Big problems with the WD My Book Pro Edition II
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Twitter itA few months ago, I wrote this review of the WD My Book Pro Edition II drive. I hereby rescind anything positive I said about it. I am at the end of my patience with this drive, and Western Digital’s technical support has failed me.My three BIG problems with the drive are as follows:
- It crashes my Mac (iMac G5 running Tiger). My iMac does great otherwise, and I have plenty of other external drives. When I connect the drive to the Mac, it will crash it either within minutes or within an hour or so. It’ll crash it so badly that I’ll need to do a hard reset.
- It’s falsely advertised. It’s supposed to be a three-interface drive, and it isn’t. It DOES NOT work through Firewire 400 on the Mac. The computer just won’t see it, even if I connect the drive through USB first, initialize/reformat it through the Disk Utility, then reconnect it through Firewire. It seems that other Apple users are experiencing the same problems, even with Firewire 800 connections, as evidenced by their posts in the Apple forums.
- The drive will overheat, its fan will go into overdrive, making a horrible noise, and it will shut down randomly, even during file transfers.
This drive is a complete failure. It’s marketed as a Pro drive to Mac users, but it can’t be used on the Mac. While it’ll work on the PC, one can only use it there in RAID 1 or RAID 0 when it’s formatted with FAT32 NTFS. If you want format it in FAT32 and RAID 1, so it’s usable on both PCs and Macs, you cannot do that with WD’s RAID Manager software. Of course, when it’s formatted in FAT32, keep in mind that files larger than 4 GB can’t go on the drive.
For the past few months, I’ve been going back and forth with Western Digital support. I’m now on my third replacement drive, which I’m shipping back today. It has the same problems outlined above, just like the other two drives.
What’s more, I’ve been getting crappy, used drives in replacement from Western Digital. They’re scratched, scuffed, and generally in bad shape when they get to me. I kept my original drive in pristine condition, and I’ve had to put up with progressively worse drives from them, aesthetically speaking. I refuse to keep doing this.
My desk has been a wiring mess since I made the horrible mistake of buying this really expensive paper weight. I’ve had to keep shuffling my data on and off the drive, and transfer it between my other drives to keep it alive. This drive, which was supposed to promote data safety and reliability through its RAID 1 capability, has made me feel extremely unsafe about my data.
I recorded a video last night to show you what I’m going through. I’m at the end of my patience with this product and with Western Digital, who seem bent on sticking their customers with this dud and refuse to do the proper thing and acknowledge they’ve messed up.
At this point, I am interested in any of these three options:
- A refund from Western Digital for the full purchase price of the drive; it’s unusable, and I don’t want to be stuck with it.
- A replacement drive in pristine condition that will unconditionally work as advertised, through Firewire 400, 800 and USB, will not overheat and will not crash my Mac. I refuse to do the whole RMA thing again, unless I am 100% guaranteed to receive such a drive. (Updated 7/3/08: I got a replacement drive in pristine condition (as requested). It’s a WD Studio Edition II drive, and I’ve been using it since 4/16/08 without any issues. I plan to write a review for it shortly.)
- Joining a class action lawsuit that will hopefully get Western Digital to acknowledge this product has been falsely advertised, and has serious manufacturing defects that prevent it from working properly. I’d like them to issue either refunds, or properly working drives in new, unused condition to all of the customers affected by these problems.
Updated 2/6/08: On 12/18/07, I was contacted by a PR executive from WD. Apparently someone had made him aware of my post and my findings. He was very courteous and offered to put me in touch with WD’s advanced tech support, in the hope that my problems could be worked through. I accepted, and was shortly contacted by WD head of tech support, who then put me in touch with one of their technicians. I worked with the technician and gave him all of the information that he needed, and that was all I’ve heard from them since December.
In mid-January, I emailed both the PR executive and the head of tech support, asking for updates. Had they forgotten about me? Apparently not, I was told by the PR exec. They were still working on a fix and had set a deadline of 1/31/08 to have it available for me to try. January 31st came and went, and I heard nothing from them. I contacted the PR exec again yesterday, and haven’t heard anything since. Not sure what’s going on at this point, and if a firmware fix for my problems will ever be made available.
I’ll keep this post updated as things develop — if they will any further…
For good measure, here are some photos of the scratches and scuffs on the last replacement drive I received. This was a drive I was supposed to accept in exchange for my original drive, which I kept in pristine condition. If you want to talk about a complete lack of manners on Western Digital’s part, and an action that makes one wonder if they’ve ever heard of customer service, you can start right here.
DO NOT BUY this drive, unless you want to go through what I’m going through right now.
Updated 7/3/08: On 4/16/08, I received a replacement drive from Western Digital. It’s a 2TB Studio Edition II drive, which works in USB, Firewire 400/800 and eSATA modes. I’ve been using it since in RAID 0, and it’s been working great. To see how I use it, read this recent post of mine, where I talk about the hardware I use on a daily basis. I also plan to write a detailed review of the drive shortly.
I guess the lesson is that the My Book Pro line had serious faults, and WD got things right with the My Book Studio line. So, if you’re in the market for a drive, DO NOT get a My Book Pro. But DO get a My Book Studio II drive. They seem to work alright.
(5 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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I too, have had weird things going on with the same drive! Running MacPro with Leopard. I would also love to join a class action suit!
Michael Jonas
Comment — December 17, 2007 @ 8:56 am
I’ve been meaning to contact you about your drive after I read a story via BoingBoing stating that the WD software is so DRM-laden that it refuses to allow sharing of music or video over a home network. Of course, that could just be on the PC end, so I was wondering what your experience might be.
