wufle

Monday 18th February 2008 | 03:02 PM

Another option would be buying an external hard drive caddy and using any size hard drive you like. I bought a caddy six months ago for around $50 which has USB, Firewire and best of all, an e-Sata port. I'm not sure of the exact figures but in my experience, transferring through the e-sata port is about 3 times as fast as through USB.

Jim- Just a Guy

Saturday 23rd February 2008 | 07:47 PM

I had a WD 500G external. I say had because the one i had used air compression to keep the arm in place. it got knocked over and lost its seal dropping the arm onto the surface. I of course did not realize this until after I tried to access a file on the drive and heard it scratching the surface up. I lost about 240G of music , movies and TV shows as well as a novel I was working on. Needless to say I am in the market for a new drive. Have they changed form the air compression arm support?

Dean

Saturday 5th April 2008 | 08:00 PM

I recently picked one of these drives up (and mine does have an on/off switch). They're nice, although a shade noisy (could be the fans though).

I suspect they're formatted as FAT32 by default because NTFS support for Mac and Linux users is still in its infancy.

Abdillah

Monday 28th July 2008 | 10:52 AM

Grrr..WD is bad external drive usb 2.0 on linux, fast transfer only 3Mb/s with ext3 format. can't help your data for backup. choise internal hdd for that! not USB 2.0

storm

Friday 1st August 2008 | 02:11 PM

Well, I've been using this drive for many months now, and not a problem at all. Dead quiet. Been bunged all about the place (in my bag from work to home and back LOADS of times) and hasn't complained. $119 AUD here in Perth. I also have a Lacie 500GB Poulsen designed HDD which is much sexier looking, and (so far) just as reliable... and it has an off/on switch :) Little bit more expensive though (but only by $15 or so).

I wouldn't buy an external case and then my own hard drive, as you'd probably have to buy a cheap drive, which most pr0bably won't be as reliable as something from WD or Lacie etc. No point saving money just to lose all your data.

sollos

Thursday 4th September 2008 | 11:55 PM

I have just picked one of this type up, and having problem. It's take years for me to manually copy data to the drive with Total Commander, which I like the best. The speed increases about 2 times when using Windows Explorer or back up software. But it becomes annoying when I tried to access data directly from the drive, for example, when I try to play a movie in it, the lag is can be easily notice. I'm wondering about the quality of what I've bought. Hmm!!!

Hellboy

Friday 5th September 2008 | 06:55 AM

...in response to this comment by sollos. Sounds like you're on USB 1

Austinite

Thursday 9th October 2008 | 11:48 PM

This drive sucks, we've had it about a year, we thought the power supply went bad but it appears now (after going through the hassle of finding the right power adapter for this non-standard connection) that it is the drive that is bad. Western Digital customer service is non-existent, you can wait on the phone, talk to someone who is not helpful or sends you to where you bought it, where they scratch their heads. If you get one of these, make sure you back it up on something else.

rathergolf

Sunday 26th October 2008 | 09:02 AM

...in response to this comment by Austinite. ditto here. worked fine for about nine months, and just went totally dead on me. caveat emptor.

Jodee

Monday 3rd November 2008 | 03:00 AM

...in response to this comment by Austinite. I have just read your post about your problems with the WD elements hard drive - I am having the same problem although am convinced that it is just the power supply which is not working - where did you manage to find a replacement / compatible power supply? The store have said that they will replace the hard drive with another model but I need to get my data off of it first and therefore am desperate for a power supply! Please help :-) My email address is

Many thanks,
Jodee

Clark

Wednesday 12th November 2008 | 03:21 AM

Same as above, 10 months in and dead.
The PS LED does not light and I get no readings on the pins with a meter. Hopefully it is just the PS but I cant find one anywhere either.

Anybody?

rxbyte

Thursday 13th November 2008 | 11:30 PM

thought i'd chime in, my WD elements 500gb died on me yesterday, im certain it is the power supply brick, just wasn't working when i came into work in the morning. very unimpressed at apparent unavailability of any spares or drop in replacement psu. looks like i will have to void the warantee and extract the hdd from the caddy, cba to rma it. its about 6 months old and has been on 24x7.

Clark

Thursday 13th November 2008 | 11:37 PM

This may be a stupid question but here goes:
Since most of us believe it the power brick, can you take the hard drive out of the enclosure and hook it straight into your Computer like an internal hard drive? Would it just plug straight up or would it need "modifications"?

CLARK

Friday 14th November 2008 | 11:53 PM

It worked. I removed it and installed it in the CPU case and rebooted. Recognized it just like a new hard drive. Copied everything off it onto my existing drive. Debating whether to remove it or leave it in.

Karmye

Tuesday 18th November 2008 | 01:31 PM

...in response to this comment by CLARK. Mine just stopped too after 6 months. I'm in shock as I use it as my backup drive for 3 internal drives.
If I remove from external case as Clark states, does it simply connect to MB with IDE cable? Does the power supply used on internal drives simply plug in too? Thanks for any help.

Jim

Tuesday 18th November 2008 | 08:25 PM

I guess I was unlucky. My WD500 stopped working after only 3 weeks. Copies all photos etc off computer hard drive and now gone forever unless someone can help. Blue light is on, recognised in disk management as a drive, but with no drive letter to it - and cant allocate a new one. So no way of accessing files. Datarecovery companies quoting 450 -1000 $ to help. WD not nterested in helping. What do i do?? Thanks

Mikey

Tuesday 18th November 2008 | 08:40 PM

...in response to this comment by Jim. Hi Jim,

Try this: Right click My Computer, select 'Manage'. In the left pane hit Disk Management. The drive might be visible there. You may have to see what options are available. Like importing a foreign disk or something else. Be careful though. This might ruin the data for good.

If it was me, I would try everything I could there to get Windows to recognise the disc while in Disk Management, to at least assign it a drive letter. Once it has a drive letter you should be able to run disc recovery software over it to recover missing files if they are still corrupt. I've used the freeware app Recuva ( http://www.recuva.com ) in the past on a dead drive with success. I managed to restore 320gb of lost files once with it. Took a couple of days but was worth it.

Good luck with it. I wont be held responsible if things turn out worse ;-)

I must be one of the lucky ones. Never had an issue with mine. Hope I haven't just jinxed it!

Rodney

Tuesday 18th November 2008 | 09:00 PM

...in response to this comment by Mikey. Mike makes a very good point, here. Windows 2000 and XP have a bad habit of assigning USB attached storage to drive letters that are already in use, for network shares. So when you insert the disk it will be "attached" but not visible in "My Computer". Under the Computer Management snap-in (as Mike describes above), you may see the disk available. Righ click on it and change the drive letter. You will usually get this problem and not be able to fix it if you don't have full admin rights on the machine.

