My Book WD 1 TB HD stopped working after a power outage

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

Hi

My equipment:

Computer and two external hard drives.

iBook G4 Apple

Acomdata 150 MB external HD

WD My Book 1 TB External HD

Firewire connections

My computer is an iBook G4. My startup disk is located in an Acomdata 150 MB external HD. My work is done on the Acomdata HD and I backup from there using Carbon Copy Cloner to the WD My Book 1 TB HD. The WD is divided into four 250 MB partitions, one of which has the CCC backup, the other three being storage. So the cables are iBook G4 to Acomdata Ext. HD. Acomdata Ext. HD to My Book.

What happened:

I was working on my computer when a transformer blew up with a bang and power went out in my entire large neighborhood. The external drive was on, and its volumes were mounted with icons showing on the desktop. I do incremental backups to the WD using Carbon Copy Cloner and I might have been in the middle of a back up when the power went out. The power came on in about two hours by which time I was asleep. I was away from my desk for about 24 hours and when I returned I noticed that the WD drive wasn’t showing its vertical enclosure light, and it four icons weren’t appearing on the desktop. There was activity in the drive: a slight whirring when I put my ear to the case, and the case was warm. I unplugged it, let it cool (it hadn’t overheated, just normally warm) and re-plugged it. Same thing: no case light and no desktop icons. I also unplugged and re-plugged the firewire that goes from the other hard drive to the WD. I went through some FAQs but didn’t find anything to help. This happened a few days ago and since then the My Book’s been un-plugged. The computer and the Acomdata HD were unaffected.

Western Digital recommendations:

I emailed WD with this problem and they say it’s a bad circuit board. They told me to get an RMA and to ship it in for repair or replacement. I’'ve joined this forum because WD suggested it and because I’d like to see if anyone else has had this problem. Also, I’m concerned about shipping the drive to WD because it’s loaded with data that I’d rather not lose, even though I’ve got another backup of the important stuff. What I’d like to know is:

  1. Can a circuit board be replaced without affecting the data?

  2. Does WD respect the fact that there’s data on the drive that’s important to me?

  3. Do they have good security on these jobs—I have patent information on the drive that I want respected?

  4. Anybody in the group been through this RMA/Data/Repair situation with WD?

Details about my My Book

My Book Home Edition External Drives WD My Book (Mac + Studio)

Category Apple / Mac 

Operating System Mac OS 10.4.x (Tiger)

Model Number WD1000h1cs-00

WD External Drives: Bulk Drive1 Retail Kit

My Book Home, My Book Office WDH1CS N/A 3-year

Any help you can give will be appreciated.

Montserrat

2

My advice to you is to get in contact with one of   Western Digital’s Data Recovery Partners so they can recover the data from the drive and still preserve the warranty on it so you can create the RMA with WD.