Comment — December 17, 2007 @ 9:15 am
I’ve had the WD Pro drive for two months now. It is connected to an iMac (aluminum) running Leopard. All I use it for is backup. I use “DataBackup” for Leopard and it runs flawlessly every night. It has saved my rear end more than once. I don’t do RAID and so I can’t comment. Mine is FW 800. I don’t use WD software at all. Just reformatted the drive when it arrived using Leopard’s Disk Utility and away I go. It keeps a 250 GB media library backed up without issue, while backing up the other 100 GB of program files and OS nightly.
I can’t offer you any suggestions; only a contrary experience. Don’t get me started on Maxtor, however. LaCie works fine but is slow, slow, slow.
Comment — December 17, 2007 @ 10:08 am
@mrfearless47, what you refer to as the WD Pro drive is actually the first edition Pro. I can’t speak about that, since I don’t own one. It’s easy to mistake the two models by their name. I’m talking about the Pro Edition II, which is an entirely different beast. It uses RAID whether you like it or not. You can choose RAID 0 (also known as striping) or RAID 1 (also known as mirroring). You’re also using Leopard, not Tiger, so the experience can’t be compared there, either.
@Julie, the drive you refer to is the WD World Edition II, which I reviewed separately. I recently updated that review regarding the foolish DRM restrictions.
Comment — December 17, 2007 @ 10:19 am
Wow! For WD’s sake I was hoping I was the only one having problems with this drive! Mine wouldn’t mount with FW 400, but I got over it. What I don’t get over so easily is that the drive will randomly unmount itself, even right in the middle of an iBackup operation or a file copy. Great, it copies for an hour, dies randomly in the middle, so I have to start over at the beginning! And do I ever feel safe about my backups? Nope!
The other thing I discovered… my Mac kept not recognizing blank DVD’s, would say it couldn’t use them. The culprit? The WD driver that isn’t really needed anyways! Once that gets deleted, burning CD’s worked again.
–Dan Dawson
Comment — December 17, 2007 @ 11:33 am
[...] II, then a WD My Book Pro Edition II to store my photos, and both failed me. The My Book Pro failed me miserably, but that’s another story. (Incidentally, I’m working with WD’s advanced tech [...]
Pingback — December 20, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
[...] USB, while other USB or Firewire drives can connect just fine and have no problems. Have a look at this article of mine for a video of the crashes it causes, and for photos of the damaged drives that WD sends out as [...]
Pingback — January 3, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
And here I was thinking that it was my office being too warm…. I purchased this drive about 6 months ago and have had the same exact problems and considered doing an RMA, but alas, that appears to be a worthless trip.
I unfortunately paid ~ $500 for mine, and am stuck with a mostly usable harddrive that randomly crashes, and that does not serve my home theater pc very well. I’ve always had good luck from WD in the past, so this is somewhat of a let down.
And to think that they have the nerve to send you “used” replacements is ridiculous.
I am interested in joining a class action lawsuit as well.
Thank you for the reporting Raoul
Comment — January 5, 2008 @ 5:17 am
Hi!
I had 2 external drives both WD. A 250 mybook pro firewire 800 and 120GB passport. I used the 250GB to store my projects and media, and the passport for take my work on the way with my Macbooks. I am running 4 computers with Apple OS X Leopard. I have other hard drives with no problem whatsoever, I am a computer games development student so I do a fair use of my system day to day.
Well the thing is that about two weeks ago my passport drive passed away, no warning or noises, just stopped working. One backup off. Within one week my other WD hard drive goes off as well. No warnings, no strange noises, no disks errors, no lights, no power, just switched off and never came back to life.
So here I am, I don’t know what to do really, I have arranged with WD an RMA but I am about to lose all my data. Any advice before I send my broken HDs to WD?
I think we should unite all and tell WD to get us back out data, I am on for the lawsuit, this seems too much of a coincidence…
Any help would be very welcome!!!
Comment — January 11, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
Jose, you may want to look at data recovery services. Depending on how precious your data is, paying for someone to get it off the drives may be worth it. I can’t speculate why both of them died within such a short period of each other. I can only say that since they’re very different drives (not only different models, but different drive sizes) it was likely a very unfortunate coincidence.
The lawsuit I referred to in the video was specifically for the WD My Book Pro Edition II drive. And I wasn’t interested in starting one, but joining one. I should make it clear I’m not a litigious person and do not believe that lawsuits are the answer for problems like this. But I am keeping that option open as an absolute last resort.
For now, I’m waiting for Western Digital to get back to me with their findings. They contacted me after I wrote this post, and are looking into the problem. I heard back from them tonight, and they’ve given me a date of 1/31 for a possible fix. We’ll see what happens. I’ll update this post as I hear more from them.
Comment — January 11, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
I’ve been using the 250 GB My Book Essential Edition and for the most part it works fine.
Somedays it seems haunted if you will and will randomly turn on and off, repeatedly in a matter of minutes.
The button on the front also has no indicator of when you successfully press it for the purpose it was designed for.
I would be interested in receiving a refund as it is NOT reliable in any sense and it’s a roll of the dice as to wether or not ill be able to pull my information off of it.
Comment — January 28, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
Hey, some news from WD.
First of all I didn’t send my drive back because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to lost my data. I received a “used” unit from WD due to my RMA claim. They send me exactly the same model but the drive was all scratched and scuffed, as Raoul pointed out their RMA’s drives are not as well look after as some of ours. I only wanted this drive for its FW800 interface so I never bother to even try the other interfaces before, but this time I tried all of them. Well the results were a little bit worrying…
The USB connection was fine, it worked. The FW400 was not recognise at any moment. The FW800 worked for a few minutes and then crashed to not come back again. In a matter of minutes I was again without drive. This completely destroys your trust in a device which solely means (at least for me) is to provide security.