CLARK

Tuesday 18th November 2008 | 11:34 PM

...in response to this comment by Karmye. Yep, it just plugged right up. It's just an internal drive that they package in an external case with a bit of electronics. Standard plugs (I/O and power). Took me 5 min to do. Can't believe I was that lucky.

karmye

Thursday 20th November 2008 | 02:27 PM

...in response to this comment by CLARK. Great. I opened case to find an internal HDD. My only issue is I have an old Dell Tower and the HDD connection is the old ribbon style and the power is the old type too. I'm thinking of getting new external and having the contents moved over. If converter cables are not available I just might have a computer store assist with transfer. Thanks for the response.

Rodney

Thursday 20th November 2008 | 03:39 PM

...in response to this comment by karmye. All external hard drives are just internal hard drives in a case - they don't make special and different hard drives just for the external market; they're just the exact same drives with an inflated price tag. They will certainly be able to be loaded into your PC, assuming your PC has the same connector types. Most PCs these days will have both SATA and IDE but if you only have IDE you can either buy a new external SATA case and put it in that or but a SATA card (and a power cable converter for the SATA plug).

If the old external case power supply has died, you can pick up a new external SATA or IDE HDD case for about $15. Then just put your disk in that and if the disk is ok, you'll be fine.

Pablo

Wednesday 17th December 2008 | 05:14 AM

Hi there

I just modded my external WD elements with an 1 TB HD (130 Swiss Francs) from WD. The 500 GB HD which was in the Harddisk Enclosure, I have moved to my my Windows Homeserver (running already three 500 GB HDs). The first issue was that my Windows Vista Ultimate did not recognize the new attached 1TB Harddisk, meaning I did not see it in the "Computer" Folder. So I had to follow Mikeys advice to use the Disk Manager Tool of herby Windows Vista. I could find it there right away and gave it a drive letter. Afterwards it was required a name and to format the drive with NTFS. I think I can use it now like every external USB Drive, and plug it straight to my Windows Media Center which is hungry for more storage:-)

Thanks to Mikey!

Pablo
Switzerland

Mikey

Sunday 4th January 2009 | 08:22 AM

The unit died today. Luckily though it was only the enclosure or the power supply, as I was able to remove the drive and slave it in my Windows machine. Data saved! All I need now is a new enclosure which can be picked up for around $25. For anyone who wants to know, it's a SATA drive

Pixel8tion

Friday 16th January 2009 | 11:49 PM

Mikey you are my hero as I've been looking on the web for about a half hour now to find the internal interface as surprise, mine died as well. No one ever says if it's SATA or IDE, just that it can be replaced. Even WD's tech support wouldn't answer the question as I didn't have the drive's SN handy. Off to order that new enclosure. Thanks SO much!!

RAY

Saturday 17th January 2009 | 06:38 AM

Mine just went out! Where can I get a replacement ac adapter? Has anyone tried splicing it, bypassing the PS box?

Thanks

Mikey

Saturday 17th January 2009 | 07:49 AM

...in response to this comment by Pixel8tion. You're welcome, Pixel8tion.

Mikey

Saturday 17th January 2009 | 07:50 AM

...in response to this comment by RAY. Hi Ray. Considering how cheap a replacement external hard drive case is I didn't even bother to get mine repaired. I suspect a repair job would have cost more anyway.

RAY

Saturday 17th January 2009 | 08:31 AM

Thanks Mikey. I am going to end up getting a toaster type pop in case so I can switch multiple drives. I was just looking for a short term fix. Also I wanted the see who was able to find one of those ridiculous non standard ac adapters. The newer 750 GB has a standard adapter. Additionally has anyone safely made a splice of the line?


Thanks.

Sean

Monday 19th January 2009 | 08:47 AM

My Power Supply has been acting wierd and has finally bit the dust... I think a recall is in order. Thanks for all the input folks.

Michael

Wednesday 21st January 2009 | 10:42 PM

Mine just died too, or at least I just noticed it dead. Just the psu. Broke the power brick apart but nothing obviously blown.

I de-soldered the output cord and hooked it up to a 2 output adjustable PSU I made 15 years ago at uni with the outputs set to the right voltage. It's working ok so far - to get data off at least, but definitely not a long-term solution.

Given how cheap the drive was, i'm not sure it's worth getting a decent enclosure for it (a cheap one isn't much use if it fails too). I might hook it up to an old desktop psu i'm not using, or perhaps just use it in a desktop and buy another external drive.

Bit of a hassle.

T

Monday 26th January 2009 | 01:29 AM

Same story here...worked fine for about a year, now no green light, no nothing. WD was no help as they don't make this drive any more and don't have the power cord to order, and I can't find it anywhere else, but from these comments it sounds like that may not be the trouble anyway. Can/should the power brick be replaced? I just want the info off of the drive. Could someone post layman's step by steps on the easiest way to do this?

Thanks

Mikey

Monday 26th January 2009 | 07:37 AM

...in response to this comment by T. Hi T,

You can buy a new external hard drive case. They are very inexpensive. If you do, make sure you ask for a 3.5" SATA external case. There's no special trick to putting it together. Just take the Western Digital apart with a screwdriver and remove the drive, and place it in your new external case.

Alternatively, you can put the drive inside your existing desktop PC. Again just open the Western Digital enclosure with a screwdriver and remove the drive, and then place it inside your desktop PC and secure it with some screws. You better check first that you have at least one available SATA port on your motherboard, a SATA cable, and a SATA power cable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Dan

Thursday 29th January 2009 | 06:11 AM

So mine also went out today. When i unplug the cable from the power brick and back in. maybe like 2 seconds later the blue and green light flash at the same time once. This hard drive has my life on it. I'm a designer and it has everything on it. everything. So what I'm wondering is, If i get a SATA external case,will I be able to just take the hard drive out and put it in that and be ready to go? Is it that easy? Because I use a laptop that I can't install the hard drive in.So that seems like it would be my only option.

i'm kinda freaking out.

Mikey

Thursday 29th January 2009 | 07:01 AM

...in response to this comment by Dan. Hi Dan,

Assuming the drive itself isn't dead, yes you can slap it into a new external case. Get an external USB2 hard drive case that houses a 3.5 inch SATA drive. It's very easy. Just a few minutes with a screwdriver - no special knowledge required.

