External hard drive converted to internal, data and partitions on it are not detected.

alidemedi · Feb 1, 2016

Hi. I had an external drive, My Book Essential WD. that I decided to convert to internal. So I successfully installed it in my PC, and I can see it in disk management, but it says it is unallocated. It had data of course.

The disk was GUID Partitioned, and had two partitions: One NTFS for Windows, other one for MAC OSX (I forgot the file system, HFS I suppose). I do not care about the data in MAC part (no useful data really) any suggestions for recovering the NTFS data?

Someone Somewhere · Feb 1, 2016

You need to put it back in the case, then get the data back off there. Many brand-name drives encrypt the data as it passes through the controller.

Once you've got all the data off, you can use the drive internally pretty easily; just re-format it.

alidemedi · Feb 2, 2016

Thanks for the quick answer.

The reason I decided to do so was because the controller board inside the case does not work anymore: the disk doesn't even power up when I connect that way. What if I buy the another product of same model and use its controller? Would that work?

Someone Somewhere · Feb 2, 2016

Possibly. I'm not too sure.

Are you certain that it's the controller board, and not the power supply or anything else?

alidemedi · Feb 2, 2016

I had purchased a spare power adapter, also I have another usb to micro-b cable for another drive. I tried swapping both and no change.

D_Know_WD · Feb 4, 2016

Hi there alidemedi,

Someone Somewhere is absolutely right. The device is hardware encrypted. You will not be able to access the data unless the drive is in the original enclosure.
At that point, it seems that your safest bet for recovering the data is to contact a data recovery company. You can check WD's Data Recovery Partners out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=6ZiAxK

Well, some users attempt this CPB swap. You need to buy absolutely identical drive.(not just the same model) Unfortunately, I can't really help you with that.
There are some extensive tutorials on the internet about that. It may be a good idea to do some research.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

Mad Doctor K · Mar 4, 2016

I've done it. I took the drive out of a 4TB MyBook Essentials and put it in my linux box. To use it without reformatting, I set up an encryption filter with cryptsetup.

If you'd like my help with recovering your data, contact me at thomas.a.kaeding@gmail.com.

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