I emailed WD like five times but they never answered back. Then I got to talk by phone with someone from their customer service and they agreed to send me a brand new replace. The guy I talked to was very polite and helpful. I told him what was going on (I had two broken drives and they wanted to charge me $300 for a piece of rubbish with my data inside) and he offered me to keep the original drive with no charge.
Now they seem to have lost both drives that I sent back to them, which actually happened after the drives reached the collection point because I have an email from them saying that they had the drives at some point. I am still waiting for both replacements, a passport 120GB and a MyBook Pro Edition II 250GB but I don’t care for this drives or WD ever again.
I have lost all my data in repeated occasions , once I was stolen, now this FAULTY drives, I am becoming a little bit obsessed with backing up my data. At the moment I am using LaCie 500GB USB drives to backup data but I only have them for a few months so I don’t know how reliable they are. I need to buy two professional drives with FW800 interface, can anyone give some advice on which drives will meet my requirements…?
By the way, I have two drives for selling…anyone interested??
Comment — January 28, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
[...] reading some of the problems people have - like Raoul over in the US, I felt the need to express my observations with external harddrives. First off, my [...]
Pingback — February 8, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
I would just like to echo the negative sentiments stated here. The MyBook Pro II Dual Drive paperweight. What a shoddy product. I’m breathing deep to dispel my anger. Exact same problems, exact same complaints (how did I find this site in the first place?) DON’T BUY THIS DRIVE!
Comment — February 13, 2008 @ 10:39 pm
Same issues here — constant overheating and shut offs — can’t even backup my data which makes it a paper weight for me too…..argh!!!
Comment — February 26, 2008 @ 10:13 am
Starting to feel pissed.
Problems with the Western Digital Mybook Pro II, too. I wrote the german support but they didn’t feel responsible for me and so I got no answer until today.
I think the expression paper weight fits the use of the hdd best.
Comment — March 1, 2008 @ 11:19 am
My MyBook all of a sudden decided to corrup all data on the file. Instead of filenames and folders it now shows
=?=(?”¤#%
%#¤&”#/&
&¤&%¤/&%(/
As I noticed I tried to pull data of the disk but after each file copied of the disk the more data became corrupted.
Apperantly it “happens” with WD myBook.
I will not buy anything from WD anytime soon.
Comment — March 11, 2008 @ 4:09 am
“While it’ll work on the PC, one can only use it there when it’s formatted with FAT32…”
Where did you hear this? I own a My Book Pro Edition II and formatted it to NTFS with files still on it. I am running Windows XP on a 3-4 year old system. I’ve never owned a Mac in my life.
Comment — March 13, 2008 @ 12:36 am
David, my phrasing was confusing and incorrect. Just fixed it. What I meant to say is that the drive can’t be formatted in FAT32 if you need RAID 1. It can only be formatted in NTFS for either RAID 1 or 0 if you’re using the Windows version of the WD RAID Manager software. Sorry about that. Thankfully, I’ve been saying it right in my original review of the drive.
Comment — March 13, 2008 @ 8:02 am
I just bought and tested a WD MyBook World Edition II.
My experiences so far:
1) Finding out it doesn’t have a USB to computer interface and doesn’t support FTP.
Note to self: Salesmen lie, though packaging is misleading.
2) Must guess the default IP, username & login. (documentation? None besides install Mio, here are some screenshots.)
Anwers: has no DHCP fallback afaik, user=admin, pasw=123456 (7?)
3) Transferrate is no more than 4MB per second while the packaging boasts “GIGABIT INTERFACE” as a prime feature.
I sure hope that the device fails before i put anything important on it..
Comment — March 28, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
Hi,
problem with “My book Pro” 500gb on Firewire 800. Running on Leopard. Imac Intel 34″
The drive fails to be seen by the iMac.
I went out and purchased another My Book personal edition running on Firewire 400 thinking the 3 month old was faulty ! then found this post…
going straight back to get a refund.
L
Comment — March 31, 2008 @ 6:04 am
i’m from indonesia, i bought wd world edition II 1TB, and that stupid thing alway hung after 5 minutes start, transfer file so slow, damn stupid thing …
i’m too late read this post
Comment — April 8, 2008 @ 4:06 am
I too made the mistake of buying a Western Digital product. I have a My Book Pro 500 GB drive that is dead.
Upon startup the drive will refuse to mount in any of the connections (USB, FW400, FW800). I had used this hard drive for about 13 months or so. Until about 2 weeks ago it started to get hiccups. I immediately transfered everything over (unfortunately to a WD My Book Pro 750GB) and managed to lose only 3 days worth of data.
Upon boot into Leopard, the drive will power up, spin up, and buzz at me systematically. BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ. 3 chirps while the drive is spinning at full speed. It will tie up the computer as the computer (macbook PRO) tries to mount it. It fails too. The drive also runs super HOT.
I’m going to run down to the computer store and pick up a cheap enclosure and remove the dead drive and see if the data is salvageable. If not that looks like I was the fool for buying a WD product. I’m also wondering if it is the controller that is bad, or if the drive is actually bad, if it’s just the controller I might go and pick up a nice Seagate ES.2 750 GB SATA drive and plunk it into the enclosure.
POS! DON’T BUY!
Comment — April 10, 2008 @ 10:52 pm
People,
These problems occur also with PC.
I bought MyBook 500Gb home edition and is had sudden crashes.
I switched it (by my dealer’ reccomendation) to MyBook Studio 500Gb and it was worse.