PS: Backups, backups and backups. Consider getting another drive for your backups. I'm a designer too and I have all my files backed up onto 2 different physical drives. It's the only way to avoid freaking out :-)

T

Thursday 29th January 2009 | 02:34 PM

The external case worked like a charm! $30 for the new case and in less than an hour the drive was spinning happily in it's new home. It took longer to choose the case than to get it up and running. Such a quick and easy fix...thanks so much for your help!!

Mikey

Thursday 29th January 2009 | 05:58 PM

...in response to this comment by T. Anytime.

Bryan

Saturday 31st January 2009 | 10:10 PM

Chalk up another epic win for the internet! This thread is gold for the hapless WD Elements 500GB owner (that would be me). Too many irreplaceable baby photos on mine. To hell with RMA, hand me the screwdriver darling! Thanks all.

fred

Thursday 12th February 2009 | 11:00 AM

i was converting a mkv file to a mp4 on the external (i have a 750gb wd elements external) and about 5 minutes into the conversion the drive started clicking funny. After i shut down the computer and restarted it, i cant see the external in my computer anymore. It only shows up as "WD" in device manager and thats the only place i can see it. I have this thing filled with about 600gb of movies/music/important documents and i dont want to try to send it to WD for a new one because of all the bootleg content on it (ive only had it for 1 month should still be under warranty). Any suggestions please???

Rodney

Thursday 12th February 2009 | 01:27 PM

...in response to this comment by fred. If your hard drive is "clicking" this is a very bad sign. It usually means (remembering I can't hear the click so I am assuming here) that your drive head is seizing. This basically spells the end for the disk, on a physical level. Formatting, etc will not help - this is a physical fault with the drive. If the drive spins up, clicks, stops, spins up, clicks, etc or makes a little double clicking noise, then this is what is happening.

If you're extremely lucky, you can "knock" the drive head free for a small time, by tapping the disk, quite firmly. Not really hard but not a gentle tap either. Most definitely while the drive is off btw. Don't start knocking it about while it's on. This might get you a short while longer out of the drive before the head seizes again. I've honestly got data of dozens of disks that had failed in this way - you can usually get another few hours out of them at least.

Therefore, try this.
1. Turn the drive off.
2. Tap it a few times, quite hard (not crazy hard but not really soft, either).
3. Turn it back on and try it again.
4. If you can now read it - get your data off ASAP.
5. Buy a new drive and copy your data to it.
6. Throw the old one in the bin (unless it's under warranty).

fred

Thursday 12th February 2009 | 02:01 PM

...in response to this comment by Rodney. it wasnt really clicking. it clicked a couple times then when i restarted it was fine and it sounded like it tried to spin.

Rodney

Thursday 12th February 2009 | 09:25 PM

...in response to this comment by fred. This sounds like what I am describing. The click is the drive head and the aborted attempt to spin indicates the drive head has seized, so the platters abort their attempt to spin up. Seriously - take the drive out of it's case and give it a good few taps with something like the plastic handle of a screwdriver. Then try it again.

Fabien

Friday 13th February 2009 | 06:23 AM

Same prob - adaptor died. I found a replacement on ebay for a reasonable price. Wha toyu need to search for is the AcBel AD6008 adaptor

fred

Sunday 15th February 2009 | 04:46 AM

...in response to this comment by Fabien. i just found a pic of the back of your 500gb model. i see yours has a different setup. there is no on/off switch on the 750gb model i have and a different adaptor. when i just plugged it in, it does power up it sounded like it tried to spin 3 times and gave up and stopped. i havent opened it up yet. im trying to avoid that.

Manta

Thursday 19th February 2009 | 05:28 PM

Hi...
Just thought i would add this.
My 500 died the other day still in warranty ... after taking it back to WOW I was told that the power supplies for this model are faulty and have been completely redesigned in the new model.I am returning mine and having it replaced with the new model.If you bought your model between around march and august 2008 there is a good chance your power supply will fail.If it is under warranty DO NOT just get the power brick replaced as it will probably fail agian outside of the warranty.Return the whole unit and ask for the new model with the upgraded power supply.
Regards to all.

Vapiai Caply

Tuesday 24th February 2009 | 10:25 AM

This is soooo crazy that the same thing is happening to all of us and yet WD will not do anything about it. When I called they just told me that they are not able to do anything cause they dont sale it anymore...is there any other problems with other WD Hard drives?

Ian Bonnycastle

Thursday 5th March 2009 | 11:05 AM

Hey everyone,

I have a WD elements 500gb that's been working flawlessly for months, perhaps years (I can't even remember when I bought it.) Now, all of a sudden, when plugged in (the power brick gives a constant green light), the blue light flashes once, it spins up, the blue light flashes three times, then the hard disk just shuts itself off. Windows never acknowledges that the drive is there.. it never has time to.

The drive has not been moved in months.. so its not shock/physical damage (I've been EXTREMELY careful with this one after I've lose 2-3 other external drives to shock trauma) and I'm pretty sure its not been electrically shocked. The power supply is on a surge-protected power supply. I don't hear any weird noises from the drive.. just power up, spin for a bit, hard drive accesses once or twice, then shuts off.

Would this be a power supply issue as mentioned above?

Thanks,

Ian

Rodney

Thursday 5th March 2009 | 12:53 PM

...in response to this comment by Ian Bonnycastle. Hi Ian,

Best way to test the issue is pull the drive out of the external case and install it inside your computer. If it doesn't work - it's the HDD not the power supply. If it does, just buy a new external case (for about $15) and install it in that.

Jack

Sunday 15th March 2009 | 04:35 AM

I would just like to say that the advice given in here was awesome! I have run into the same problems many expressed (power brick died) and stumbled across this site. It was very informative reading. Thanks again!

CMoz

Monday 16th March 2009 | 08:49 PM

Wow, so glad I had I found this site.

Got a first 500gb HDD as a gift (purchased off Ebay) and the power supply died. Couldn't find the ebay seller, and WD were absolutely useless, so bought another identical HDD so that I could use the power supply from it, and maintain the data from my old drive(The new external case idea didn't occur to me.)

So inevitably, when I went to use it tonight, I find a second power supply has died. Fortunately, I had bought the second HDD from a reputable dealer, so will take that back under warranty, and ask for the new model, and purchase an external case for the original drive. Problem solved, no thanks to WD.


Thank God I found this page :) :)

Den

Wednesday 18th March 2009 | 10:06 AM

NOTICE - Hitting your hard drive is EXCESSIVELY abusive! If you feel you must do it, don't let me stop you, BUT, if I were you, I'd try the sensible thing first: Put the drive in your freezer for a few hours and immediately upon retrieving it from the freezer try using it. You may find that it works fine until it warms back up. This is a common trick used by data recovery folks all the time.

