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Repair and service information for Western Digital's line of WD Elements Desktop USB external hard drives. Available in 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB, and 14TB configurations.

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Why is my device not turning on anymore?

Dear ifixit-Community,

I do have one of this WG-elements Desktop external Hard-Drives and suddenly it stopped working. It didn’t fall down or nothing. When I connect it, the control-light doesn’t switch on. Windows doesn’t recognize, nor plays the USB-Plugin-Sound anymore.

I’m shure that Cable and Power-Connectors are fine, I do have another one of this machines and it works fine but on the broken ones I stored important data.

Happy Greetings from Hamburg :-)

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Sadly it sounds like the power logic internally of the drive needs repairs. You stated you have another exact same drive can you first get a new drive which is large enough to transfer your data to (I would get an SSD this time)

  • So what you’ll do is first back up your currently working drive to the new drive
  • Now carefully open the drive cases (both) keep track which is which!
  • Take the working drive out of the case and put the non-working drive in
  • Now before putting back together does the dead drive now work?
  • If it does I would look at getting one more new drive (SSD) to then back it up.

Sadly drives fail, so its important to have multiple copies of your important stuff. I use a set of drives which I rotate and I even have one in a safely deposit box at a bank just in case something happens within my home. I also use cloud storage for my purchased media and when I travel light I use it for my general snaps from my phone.

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OP is screwed if the controller is shot - 2010+ has a encryption key. I know with a lot of the older Ware drives that you can buy one that's the same from another source, "shuck" in your original drive and be good but I do not know about the more recent Ware drives.

Still worth a shot on the newer ones, especially if you can get your hands on an enclosure from a shucked drive. Just ask for the model on the back to make sure it's the same or as close as possible.

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Dear Dan,

thanks for your reply! It worked out the way you described it.

Best, Hauke

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@Hauke Lorenz - Happy to hear you got the drive working! Don't forget to accept the answer - Thanks

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Hauke Lorenz crwdns2934231:0crwdne2934231:0
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