DO NOT BUY Any MyBook product.
It’s a nightmare!
Comment — April 18, 2008 @ 7:12 am
looks like i’m joining the club. my WD my book pro edition II 1TB died earlier this week. after 1 year of reasonable performance (i had to muck around with the initial driver/setup for it to be detected by my iMac), the drive would start to demount itself after being on for 5 minutes. i look up wdc.com and try the latest firmware. it decides to crash during the flash upgrade and there you have it - a drive that no longer spins up - just that stupid blue inner ring that lights up. i had the drive set up in RAID1 mode - anyone know whether i could just open up the case and plug one of the drives into a regular SATA connection to another computer and copy the data off it? HELP!
Comment — April 23, 2008 @ 8:29 am
Alfred, you’re in luck (relatively speaking). If you set it up in RAID 1, you should be able to just plug either one of the drives into a SATA connection and retrieve your data.
Comment — April 23, 2008 @ 10:32 am
Some news I have…
I changed my config. (WD MyBook-Studio 500GB + HP Laptop + WIndows XP-SP2) as follows:
1. Control panel,System, Disk Drives - properties, policies, Optimized for perfromace.
2. Switched from Firewire to USB2.0 (it turns out that Firewire can handle only one application at a time!).
For the past 4 days this config. works just fine for me.
No disconnects of the HD.
Hope it helps.
Comment — April 23, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
MyBook Pro II, doesnt mount, Mac OS X.4.9, disk is recognized by System Profiler, disk utitlity (although all first aid is greyed out), disk warrior crashes on startup.. .. .. am I now an official member of the WD paperweight club?
Comment — April 29, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
Same story here. Had it for a little over a year, and these problems got progressively worse. Thought I was the only one. Guess I’m wrong. Both drives reported ‘faulty’ today by My Book Raid Manager. Hoping when I get an RMA, that I can use the RAID 1 Config to rebuild, but my hopes are not high. 12 years of my life may be gone. I too bought this drive thinking I was getting a Professional back-up drive for my studio. Ran in Raid 1 to ensure that, instead of combing the drives to 1 TB. This will probably be the last WD product I buy that doesn’t come OEM.
Sh*t. There goes 500gb of data maybe.
+1 for the Class Action.
Comment — April 29, 2008 @ 9:49 pm
P.S. - I was able to use Firewire, but I paid over $400 for this thing.
Comment — April 29, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
took the drive to the guru today. It’s apparently that drive B is overheating but he cant find the cause of it, but definitely a hardware malfunction somewhere. He said it was too hot to even touch. Meanwhile I had it sitting on 2 pencils so that it would get some ventelation from the bottom. That is a) preventing the drives from mounting and b) making any data uncoverable. So I’m in the paperweight club. The best I can hope for is that my guy can reformat ONE of the drives and I can have a 500 GB drive but believe me I am so angry I will never again buy a western digital product, ever, ever, ever.
Comment — April 30, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
I have to apologize to Raoul for saying his review was misleading. I have too, experienced problems with my drive. The one I have is the MyBook Pro II 1.5 TB set up as RAID1, giving me 750GB of storage.
The situations I have are as follow. All conditions happen the same on two different computers. One is a desktop running XP Pro with 2GB of RAM and an Athlon 3800+ on an Asus motherboard. The other is a Dell XPS laptop with a Core 2 Duo 7500, 2.4GHz and 2GB of RAM.
1. The drive works fine.
2. When I try to shut it off with its central button, WD Button Manager crashes and tells me I should not remove the drive.
3. After a while of being idle, whenever I try to look up a file on the drive, the folder structure only lets me enter third level and I get an error message saying that “Delayed writing failed” on the drive. I have to shut it down hard by pulling the power cable.
4. When I hook it back on, it goes into fan overdrive mode for about 10 minutes until it flashes the “drive ovearheating” code (both rings flashing continuously) and becomes very hot to touch.
5. I’ve tried to have the drive sitting vertically as suggested, and horizontally to allow all air vents to function but the same stuff happens.
I’m in Costa Rica and bought the drive through Amazon and had it shipped to a freight-forwarding courier service so shipping costs would be high for me should I have to return it. I think I’m still within the 30-day free Tech Support from WD. I’ll find out tomorrow and REALLY hope there is an acceptable solution.
All my data (about 600GB worth of things I cannot lose (my projects, work, etc) is in there.
I don’t know how much pressure I could put in a class action lawsuit from Costa Rica, but I’ll do whatever it takes.
Comment — May 2, 2008 @ 2:50 am
my drive is d e a d .. .. .. please send flowers.
Comment — May 2, 2008 @ 7:36 am
My drive is suddenly not powering up at all! (My Book Pro Edition II… I’m on a G5 w/Leopard) The vast majority of all my data is on there from the past SEVERAL YEARS! It’s a 750GB drive. I’m a little freaked out because I am not that smart w/computers… do you now how I can get my data? Help!!!
Comment — May 13, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
Dianne, I’m guessing yours is a single-drive unit. Work with WD support to see if you can’t get it to power up, and if you can’t, get a tech friend/contact of yours to help you get the drive out of the My Book enclosure and connect it to your computer via other means. This will allow you to retrieve your data. Then you can decide what to do with it: (1) send it to WD for repairs, (2) keep the drive and throw away the enclosure, etc.
Comment — May 13, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
I also just had my MyBook Pro II 1 TB suddenly stop working — finished moving almost 800 GB of video files from several other drives (finally, I thought, they would all be in one place…) on Saturday, and on Sunday the drive wouldn’t mount, no sound coming from it, etc etc etc, you’ve read it all before… I was using the FW 400, tried switching to USB. Nothing… so I walked away from it so I wouldn’t throw it against the wall.