Rodney

Wednesday 18th March 2009 | 11:03 AM

...in response to this comment by Den. Actually tapping your hard drive is not at all abusive.

Putting in a (quite probably wet) freezer and then plugging the ice cold hard drive, which is now going to form condensation and moisture inside your computer, is not only abusive to the equipment but downright dangerous to your health.

I believe you are referring to the freezing of CD-ROMS, which is a common recovery practice. Freezing hard drives is dangerous to both your computers electronics and your hard drives mechanics, which are generally not rated to work below about 10oC and specifically indicate this on their attached materials. For example, the Barracuda 7200.7 SATA, ST3200822AS is not rated to function at below 5oC (http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/seagate200gb/index.php?file=1).

Please don't believe everything you read on the internet.

gare

Saturday 28th March 2009 | 11:21 PM

Western Digital will replace the power cord / adapter for free if you call them at 1 .

More information at : http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1048

Good luck.

http://www.accessdataservices.com

Jon

Saturday 4th April 2009 | 06:23 AM

There seems to be a common thread here. I bought mine about 9 months ago and magically it died. Like others here, I have looked in vain for a PSU (the apparent culprit) but I think that instead I am going to install it as an internal drive. I wonder why these things seem to have such a short life span????

Jon

Sunday 5th April 2009 | 06:30 AM

Well 15 minutes with a screwdriver and now it's running fine in my Vista 64 PC. It even remembered the drive letter so I don't need to remap anything. The only problem you might have is that the power cable in the enclosure is rather short (about 3") so you might need a new one if you've got much space between your drive bays and the power. Fortunately I didn't, and it was plug 'n play. I'm so glad I found this thread!!!

OneHit

Thursday 9th April 2009 | 04:23 PM

...in response to this comment by RAY. Uh, Ray; if by "splice" you mean connecting the big wires from the wall to the little wires going to the drive, I would recommend this only if you find the aroma of frying hardware pleasant. The brick in the middle is there for more than looks: it converts the 120V 20A wall power into whatever current the drive requires (prob. 12v 1.0A) which is significantly less than the wall power.

isabel

Saturday 11th April 2009 | 08:26 AM

so does anyone actually reconmend having on of these hardrives?!
i got one and put all my stuff on it, though am very afraid that it might die on me

ahH!

MaliceX

Saturday 11th April 2009 | 06:07 PM

Funny that, my WD Elements 500GB just died on me when trying to copy photos from my phone to it. Now it won't power on, so I suspect it's the power supply. (Upon disconnection, one of the pins was shifted.)

I'm considering the option to getting a new SATA enclosure to replace this piece of junk. Kinda glad these things are indispensible. :)

TerryA

Tuesday 14th April 2009 | 11:10 PM

Another Power BRICK here. worked fine yesterday, today, no green light on the PSU.
It had to happen NOW when my machine is going spaz and needs a wipe&rebuild so I need to backup everything before I blow Windowz away and reinstall. Now I have to put up with a wobbly PC until this gets sorted out.

For cryin' out loud! I bought a WD because WD products are RELIABLE......... or they WERE.
I could have got a Maxtor pos for $10 less but went WD so I wouldn't have any problems with it.

Anyway, I have checked the WD warranty thingo and it says I am still well within warranty (as it should, its only 8 months old) so I will be calling the Australian support line in the morning and see what happens.

Admittedly, even the best of em' can have a bad model or a faulty unit, It's how you handle the failure that really sets the standard...... If this had been a maxtor or a samsung I would have expected this sort of thing, but I expected better from WD than the hundreds of horror stories I am seeing regarding these PSUs.

If I remember, I will come back and let you know how I go with them.

T

TerryA

Wednesday 15th April 2009 | 12:19 PM

OK, I called them this morning. Our "Local Australian Support Service" diverts through to Singapore.... Not a good start.

I navigate through the 'chinglish' spoken menus and eventually get to talk to someone who sounds like they once had an english lesson from someone who once had an english lesson, from someone who once read a book about a person who once had an english lesson......

I explained the situation, 3 times, eventually he (i think it was a he) seemed to understand that I was saying the power supply was dead.
Without even asking what model I had, or asking anything about date of purchase etc, he tells me they are out of stock of the power supply and more will be arriving in about 2-3 weeks and I should call back then. At least I think that's what he said.... either that or he was insulting my mothers eating habbits.

I asked what I was supposed to do for 3 weeks while I wait for them to get more power supplies, and he asked if I needed to use it in that time. I refrained from the obvious reply that I didn't REALLY need to use it as I had only really bought it as a paperweight and I had some other bricks handy I could use in the mean time, so I said "Yes, I do need to use it."

He then suggested he could send me an email authorising me to open the case, remove the hard drive and install it in my computer, and use it that way, then once I had the data I needed copied off, i could then put it back together and return it to the retailer and the retailer would then replace the whole package for a new one at no cost.

I pointed out that the DRIVE didn't need to be replaced as there was nothing wrong with it, and if it was the drive that was faulty then pulling it out of the external case and putting it my computer would do me no good. I suggested I could transfer the drive to my case while I waited for the replacement power supply to arrive, then put it back into the 'elements' case when i got the new power supply.

Ohhh, Nooooooo, you can't do that! It's an Either/Or option, EITHER they will send me a new power supply OR i can pull the drive, copy the data, put the drive back then get it swapped at the retailer.

I pointed out that this would mean I have to buy a new drive to copy all the data too, just so they can replace a perfectly good drive for no reason.

He didn't have an answer to that other than he can't do both. I'm just glad he was sitting down during the call because I was worried that Talking AND Standing at the same time may have been too much for him to handle as well.

I also asked if he was sure that the retailer would - A) have another drive to give me, and - B) would simply swap it free of charge over the counter.
The Support guy claimed that he was 'SURE' the retailer would have one available (without knowing who the retailer was) and that there would be no problem swapping it. He obviously hasn't dealt with some of the retailers here in Australia, most of the cheaper places look for any excuse NOT to honour warranties, "oh your receipt is crumpled up, sorry that voids the warranty", "oh you bought this on a thursday, anything you buy on a thursday doesn't have a warranty" etc.

If it weren't for the fact that the drive is over half full and I have no way to store the stuff while they swap it I would have gone for the swap as it would probably get me a newer model one that doesn't use these dodgy power supplies, but I just can't justify buying another drive just so they can honour their warrantee.

