAHAHA, all good though. Thank you for the follow up video
A much easier trick is to use a 4 pin molex to SATA power adapter. It won't have the 3.3 volt connector, only the 5v and 12v rails.
@@NickolasGupton Just don't get the molded/pressed ones and you're gtg.
@@NickolasGupton Why is that?
@@AudioCraZ ruclips.net/video/fAyy_WOSdVc/видео.html
To sum up, for products supporting the optional SATA 3.3 power disable (PWDIS) function, the third pin (P3) of the SATA connector is now assigned as the Power Disable Control pin. If P3 is driven HIGH (2.1V-3.6V), the power to the drive circuitry will be cut. All drives with this optional feature will not power up if a legacy SATA connector is used. This is because P3 driven HIGH will prevent the drive from powering up. The easy, and not so elegant, solution is to use a 4-pin Molex to SATA connector or a power supply equipped with SATA connectors that follow the SATA 3.3 specification. Source-Toms Hardware Western Digital Whitepaper
Pinouts for SATA 3.3
Pin 1: Reserved
Pin 2: Reserved
Pin 3: Power Disable
Pin 4: Ground
Pin 5: Ground
Pin 6: Ground
Pin 7: +5VDC
Pin 8: +5VDC
Pin 9: +5VDC
Pin 10: +12VDC
Pin 11: +12VDC
Pin 12: +12VDC
I’ve never had this issue that I can recall, then again I’ve always used seagate drives when possible.
I shelled a 4tb with no problems. Guess I'll switch to segate as well to avoid issues in the future
ZachFB Studios Definitely, I’ve always preferred seagate disc drives due to their durability, and for solid state I use Kingston or Samsung. Either one makes highly reliable SSD’s. Corsair for all other hardware. 👍🏻
Same when my Wii died i took my Seagate from the external enclosure and slapped it into my PC, sadly had to reformat, so i lost all my backed up games, no tape required
People misunderstand the purpose of ideas like this.
People make idea videos typically to make you think.
Do you have a white label drive you don't do anything with anymore? Why not use it in your computer, afterall, it's a regular drive with just a few extra pins we will bypass.
He may have bought one specifically to show you this, but he's not telling anyone to buy one specifically to do this.
I bought two Western digital elements 6tb drives last week. They contained WD Blue drives and required no mods to work in my Nas.
my 6tb was a blue too. unlucky
Many NAS like the QNAPs don't connect 3.3V anyways. Have 4 Whites in a TS-431Xeu and 4 Whites in a TS-431P. No mod required (though I switch the 12cm Fan on the 431P to a BeQuiet SilentWings 2)
Ordered 8TB version via provided links 14 August 2019, received White Label drive. Thanks very much
"Peel porn" Smh put it on techhub
😂😂😂😂😂😂
I've found strangely apeeling.
This video could save someone from having to send in the drive for data recovery. I have seen the circuit boards on enclosures like these fail.
Would it just be easier to user a molex to sata power adapter ?
Assuming you have a Molex connector on your PSU
@@liteoner I've yet to see one that does not have at least one legacy molex plug and one floppy drive plug. They are now used to power RBG lights
hank you for making a tutorial to the point without trying to make it 10 minutes long "for the algorithm" 😃
Thank you so much for this video !
I appreciate it , I have bought so many of these WD’s and I have yet to do a recovery on one of them this has helped me out a tonne load !
🧐🇬🇧🤔🤔🤔🤝🤝🤝👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻❤️❤️❤️🤓🤓🤓
I have a few drives, so it was easier to use the alternative method of cutting the corresponding cable on the power connector, which essentially does the same thing of disabling power to pins 1-3. Cover with electrical tape and job done, but I recommend only if you use (semi-)modular PSU in case you cut the wrong cable. (Also, try pulling out the cable first as it less destructive.)
Or use a power adapter that doesn't have the 3.3 volt cable, just the 5 volt and 12 volt.
Like molex
yes
How about you stop saying that and tell us why you think that is the case.
@PokeTheBear TTV What? I never lost data because of a Molex power connector. I have a 5-bay HDD case and it only have Molex connectors.
@PokeTheBear TTV hahaha
Hey man, I just want to say thanks because I bought these HDD and when arrive to my country were not working and is so difficult for me return it, with your video I solved it.
Wow the uboxing experience was very new
In my case I bought a WD Elements HDD and it worked directly
Is this only for Western Digital drives? Or are there other drives what need this fix?
TheManShel I have some Seagate’s that needed it
@@bigbigspoon you did it on external 3.5 seagates too?
Phuoc Tong yes
Ah thanks, don't have a drive that had this problem though. Its just not beyond me to buy an external and rip it apart as I did with my 6tb drive. It had no disable pin however the drive enclosure which I wanted to reuse was coded for use with only that drive. I ripped the chip responsible for this off of the usb adapter board and all went well, just lost the ability for it to power down when the PC is turned off. No big deal because I only use It for backups. Also, the format/commentary of this video is perfect.
After doing this my drive became a quantum drive and my PC is now in another dimension.
I'd like to say thank you very much!!! Glad I searched RUclips and found your video even though the thumbnail would throw anyone off lol. This works stay away from from the kid on the net saying use a molex to sata adapter this was far easier
10Terabytes?