I emailed several of the data recovery companies linked to on the WD website. Hmmm, quotes of around $2,000 to recover data from a drive that I got for around $200.
I’m going to try some of the suggestions posted here, see if I can recover anything. I’ll also try posting on Craigslist, see if there are any geeks who want to give it a shot. I’ll probably do an RMA, but only AFTER I’ve moved my data to a new drive.
By the way, I went to Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City and epinions.com and wrote scathing reviews for these drives, and included a link to this page so prospective buyers can see what they’re getting into. I suggest everyone here do the same — a lot of negative user reviews might prevent someone else from the same fate. I’d like to think it would also get WD’s attention, but from what I’m reading, I don’t think it will.
Comment — May 19, 2008 @ 10:46 pm
How can there NOT be a Class Action lawsuit yet against WD’s My Book. How many people have to get ripped off by this company’s negligent design??? I have two 500 GB My Book drives that will no longer work. What a waste of hard-earned money!!!! I feel like attaching both units to the bumper of my car and dragging them around town.
Comment — May 21, 2008 @ 11:48 am
I’ve got a My Book Pro 500GB, which has been having issues since upgrading to Leopard, but has got even worse in the last couple of weeks. I noticed WD put updates for Home and Studio drives on their site. I asked when we could expect one for the Pro versions and was told:
“Unfortunately, we can not comment, or give information about any future or unreleased updates that may be forthcoming. If and when there is a update, it will be available on our website. There will only be an update if it is determined that the drive does not function properly without that form of update.”
How can they realise that the Home and Studio editions require an update but not the Pro version.
Comment — May 22, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Sign me up for the CLASS ACTION SUIT. I too have the 1TB Pro MyBook and Western Digital has punted the ball. They will not acknowledge that their own software in the form of a firmware upgrade has rendered this raid unusable and the data on it inaccessible. They want me to pay to data recovery because their firmware ruined the disk controllers.
Comment — May 28, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
The 1TB Pro MyBook just all of a sudden died after a reboot of my system. Now all my data I had on there is no longer accessible and Western Digital is not providing any form of support what so ever. Sign me up as well for that Class Action Suit…..
Comment — May 28, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
The Wikipedia page for these drives have been updated to reflect this blogs valuable public warning.
Comment — May 29, 2008 @ 10:38 am
Add me to the list. Just spent 3 days trying to get this thing to work.
I’m using the My Book World - NAS. Boots up OK, occasionally decides to get an IP address from my router, occasionally manage to write a file or two before it stops working.
This drive is a complete lemon you must not by one. how can WD not admit its a failure and recall all the drives.
Like many I was tempted by 1Tb of storage at low cost - what an idiot.
Comment — June 1, 2008 @ 4:41 am
got a 1TB MyBook paperweight too. no firewire 400 on the PC. USB works fine, but it hangs the system when connected to firewire. interesting, as i’ve had/have many other external drives without this problem.
and the guy at Fry’s said, “Buy this one, as it gets way less returns.”
compared to what?
Comment — June 7, 2008 @ 11:23 am
Hi,
Just want to throw in my words of support. I had a 250 GB MyBook that I used to use with an iBook/Tiger, recently “upgraded” to a 1 TB MyBook Pro Edition II. The 250 drive (it was the second of such, the first died inexplicably when it was still, thankfully, under warranty) started experiencing the same problems which is why I got the 1 TB drive. I formatted it to be Raid 1 with the Mac file system (NTFS? I forget..) and it worked OK for a few days. Then I got a MacBook/Leopard and when I tried transferring my data to my MacBook I couldn’t do more than approx 300MB at a time — it would just freeze after that and say that whatever file it was in the midst of copying over at the time of the freeze couldn’t be copied b/c it was “in use” by another program (nothing else was open). Then the folder those files were in would be “in use” and then it would finally crash.
I’m trying my damnedest to get my pictures off my 1 TB drive now b/c those are the only irreplaceable files on it. Then I’m going to swear off WD for the rest of my life. Any recommendations as to what to get to replace the 1 TB? My friend said Seagate is the best and LaCie ain’t bad either — any personal experiences with Seagate? (I read the few about LaCie in the earlier comments).
I would definitely join a lawsuit if one existed — I’ll keep checking back in case that becomes a reality!
Comment — June 13, 2008 @ 12:09 pm
i bought a wd my studio 1000 gigas. i bought with usb2, firewire (this model have both 400 and 800 and e-sata(my pourpose for use)wdhq10000
The e-sata is not the standard- it wont works on the cables i could find.
firewire depends on something that i can recognize -sometimes works sometimes not.
Ok usb works fine every time but transfer heavy videos is not for usb.
i contacted the importer that told me that is a known issue but he didnt have a solution!
i contacted wd by mail and the told me to purchase a certified e-sata cable.
and they do not sell this cable out of the USA!
So i bought something more expensive that cannot be used!!!!
aarghhhhh
Comment — June 15, 2008 @ 5:25 am
I bought a 1Tb WD MyBook pro2 about a year or more ago from costco, iirc for about $400. I used it with my powerbook G4 running tiger’s latest version and highly unfortunately for me as raid0 (I wanted the 1Tb capacity and the speed). The drive worked fine and I foolishly moved my iTunes library and stored all of my movies on it without any other backup. At times the fan would kick into high speed and is very loud, similar to a hair dryer. About a month ago the drive would not mount and clicked a few times then produced an error message to contact WD support…an oxymoron as I later found out. Contacting WD has been useless and they referred me to their data recovery partner$ where I’m looking at $500-$1200 depending upon the difficulty of the recovery.