Then I had a brain storm, and asked if I was going to have to pay to ship the faulty power supply back to them if I decided to wait for the replacement, and he said no, i can just throw away the dead one, and I didn't need to return it (or that he was hungry, not sure, but i think thats what he was saying). So...... the light went on in my head and I said that I would wait for the replacement.

He then told me to call back in 3 weeks to see if they have the new ones in yet. I wasn't letting him get away that easy and asked if he would log the call in the system so that a replacement Power supply could be sent out as soon as they arrived, and he begrudgingly agreed (imagine not letting him pass the buck, I'm such a slave driver).

But he got me back..... He said I would need to send an email to "#$^%$*&^(" address with my name, phone number, address, serial number, underwear size and grandmothers maiden name requesting the replacement. I send the email, and included not only my preference for briefs over boxers, but also a copy of the receipt for the drive just as a precaution, don't want them finding an excuse to delay it.

So my plan now is to cut the special little plug off the old power supply and hook it up to one of several spare power supplies I have pulled out of old computers I have scrapped and run it off that until the new power supply arrives.

They are sending me my cake and I'm getting to eat it too!!

We shall see where things stand in 3 weeks time.... Knowing my luck I will call when it doesnt arrive and they will never have heard of me or my grandmother.

Time will tell.

T

TerryA

Wednesday 15th April 2009 | 11:12 PM

I just received an email from WD support.

It says that a replacement Power supply will be sent out as soon as stock arrives in an estimated 2-3 weeks, that it will be free of charge, and that I do not need to send the faulty one back.

So time to cut the plug off and hook up an old PC power supply untill the new one arrives.

T

Mikey

Thursday 16th April 2009 | 06:20 AM

...in response to this comment by TerryA. Good one Terry. Fingers crossed it actually arrives.

Kissthis

Thursday 16th April 2009 | 10:48 AM

...in response to this comment by Mikey. Doigts d'Oooooh! Les doigts sont des baguettes magiques magiques qui peuvent fournir des plaisirs intenses! :-b

Tom

Monday 20th April 2009 | 08:54 PM

Glad I found this thread. My WD 500GB Element too died one day. After reading this thread, I ordered an external HD case on eBay for $18 and installed the drive in the new case with new power supply. Worked like a charm! Thanks. Transferring the drive took 5 minutes, was 4 screws and 2 cables. Very very easy.

Brenda

Tuesday 21st April 2009 | 04:18 PM

...in response to this comment by Mikey. Hi Mikey....ditto all the complaints about WD Elements External Hard Drive. Tried everything you said but how can I assign it a drive letter if it doesn't show up in My Computer....it shows up in the computer management window that you suggested to go to but I can't do anything about a drive letter from there. Any suggestions?

Rodney

Tuesday 21st April 2009 | 08:25 PM

...in response to this comment by Brenda. Hi Brenda,

1. Right click on my computer
2. Select manage.
3. Select disk management
4. Right click on the WD drive you see there and pick "change drive letter"
5. Change the drive letter.

That's it.

futile61

Wednesday 22nd April 2009 | 05:45 PM

Ok i have read all of these comments and i still got one of these. $60.00 was to go to pass up. I hope i am not posting here in 9 months to a year from now saying mine died also. But i will know what to do if it does.
Thanks to all that posted

TerryA

Wednesday 22nd April 2009 | 08:59 PM

UPDATE:

I just received this from WD Customer Support

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,

The service center will be arranging a shipment of the ac adapter and you should receive the adapters within 7-9 working days.

Regards,
Western Digital Support
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Till the next update......

T

Brad Cancian

Friday 24th April 2009 | 11:02 PM

Hi guys - similar problem here, but with cream on top.

I bought mine over a year ago and has worked great since then. A couple of weeks ago, I unplugged the WD external hard drive from my powered-up laptop, then un-plugged the power cable, as my other half wanted to take the laptop somewhere. This was the firt time it had been unplugged in months, and it has never been dropped or damaged in any way. I went to hook it up to my other (aincient) computer and it wouldn't power up. Took it back to the laptop to try it there, also wouldn't power up - no lights, noise, nothing. Checked the light on the AC power pack, and it died out immediately upon beig plugged in to a power source. Uh oh, new power pack needed I figured.

Had a read of some forums and discovered power packs were a problem with this model, and that obtaining new power packs was next to impossible. Read that many people had recommended putting it into a new SATA enclosure (wasn't worried about voiding the next to useless warranty). Being very un-technically minded, I managed to pick up an ASTONE Iso Gear 360 SATA enclosure to put the WD drive into. I removed the drive from the WD enclosure and installed it into the new ASTONE enclosure. I did note that the WD enclosure used the two right hand connectors (when looking end on), where the ASTONE enclosure used the single long connector (not sure of the name, sorry) on the left hand side that the WD enclosure didn't use (this left the two conectors that the WD enclosure used as not being plugged in to anything in the ASTONE enclosure). I put the ASTONE enclosure all together, and plugged it in to the power socket and my un-powered laptop. When plugged in to the power soket only, the blue light on the back of the ASTONE enclosure lights up and stays on, but when I power up my laptop, the blue light on the ASTONE enclosure starts flashing and the drive doesn't power or spin up at all - the light happily keeps on flashing away with no power up at all. I am guessing that the drive itself is screwed some how (not sure how, but hey), or that I did something wrong when I put it in the enclosure.

Been thinking about slaving it to my other old PC to see if it really is the drive, but again, not being technically minded, I hit a snag straight away- the large 4-pin rectangular power connector on the power cable in my old comp has no corresponding recepticle on the hard drive. There goes that plan. Do I need an adaptor or something to try this??

Any one able to help this technically un-minded person in to what I may have done wrong, or do I need to look to a professional data recovery service to get my data back somehow?

I dare say I will not be buying WD drives again.

BC

Kergberger

Sunday 26th April 2009 | 08:57 AM

Given this forum seems to be a database of WD Element failings i thought i should mention my Elements power brick shat itself. I've got the 320GB. On principle i'm going down TerryA's route. Why should i pay for extra hardware to use hardware already purchased.

If anyone from WD is reading this: in Australia we have a lovely piece of legislation called the Trade Practices Act which appropriates ongoing customer service and parts (even outside of warranty/manufacture period). The penalties for breaching this Act aren't trivial. Selling faulty product may fly in the US but not here. Sort your product out.

TerryA

Monday 27th April 2009 | 11:09 AM

UPDATE........

I just got round to chopping the plug off the WD Power Brick, and mated it into an old AT power supply.
Plugged it in and immediately got the little blue light back on the Elements drive box, and windows Bloinged me to say it had found it. All working as new.