Damn boe, we've come a long way.
$120 bucks for it too
18Tb is available now and 20+ is expected in a matter of months.
Thank you so much, I just buy a 14TB WD UltraStar DC HC530 and your video help me to install this on my Windows 10 PC.
nahhh!!! just cut off yhe 3.3volts output from the SATA Power cable or the Orange one and thats it!!!
or use a SATA Power Cable with two black wires which is the ground or -12volts!!! one yellow wire which is +12volts and red wire which is the +5volts!!!
thats why there are two types of SATA Power cables from the power supply!!!!
Just de-pin the connector and tape up the ends.
man found this on accident just trying to search on "how to open western digital enclosure" glad i clicked this one or else I would have assumed I killed the drive ha
Never ever use a box cutter or anything sharp for that matter and cut towards oneself lmao, always in the opposite direction, away from ones harm 🤣
This actually worked for me. Thanks RUclips and Reddit
"but if ure like me YOLO" CRACKED ME LMAOO
I actually had to replace my new FSP power supply because all the SATA connections were only 4 pin and all of them lacked the 3.3v orange cable. I had to replace because I actually needed the 3.3v for my Corsair AIO cooler's RGB.
0:27 Who cuts toward their hand like that?!?!
Somebody who likes the sight of their own blood, or feel they need fewer fingers.
Someone who knows that more comments leads to more views.
Leon Kernan someone who has not cut or stabbed themselves yet.
_Someone who wants O.J. to say, "Ya call that a Stabbin'?!!"_
Perfect thanks. Was able to get the damn electrical tape on despite my fat fingers thanks to this. Was trying to avoid touching 1st and 2nd pins before watching this
But why? I thought "internal" HDD should be cheaper than external HDD?
It is likely easier for them to repurpose drives as externals with firmware changes than to develop an external specific bit of hardware. More cost effective, since their HGST drives cost less to make than they are selling them for as externals so they still profit. The R&D it would take to develop a whole new model specifically for external usage isn't worth the cost, I would imagine.
@@hhthoj
Didn't change much. The price can be quite significantly different.
I use enamel paint or super glue to cover the connector. It works well if you have to connect and disconnect the drive often.
I would not trust a drive sold into a "external case" for a long or reliable storage :-(
Nobody:
Really Nobody:
Tech RUclipsr: just smashed almost the big knife into his 10TB hdd lmao :D made my day haha
I think WD is the company that started putting encryption chips on their external drives. It's not something that's controlled by the user either - it's an automatic encryption - meaning if your external case's power blows out or breaks you're stuck with a drive you can't easily recover anything from.. the recovery place I went to told me they would need the old "blown out" board and would have to buy a new identical board, move the chip over and then try to decrypt the drive - SUPER expensive (we're talking well over $1000 easy). It's not something that you will hear or know about until you need something recovered, they kept it on the hush-hush. They started doing this with the MyBook series drives a few years ago.
Which case would that be? Hardware encryption is a feature of the Mybook non Elements I guess. I remember those can be shucked too, but you need a Torx screwdriver. But the encryption Chip is on the USB board...
How do you make windows 10 black
The newest Windows 10 update 1903 has a 'dark theme' included in the update.
The third pin issue would be why some external drive docking modules don't work with WD HDD's.
Yes but... Why would you do something like that?
Why not just buy a regular harddrive, is it cheaper or what?
External drive are routinely cheaper than internal ones
Tyson Howard Yeah i just looked and i could save around 60 bucks with this method, Damn...
@@jackal24
Why is it cheaper? I noticed that it's true, but I thought it's just some price variations with various vendors.
@@vozhonn401 Hard drive manufacturers routine ripoff for system builders...
@@vozhonn401 I've heard it's because externals are ones that didn't pass QC as internals. I guess you could say they're poorly binned, essentially.
Likely five or six years ago, I bought an external Wd 4 Gb hard drive from an Amazon seller. It was a scam and the drive did not work out of the box. Sent it to WD and they sent me a refurbished drive as a replaced. Only reason they did was because the sale was through eBay.
The refurbished external drive within six to twelve months, but had no warranty. With nothing left to lose, I broke the enclosure apart and put the drive in my computer. Still works today.
Looks like they changed things with these even larger drives.
"peel porn" LOL!!!
The western digital MyBook 6TB With white label drive Doesnt need the voltage pin disabled it seems to be only on the WD elements Drive cages they went with the weird voltage pin. How bizzare the model of cage i had was.
Western Digital Mybook 6TB 6GBps Usb 3.0/3.1
S/N: WX51D890LU61
P/N: WDBBGB0060HBK-NA
E4C MAAHLA 3320Q Product of Thailand
this is the model of the WDMybook you find at walmart stores for 129.00 to 140.00 u.s its the model with the usb port and the power supply plug out the front of the case not the back its a white label drive no 3.3 volt pin disable no issues in windows 10 64 bit now i have 10 terabytes of storage thanks to this trick
And How don’t stick said sharp object into your hand 🖐
Thank you so much! going to another "better" channel to see how to properly Chuck the Hard Drive from the enclosure.