I am considering at least spending the $100 to see what data is deemed recoverable, and then to make a judgment from there and possibly spending the money this one time and learning a HUGE lesson, to never trust any drive as a backup and redundant backups; which is what I heard over and over from the dozen or so data recovery companies I called.
Also I am disappointed to hear that WD has not replaced the defective drives with new product, and have returned scuffed, scratched unpackaged drives. I was hoping that I would be able to offset some of this insulting injury by selling the replacement item, but I guess that is out. At this point I would prefer to have a refund of my original purchase price. I know WD makes good internal drives, but this MyBook series is SERIOUSLY FLAWED and MUST BE AVOIDED!
Comment — July 13, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
I had to come back to post this from wikipedia regarding the pro editions:
“Though the “Pro Edition MyBook” is marketed as a raid solution that can be used a backup device, very serious reliability issues occur frequently. [1][2][3]
The dreaded “click, click, click of death” is the phrase now associated with the most recent problem with these drives. It often occurs after the installation of Western Digital’s own firmware updates to these drives. Once installed, the firmware update renders the drive unmountable and useless to its owners.
To date, Western Digital has offered its affected customers one of two options:
1. Returning their drives to Western Digital and LOSING ALL DATA, or 2. Sending the drive to one of Western Digital’s “partners” who provide Data Recovery services for$2,000 or more.
These “Pro” drives can no longer be accessed because of the faulty Western Digital firmware update, but rather than providing a solution to its customers that restores functionality and access to important user data Western Digital’s policy so far is to offer a $15 coupon on new purchases of$150 and to direct their customers to pay above and beyond the high anxiety incurred by these “updates” and the time lost due to the inability to access the data. As of May 29, 2008, Western Digital has not offered a meaningful solution to its customers. [4]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_My_Book#Edition_II_My_Books
If this grounds for a class action lawsuit I don’t know what is. It can almost be construed as a scam intended to enhance the profits of the data recovery companies WD has agreements with; potential anti-trust here?
Comment — July 13, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
Sure wish I would have read this BEFORE I bought mine. Now I suffer very similar situations. The drive worked for a time, long enough for me to get some pictures and other files transferred on to it. Important files. Then it just disappeared! Poof! Well, of course I can see it sitting pretty on my desk but what I can’t do is see it on the network nor can I see my files or my pictures that mean so much! It won’t power down with the power button. Every now and then when I work at it, it shows up and gives me a ray of hope that I can retrieve my files but when I access the drive, it gets pissy and disconnects! So I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve yet to get my data off the drive which is why I still haven’t sent it back. Haven’t called customer service yet. I am sure that will make my day. Anyway, thanks for your article/blog; at least I know I am not alone with this problem and I can be prepared when I do make the call to WD.
Comment — July 15, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
Two 1TB My Book Pro Edition 2 just went bye bye here too.
Had them on a 0+1 array and a reboot later the drives no longer mount.
No luck with USB, FW400 or 800 even on other Macs.
Last week I returned a 1TB to Costco, was junk right out of the box.
A friend bought 8 of them, only two were working.
WD = Junk
Comment — July 16, 2008 @ 5:05 am
Any chance that someone is initiating a Class Action lawsuit? How about contacting a consumer advocate TV or newspaper reporter? This kind of a rip-off without a recall of the product is criminal!!!
Comment — July 16, 2008 @ 9:07 am
Oh Raoul,
you are killing me!I had been using two drives, a 1TB Maxtor, and a newer 1TB Western Digital Pro Ed II, to backup my video projects. A few weeks ago, the crappy Maxtor died, the clicking drive of death occurred right in the middle of a video edit- my response to this can be seen just after the the first ad of my show..
*yes shameless plug!!*
http://robotcast.cachefly.net/robotcast-episode6.m4v
Just when I thought I had really stuck it to ‘the Man’ with my clip, and fortunately had been able to recover some of the data to my WD Pro Ed- when THE WD PRO ED DIED!!! I swear, just last night the darn thing will not come on!! It was always twitchy when it came to access via my Mac G5, sometimes being visible and sometimes not. I too am about through here- I had always trusted WD internal drives, and this was my first external from them. I was disappointed.
Looks like I may have to put together another clip.
Just as soon as I can find a darn drive to edit my show on..
Where can I find out about either the effective replacement of my failed WD, or info on the class action.
Thanks for your post. Now I know..
-MoI
Comment — July 16, 2008 @ 10:45 pm
Hey guys,
As a MyBook owner, I am getting worried that my drive will eventually fail. No problem so far, except that it unmounts from my Mac G5 for no reason. For those who lost data to a firmware update, here a link to a page that explains how to fix the firmware (for PC):
http://do0g.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-recover-from-failed-mybook.html
I know how it feels to loose your life on a drive…
Cheers,
Philippe
Comment — July 18, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
I bought a Western Digital MyBook Pro Edition II 1TB to replace it with my Western Digital My Book 300GB and also to be able to mirror the drive for having a backup on the second drive.
My first mistake: Using the WD software to copy the files from the 300GB to the 1TB MyBook. IT ERASED ALL DATA on my 300GB.
After days and weeks of recovering my data from the 300GB I manually copied everything to the 1TB MyBook assuming it was an user error.
Since then the problems continued:
The 1TB overheats and it also shuts itself down randomly every so many minutes and back on again so that I can’t work with my data anymore.
It also doesn’t show my data on the drive any more, only folders are visible but NO CONTENT in the folders.