So I am up and running again untill WD send me a new temporary PSU for it. I say temporary, and I will pack away the modified AT power supply safely, because I expect some time in the not too distant future the replacement will fail and I will be back to the home made solution.

That's all for now.

T

Mikey

Monday 27th April 2009 | 11:35 AM

I replaced the case a few months ago but now the drive is starting to fail .Occasionaly it will 'disconnect' itslef from windows for a moment before coming back on. I'm now looking at getting a brand new drive but it won't be WD.

Kergberger

Monday 27th April 2009 | 03:09 PM

Update.

Just got off the phone with Singapore. It seems like they are aware of this problem and are handing out Power Supplies to any man and his dog who wants one.

just call (don't wait for teleprompt, press 1 then press 1 again)

They'll set up a case id then you need to email your address. Lets hope they don't stuff it up as much as they stuffed up the sourcing of theyre components.

TerryA

Thursday 30th April 2009 | 07:28 PM

UPDATE...

WOOHOO...

I got home today to find a package in my mail box.
"Hmmmn, what could this be, I'm not expecting any deliveries today" I thought.
Upon opening it I found, to my delight, a bright, shiny (well plastic anyway), new, and hopefully WORKING, power supply!

Yes, just 3 days after finally cutting up the old one and jury-rigging a home made solution.

I plugged it into the mains, and got a green light on it. Good so far.
I pulled the USB plug from the drive, it powered down when it could no longer see the computer. Still Good.
I pulled the home made power line from the drive. No sparks.... always a good sign.
I plugged the DC line of the new power supply into the drive. Got a momentary blue light on the drive, green light on the brick stays solid. Looking good.
I plugged the USB lead into the drive. The blue light on the drive comes on and goes ballistic, whist in the background I hear Windowz BLOING it's new discovery to me. Up pops the "hey I found something new, what should I do with it?" window. I hit the "show me whats on it" button and hey-presto, there are all my files.

IT WORKS!

And it only took 12 days, not the 2 weeks they said... lol

As I always say, the main gauge of the professionalism of a person or company, is not whether or not something goes wrong, hey, Shite happens, always has, and always will. The Important thing is HOW YOU DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM. Sure it would have been nice if they had replacements in their bottom draw, and put it in the post the same day. It would have been even nicer if the first one hadn't failed at all. But the bottom line is, they fixed the problem, within the time frame they estimated.

To me, that's as good a result as I could have asked for.

THANKS WD. You are still my first choice of HDD for my machines, and still the only brand I would recommend.

T

Kergberger

Friday 8th May 2009 | 03:39 PM

Yay, mine arrived today. Also working.

It seems WD went to another manufacturer, aside from AcBel, to source this one. Probably a good move. Feels heavier... in the old days that meant quality... lets see how it goes.

Well done WD. It shouldn't have taken that long to recognise and resolve the problem, a product recall would be justified. You should also make your local support numbers more accessible on your website.

Cheers.

PeteA

Saturday 9th May 2009 | 02:52 AM

...in response to this comment by TerryA. Does the drive need BOTH 12vdc and 5vdc from the PS?

I just got my replacement PS, but it's got the wrong connector. The original is the PS/2-looking plug, with 5 pins and three wires in the cable to the PS brick. It looks as if the original PS has both 12v and 5 v outputs

The new PS is the more standard cylindrical plug and it only has 2 wires in the cable to the PS brick. From its label, the new PS only has a 12v output.

When I called back, first they said they were going to send me an "adapter," but then said that the adapter was out of stock. So I asked for a complete new drive, which they agreed to. But I need to get my data off the old drive first. Will the drive work with just 12v from the PS (i.e., will it get the 5v from the USB plug? And if so, of the 3 wires to the original plug, which is +12, which is +5, and which is ground?

Or am I screwed here? I suppose if I can't get the PS to work, I'll have to open up the case and pop the drive into an external USB case.

millhouse

Friday 15th May 2009 | 04:57 AM

"i was converting a mkv file to a mp4 on the external (i have a 750gb wd elements external) and about 5 minutes into the conversion the drive started clicking funny. After i shut down the computer and restarted it, i cant see the external in my computer anymore. It only shows up as "WD" in device manager and thats the only place i can see it. I have this thing filled with about 600gb of movies/music/important documents and i dont want to try to send it to WD for a new one because of all the bootleg content on it (ive only had it for 1 month should still be under warranty). Any suggestions please???"

I'm having this exact problem. Anyone got a solution. I've literally used the device three times.

Rodney

Friday 15th May 2009 | 12:09 PM

...in response to this comment by millhouse. A clicking drive generally means a seizing drive head. Refer to my comment above about tapping the drive, try to get your data off, then throw the drive in the bin. If it's under warranty, take it back. Sorry.

RayM

Wednesday 20th May 2009 | 02:59 PM

Rang the 1800 number but they now say out of stock of replacment power supplies..still got 4 months to go on warranty. I bought mine at Officeworks but they didn't seem too interested ..not their problem they said. So wait and see what happens..if nothing does then its pull it out and try solutions as above

uniquefergus

Wednesday 20th May 2009 | 05:08 PM

Thanks to all of you on here...given my shaky technical skills, I opted to call WD and they're sending out a new power supply...without asking about warranties and the like. Here's hoping!

Tumult

Friday 22nd May 2009 | 06:25 PM

Just an idea:
Is it possible to get a case with room for two harddrives? Then I could get another harddrive AND provide power for the WD at the same time.

lowlevel

Saturday 6th June 2009 | 01:29 AM

I just looked at a WD 1000 Elements external for a friend... drive is toast. Making all kinds of clicking/seek noises, refuses to mount/initialize.
Drive was babied, hardly moved around, never dropped or even put in a bag... 2 weeks old. I suggest avoiding these 500gig per platter drives. Nothing but nightmares. A terrabyte is a lot of data to lose...

Kim

Tuesday 9th June 2009 | 07:47 PM

i was wondering if anybody has actually received a 5 pin power supply from WD yet. As yet i am still waiting, thanks to all the advice above, thanks heaps all contributors, i decided to contact WD in early june, as yet i am still waiting, probably we all are.

kim

Tuesday 9th June 2009 | 07:49 PM

sorry my typo, that should be early may. would like to know from others tho. ta in advance

RayM

Sunday 14th June 2009 | 08:53 PM

An email from them told me that more stock would be in around mid-June. Wait and see..ha ha

Tumult

Monday 15th June 2009 | 06:01 PM

Yes, I received one pretty quickly - around 5 days after my phone call. It's a different type, so hopefully it will last a bit longer. I have changed the socket to one I can switch off. The other one was ON all the time.