I paid over 300 dollars for this drive that erased all my data first and afterwards fails to show me my data at all and only displays it at random will, crashing every so many minutes.
I wish Western Digital replace my drive as well!
Comment — August 5, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
[...] out that I am not the only one who has had problems with this drive (e.g. the article by Raoul Pop Big problems with the WD My Book Pro Edition II) I decided to write to Western Digital and state my [...]
Pingback — August 5, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
[...] out that I am not the only one who has had problems with this drive (e.g. the article by Raoul Pop Big problems with the WD My Book Pro Edition II) I decided to write to Western Digital and state my [...]
Pingback — August 5, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
[...] that although they make the best hard drives, they have a lot to learn about making enclosures. Big problems with the WD My Book Pro Edition II by Raoul Pop So the Studio edition II is the "fixed" version of this unit. But Im not sure I want [...]
Pingback — August 7, 2008 @ 3:40 am
This is crazy i always seem to loos data on my WD Mybook i cant seem to access it on my disk top at times some times its there and some times its not there i’ve lost so music that i’ve wrote this is crap
Comment — August 8, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
So here’s my update.
Ontrack was able to recover everything, most of it completely and a small bit at what they call %99. I have not gone through with the recovery yet and might not bother. It was my entire iTunes library (90gb) and database files (so iTunes will probably launch and be blank….I’m scared to death to even launch it), another 30gb of music waiting to be added to iTunes, many movies, and back up of my powerbook.
I went to WD’s site and went with kroll/ontrack, a buddy who is an IT guy in NYC said he’d trust no one but Ontrack. Also keep in mind my MyBook is a 1Tb set up as Raid-0, about the WORST scenario you could possibly encounter; I didn’t know, I wanted the full 1Tb.
Believe me I fully believe that WD should pay the bill or at least pay half, but you know the reality of that happening! I don’t know what I am going to do, I originally was told $500-1200 and prepared myself with vaseline to spend $1k, but $1500 is a bit too much for nothing that will make me money and that only wasted hours and hours of my time.
Comment — August 9, 2008 @ 11:27 am
Greg, $1,500 is an insane amount to pay for the recovery of the data on the drive. I suppose if my photo library was lost, I might consider paying that much, but still, that’s just insane. Given that WD is at fault for the malfunctioning of this drive, if I were you, I’d look at getting a lawyer to get them to cover the full amount.
Comment — August 9, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Raoul, if any of the data was essential to my business or perhaps lets say irreplaceable photos of my kids I might consider it. It still will take time for me to “re-collect” and organize the music and movies I had, a major inconvenience.
I’ll bet that WD and most manufacturers of drives have a clause in the literature that absolves them from any ancillary damages beyond the drive itself. I think that WD should recover people’s data from free if the drive fails within a certain time frame. Also the problem with a class action lawsuit is that the attorneys make a killing and the plaintiffs end up with a $3 check or a coupon for future product purchases.
If the price of recovery was half of what it is then I’ll bet that industry would double but the prices are really high and I’ll tell you, other places were telling me 2k-4k. A huge factor screwing me over was setting my drive as raid-0, that was a giant mistake. I did a lot of research on data recovery, there is a good series I mentioned on another similar blog that I found incredibly enlightening and helpful.
All of the data places said that they see every brand of drive coming back, not one place would endorse a particular brand. I think the key is redundancy and perhaps sticking with simpler single platter capacities. Of course to facilitate this potential recovery I went out and bought a $195 Lacie 750gb quad interface, and will probably build another 500gb or 750gb for a redundant backup. I will try to sell the WD warranty replacement if I can get a sealed unit or I’ll open the case and add my own fan….and never use raid-0!
Thanks for setting up this page and sorry we all had to congregate under these circumstances.
Comment — August 9, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
Greg, I’m glad to see you’re keeping cool about this. I know it would frustrate me to no end if I were in your shoes.
I’m using the WD Studio Edition drive (the one they gave me as a replacement) in RAID 0 mode, but I’m backing it up with Time Machine to a Drobo, at the very least daily, if not hourly. I use it in RAID 0 because I do a lot of photo editing and some video editing as well, and I want to get the best performance I can out of it (also have it connected with Firewire 800 to my MBP). I knew ahead of time what I was getting into when I set it at RAID 0, and your experience only reinforced it.
So yeah, my advice to people running any drive in RAID 0 is to back that thing up daily, and to not be surprised when they lose data. RAID 0 gives you better performance than a single-platter drive, but you can also pay through your nose for that performance when things go bad.
Comment — August 9, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
I agree that for your needs raid-0 is the way to go, and that dorbo sounds like a good back up strategy, but how much slower would it be if you just ran off the drobo instead? I just read a bit about drobo so not totally grasping it.
Also, I would take the MyBook case apart or at the very least elevate the unit and add a fan.
In some ways what happened to me was poetic justice for the riaa! I had my 80gb of itunes perfect, only a few missing tracks but I knew about them, I’ve had time to calm down but could still get in a rage! I had some items for my demo reel on the drive but I’m pretty sure I can rebuild it, and been out of the biz for too long to matter much.
Comment — August 9, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
It’d be plenty slow. The Drobo is USB 2.0, and the read rate for my Drobo, which is v1, (not v2, the one with Firewire) is about 24 MB/s, which is probably a best-conditions estimate. I work in Lightroom to edit RAW files, which are about 12-15 MB per file, and when I worked off the Drobo, it was painfully slow to sit there while the file would get read. And when I needed to browse through my photo library, there would be delays as I browsed while the thumbnails and previews would be cached off the Drobo. So that’s not an option for me.
I’ve been putting the My Book Studio drive through the paces, even writing (sustained) about 300 GB in one go to it (on two separate occasions), making no special accommodations for it on my desk, and it’s done great so far. No hiccups, no data loss, no shut-offs, just reliable performance. I tell you, my expectations were really low after my experience with the My Book Pro, but it’s done great so far.
Comment — August 9, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
I’ve managed to finally get the drive to work exactly as I expect it, but the conditions are sometimes hard to maintain at a hundred percent.
If I want to use drive, it HAS to be off when I power the computer up. Only after the OS has loaded can I plug it in. If it’s plugged in when the computer is turned on, it will then go in blow-dryer mode and overheat and shut down. After letting it cool off, plugging it back in only makes the problem repeat itself endlessly.
I bought it for RAID-1 capabilities, as now I have 750GB of files safely copied on two SATA hard drives. If worse comes to worst, I can open the unit, find out which hard drive went bad with an external USB to SATA device, and claim my replacement drive from Amazon (1 year) and WD (3 years).
Also, I’ve noticed I must try not to let the drive be inactive for over 30 minutes, as it might not be found by the OS immediately since it needs to spin up. This can cause 30 second delays, which some software does not tolerate waiting on and crashes.
Comment — August 9, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
Raoul, I didn’t know about the drobo and it’s slow speeds, that is a bit of a drag but at least it seems like a stable backup platform. It sounds like the new WD unit is performing well, I’d still be very wary but that seems like good news.
Did WD send you a new warranty replacement drive or a used one? I was planning on selling whatever they sent me but if they are reliable then I’d keep it and use the Lacie 750quad as a backup.
Nico Guevara, better start backing up your data, my drive started doing the same thing before the clicks of death.
Comment — August 10, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
Greg, they sent me neither. I don’t think what they did for me is standard practice for the My Book Pro edition users. They sent me a brand new My Book Studio Edition drive, no strings attached. If you’re in contact with WD about a replacement for your drive, please get them to clarify exactly what you’ll get for a replacement. I have a feeling it’s not going to be a Studio drive, but a refurbished Pro drive. Check to make sure.
Comment — August 10, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
I’ll make a point of that, I still have to get my drives returned from Ontrack, then I’m moving so I’ll have to wait a few weeks before dealing with WD. I’ll post back as things progress and again thanks for setting this up! I think there is a link to your page through wikipedia!
Comment — August 10, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
I bought book world edition II 2TB one week ago. It is extremely slow.
By default, this box is set to a linear mode. I tried to change it to RAID1. The formating process started but never finished.
Won’t buy anything by WD.
Comment — August 15, 2008 @ 7:21 am
Hi!
Raoul, can you please change the end of the article from recommending MzBook Studio to recommending MzBook Studio II _
Thez are different models.
PS> Anz idea whz Windows changes mz kezboard lazout to US when tzping here ??? I removed “US” in Control Panel / Regional Settings / Keyboard and it worked OK for 3 or 4 words, then it switched back to US. But the control panel does not show US any more, so I can even remove it. Well, I guess that is something for another blog entrz …
Comment — August 18, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
Oh, anyone using the eSATA connector ? My Studio Edition 500GB has big problems with it.
Regards,
David
Comment — August 18, 2008 @ 4:50 pm
Just corrected the post, thanks! As for the keyboard layout issue, I have no idea; I guess it’s one of those Windows things…
Comment — August 18, 2008 @ 4:59 pm
Raoul, another update, I opted for the advance RMA option, essentially you buy the replacement drive and return the defective unit and they credit your account. I just received the replacement moments ago, it is a 2Tb MyBook Pro2 and appears to be new or at least a very clean refurbed unit.
I was considering selling whatever they sent me on ebay and making my own drive, I regret opening the plastic bag it came in but I looked on ebay and don’t see any of these units selling so that probably would be a lost cause. Well great it is a 2Tb so if it is set to raid-1 at least if something screws up I shouldn’t be hosed and I’ll have the 1Tb capacity.
Comment — August 18, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
Greg, glad to hear they’re at least replacing the 1TB drives with 2TB ones. I think the reputation of the Pro line is so bad nowadays that you wouldn’t get any decent amount of money for them, so using it would be the best option. And yeah, RAID 1 is the way to go.
Comment — August 18, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
I agree, I was bummed as I did want to get rid of this and assemble my own drive. The WD MBP2 ships as raid-0 by default, I used the WD raid manager to change that to raid-1, it is nice to at least have 1Tb capacity and two drives inside that are mirrored. I guess if I have a problem in the future I can put the “good” drive in an enclosure and still have the data.
My plan is to have two externals as backups and matched, the WD will hold my iTunes, again, and be used everyday since the lacie seems like a better more stable unit. When I was cloning from the lacie to the new WD, the WD got very warm. If you look at the case its very restrictive, I stopped the process and took the back off and the cage cover to access the drives and used two pens to sit the drive on in an attempt to increase airflow. The next plan for it is to add a quiet and sizable fan to the top or bottom and perhaps permanently modify the case.
I’ll post later for a status of this pig, hopefully it’ll be alive!
Comment — August 19, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
This fan idea I had seems to be keeping this drive very cool, the metal cage on top is cold to the touch. I bought the $18 115v, 120×120cm, 68cfm fan and used some 2″ #8 screw and nuts to act as legs and I just sat the WD drive directly on top of the fan so it’s blowing up from the bottom. I did take that super restrictive crappy plastic morse coded cover off, that helped but I could still feel a decent amount of heat, hopefully that’ll extend this pigs life. I’ll do a more permanent setup after I move and am settled in.
Comment — August 23, 2008 @ 2:44 am