Lu

Saturday 20th June 2009 | 03:36 PM

Okay, I don't understand all of this splicing and SATA stuff. My WD elements 500 g external went caput, no light when plugged in. My cheapest option to retrieve the files is..... assume it's the power cord??? and get another one? or....Help..../

theaussie

Tuesday 30th June 2009 | 05:19 AM

I have one of these drives after 9 months power supply failed, called WD in Singapore, raised a claim and they eventually sent me a new one after I sent a nasty email in regard to their warranty policy, now its up and running again, but i would not recommend this type of power connection.

kim

Thursday 2nd July 2009 | 05:53 PM

just got my adapter fedexed today, hooray!! i rang them again on 30/6 and it took only 2 days, but its here and it works, so far anyway. hope all goes well with all of the rest of you too. good luck!

Lan

Sunday 5th July 2009 | 02:56 PM

...in response to this comment by kim. Hi Kim
my power adapter light just flicks once when I power it up then goes out- I opened the adapter and dropped the multimeter across the output terminals -zero. I think its had the sword. Can you tell me where and how you were able to source another adapter
Thanks

Lan

john

Tuesday 7th July 2009 | 05:07 PM

My WD PS just flickers blue then nothing......

I wish i googled things before i bought them instead of after i have problems :(

i will be ringing the folk in singapore in the morning, fingers crossed

Tom

Monday 13th July 2009 | 04:35 AM

Mine died earlier - not sure why, when i connect it all, nothing happens to the drive at all, and the power brick flashes green constantly, and I swear it used to stay lit - anyone know whats going on?
Thanks

AndyP

Tuesday 21st July 2009 | 11:29 PM

Great thread with loads of help, just ordered a new enclosure and looking forward to never having to worry about PS again! Thanks to everyone who contributed on this thread.

Jason G

Sunday 9th August 2009 | 11:40 PM

mine has died today. when plugged in just a flicker of the nlue light for half a sec and then nothing.

Now I need to find the uk customer support wd number

TJ

Wednesday 2nd September 2009 | 12:05 AM

I just called WD, They wont send me the adapter for free, but it's $10 so I'm buying 2 of them since I had 2 drives and both power adapters died within weeks of each other. LOL

Fairlie

Saturday 5th September 2009 | 07:39 AM

...in response to this comment by Jon. Hey John,

I just read your reply about the screwdriver and the drive - mine (a 640gb) bought in May, and used about 3 times is doing the same thing, but not being tech savvy, I am not sure about taking everything apart. I did give it a bit of a bang last night and it was recognised, but stupid me unplugged it just as it showed up, so didn't retrieve any data. Was it easy to do?? Very p'ed off actually!!!

Cheers

Luke

Monday 7th September 2009 | 07:27 AM

my power supply died today: green LED only flashes briefly. We had these at the office, 5 out of 6 ended up with dead PSUs. Now my private drive has given in, I can't send in the whole drive as it holds all my backups - has anyone found the UK service dept., did they respond?

RayM

Thursday 10th September 2009 | 08:11 AM

Due to contacting them via both email and on phone I have ended up with 3 of the adaptors (go figure). Not charged for any of them. At least have backups now...ha ha

JasonF

Friday 25th September 2009 | 02:43 AM

I think I'm having the same problem as Ian and Millhouse up there...
When I plug in the drive, it will spin for a short time then stop. When I plug the USB cable into my computer, the drive can be seen under Device Manager, but not My Computer and it doesn't spin when plugged in. Sometimes the blue light flashes and sometimes it just stays constant or is slow to light up. The power brick's green light still lights up. Does this sound like power supply issues that others have had?

Thanks.

J Davis

Wednesday 30th September 2009 | 11:03 PM

Another dead powersupply here:

I also had my WD Elements 500GB drive quit working out of the blue one day and until I found this thread through Google, was worried all my data was gone. Turns out it was indeed the powersupply / enclosure that was the problem.

As others here suggested, I opened up the case (just a couple standard screws), disconnected the power and SATA cable and plugged the drive into my PC -- the drive showed up as a normal drive and I was able to access all the data again.

Phew. No to backup everything I have so something worse doesn't happen next time. :)

Unfath

Thursday 1st October 2009 | 05:44 PM

Hey I have a WB elements 250gb, extremely new but immediately I have great problems with it. Firstly when plugging into my machine (It's under a year old, so USB ports aren't out-dated) the device will be recognized and available in 'Computer' but for no reason I can think of, the device reboots over and over, until after a random number of times, it connects successfully. Even after it connects, as soon as I attempt to do anything to the disk such as error checking or moving files, it reboots, cancelling any actions. It has been properly formatted (as my options for formatting weren't vast, it wasn't difficult).
My pc is a packard bell, my OS is Windows vista ultimate and there are no problems with the wire/connection.
It's a bit of a mystery to me, because it's never actually worked...

Any speculation on why it decides to give up as soon as I attempt to anything but have it plugged in?
Thanks in advance :D

Unfath

Thursday 1st October 2009 | 10:33 PM

To anyone who read my previous comment and thought 'This is what is happening to me' I may have solved the case.
My pc has 8 or so USB ports and for some reason, only the ports at the back work! There is absolutely nothing wrong with my front ports, all other perpherials work there.
Anyway try using the ports at the back, I'm sure someone can give a heads up on why it makes a difference ^^

Rodney

Thursday 1st October 2009 | 11:11 PM

...in response to this comment by Unfath. Probably because the ports at the front at USB1 (which don't provide power) and the ports at the back are USB2 (which do provide power). So printers, USB keys and so on, which don't need powered ports, work fine but devices which need power won't work. This is a fairly standard configuration, especially on PCs which are not the latest.

Derek Zoolander

Friday 2nd October 2009 | 03:37 PM

My WD element drive just broke~!!! I think i must have been the 200 person that the external hard drive broke.

PhilC

Tuesday 6th October 2009 | 10:40 PM

...in response to this comment by RayM. Hi RayM,
How did you contact WD? I phoned their number (in Ireland) and got put through to a call centre somewhere and couldn't understand the guy at all. I'm having the same problem with my adaptor and have tried various stores but with no success. Cheers.

Paul S.

Thursday 15th October 2009 | 03:13 PM

oook, i'm a bit unsure because mine's a bit diferent from the stories about.. its a wd 1tb, bought it in september 2009 worked for about 2 weeks on my laptop and is no longer accessable from 'my computer', the drive doesn't show up ( sounds familliar here ) going into mannager I can see the device as disk 1- unknown -un initialized , but if I try to initialize it it says failed, could not access path,... pritty much boned, I can't see any other way to get to it.
There is always a constant blue light, and you can here the disc spin on startup, so i'm not sure if it's really a power supply issue, concidering it's supposed to be fixed for this model, maybe i'm assuming too much here tho - can anyone pin point what the problem is here?

JasonF

Friday 16th October 2009 | 08:53 AM

Update to my post: I took the drive out of the enclosure and put it in a dock and got the same response - drive spins a couple times, clicks, then stops on its own. So in my case, it wasn't the power supply but the drive actually dying.

Daz

Friday 20th November 2009 | 03:55 AM

Anyone else having this issue:

My drive is working fine, I can copy files to it, and read files off it. However, any large files (e.g. a 700mb torrent) take ages to copy over. The first 75% of the file copies in about 5 seconds, the remaining 25% takes over a minute to complete.

Very irritating.

Even more so as I have an identical drive where a 700mb file takes about 5-7 seconds to copy across.

Ideas?

Mike

Saturday 28th November 2009 | 05:57 PM

...in response to this comment by T. I've replaced my original cord with the cord for the Speedtouch Home MODEM .... same plug/voltage/amps etc


works fine.

Although Its now died i think... Blue light on and a clicking sound coming from the device... wont mount.

any ideas?

BG

Friday 8th January 2010 | 02:04 PM

Thanks to all those that have contributed, I have just installed my WD drive as an internal HDD after the power supply failed. Job was straightforward although I replaced the SATA data cable, which was too short.

The advice I received here saved me considerable time, money and frustration. Thanks very much!

Louis

Wednesday 27th January 2010 | 07:41 AM

...in response to this comment by CLARK. My WD elements 500GB hard drive power supply went out. I could not find another power supply. Read this blog, took my hard drivwe out of the case and put it in an external hard drive enclosure. When you said all external hard drives are internal hards enclosed in a case, that made everything click. It worked!!! Thanks

Duncan

Sunday 14th March 2010 | 08:06 PM

Power supply (I think) just died tonight! Nothing backed up - rang WD and they no longer have any of the AC adaptors that I need! Great! Anyways searched for the AcBel AD6008 Adaptor on eBay and found a replacement from a different company for $14AUD. Hopefully this works - for at least long enough until I can transfer off all my songs, photos etc. Can not believe how unhelpful WD was.

evish

Tuesday 30th March 2010 | 08:17 PM

...in response to this comment by Austinite. I've had one for almost 2 years now.

The AC adapter has died TWO times, when it first died what I did was buy a Buffalo external HD and back up my Elements on it. I'm on to looking for a different solution now, I'm thinking of getting the actual HD out of the Elements box and putting it inside my compy / another external HD box.

I wouldn't suggest this HD to anyone, although it can take a few shots and bangs the AC adapter WILL fry. Just a matter of time.

Henk V

Tuesday 30th March 2010 | 08:55 PM

I am the prod owner of the most ugly Free Agent 500GB free drive. I don't even know what's on it because I just want to kill it.. Damn ugly thing just sits there on my desk like an Arthur C. Clarke monolith.

and no on/off switch

It wasn't that pricey when I bought it 2 years ago..120 I think.

Damn its hard not to be cranky when you are retired

Amyjjb

Sunday 4th July 2010 | 12:08 PM

Wow! This has all been a wealth of information. Chalk one up for the Power Bricks! This is my 3rd WD HD, among others I have bought as gifts. I thought WD was the brand of the elite, but obviously not. I think I am just going to buy a 3.5 SATA External HD. I must say that I am super nervous about opening my HD and loosing 500 GB of movies. YIKES!!! Oh well, that's life! Thanks everyone for your input!

Terry

Friday 30th July 2010 | 07:46 PM

Thanks for the help re WD 500gb power supply. Bought a SATA case for £12 and reconnected it and problem soreted!! Replied to WD's request for customer feedback and their total non support. Without this forum I would have a useless external drive.

evillbill

Sunday 26th September 2010 | 05:21 PM

Bought three of the 500GB WD drives to back up family holiday pics and movies, and sent them off to the 3 sets of relations. Power supplies (ACBel 6008 ) failed over a period of 6 months. Picked up some old power supplies from a second hand PC store and jury rigged them up to suit the WD drives. Have since moved to Iomega drives, with no failures so far.

frustrated

Tuesday 12th October 2010 | 02:34 PM

Yah. Power source died on me just after 2 months of use. Shit happens on other models as well ;( Don't buy this cheap piece of junk -Actually don't buy anything from WD- shit happens on other models as well.

If you are searching for a safe way to store your data, price is not the first priority: Like me, you're gonna be so pissed, when your priceless pictures, videos, works etc. are either destroyed or stuck into this shitwad.

Macka

Thursday 9th December 2010 | 07:49 AM

Power adapter available on ebay or from RS or many other places online
RS-E02AB

Henk V

Thursday 9th December 2010 | 09:21 AM

Strange thing is, you can get HDD and casings a fair bit cheaper.. I have gone that way of late.

Chris D

Friday 30th September 2011 | 08:01 PM

Hi all! Same problem with my 1TB Elements. Bought it from eBuyer Oct 2008 and in Nov 2009 it stopped spinning up. Green light on power supply flashes for < 1 second then nothing.
Be careful with replacement power supplies as there are two types - the round (2-pole) connector and the 5-pin (DIN-type) one.
Called the (free) WD UK Support number (00800 27549338) as a last hope and they’re shipping me a replacement PSU (with the correct 5-pin connector) free of charge!
As already mentioned in many previous posts, if all else fails you can remove the disk itself from its casing and use it either as an internal hard drive or put it into any USB external enclosure without losing any of the data already on it. Not sure if it’ll be an IDE or SATA disk though…

Ollie

Wednesday 19th October 2011 | 02:37 PM

I have a 500GB WD Elements that stopped working after I used it to back up a large amount of video. I've formatted for use on my Macbook Pro and while backing up the data it kept becoming disconnected at the USB port, with the alert showing up about ejecting first. It seems like a very sensitive mechanism which would knock itself loose due to the slightest movement. Has anyone else found this to be the case?

Now it won't "initialize" on my Macbook Pro and when I try on a PC it has similar probs (though the terminology is about "disk driver software" not being installed). I have tried the disk utility on Mac but it won't allow me to click the "repair disk" or "verify disk" buttons.

Can anyone give any advice? I'm considering downloading some sort of data recovery software, but don't really want to spend any money. Though my frugality (ie buying the cheapest hard-drive available!) is probably what got me into this mess...