Western Digital My Book Essential Edition (WDG1U5000N) 500 GB Hard Drive Logo
Posted on Dec 18, 2007
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My Book makes clicking noise and does not show up anymore

Help! I have all my files on MY Book and until today it worked great...now it clicks when I plug it in and my computer does not seem to recognize it anymore. What can I do??? Thank you for all the help! Merry Christmas!

  • 37 more comments 
  • massdestruct Dec 20, 2007

    I am having same problem, it sounds like the drive can not start up for some reason.

  • Cooler Dec 22, 2007

    Hi,

    Same here, clicking and doesn't show up in windows. Does anyone know the mechanics of this problem? is it a dead drive?

    e.

  • Anonymous Dec 23, 2007

    Same exact thing for me starting today. I have the 500GB USB.

  • ssscott78 Dec 24, 2007

    Yep, same here..and I really need the files from it. I've had My book for less than 7 months. Clicking noise non-stop. I've needed to restore my files and had tons of errors, but was at least able to recover most of them. However, as of today, it won't even show up under My computer. The USB ports are functioning properly and the driver diagnostic tool says it's fine as well. My Book does not show up and therefore, I cannot access any of my backed up files. What should I do? I'm desperate here...

  • Kwintzy Dec 24, 2007

    Same thing happened to me today (Dec 24, 2007). Any ideas why so many are failing at the same time?

  • Reardon145 Dec 24, 2007

    same problem! i really need a solution....and fast!

  • Cooler Dec 26, 2007

    Folks,

    Update from me is that WD will replace my drive, although it will take 3-4 weeks as it is going back via the retailer.

    I've done some research on clicking drives and it is indeed a sign of permanent failure. In my case the problem was intermittent so I managed to get the files out before sending the drive back.

    I would like to know how common this problem is, as it introduces a level of insecurity into backing up files which seems to defeat the object.




  • darcyzero Dec 29, 2007

    Had the same problem starting today!! I bought the HD back in April!! I lost 500GB worth of data. Thankfully it wasn't anything super important but its still annoying. I noticed the HD was acting weird a few days ago but I didn't think much of it. Then today it was coming up as LocalDisk and I got an error when I tried to access it. I did some research and tried chkdsk, It worked! I was able to get to the HD and back up some of the important files that I had on there. Then as I'm backing it up the HD dies. I start it up again, this time it buzzes a little.. and then CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. I restart it.. it powers on.. usb works.. and then the drive just clicks. I guess WD was serving up a bad line of HDs 6-8mo ago and we all got "lucky".

  • kjmac6 Dec 29, 2007

    I tried plugging it into a different computer and it worked fine. I
    unplugged it from that computer and put it into my original computer.
    Still did not work, so I plugged it back into the second computer and
    it did not work there the second time. Went though 5 computers and it
    happened each and every time. Worked the first time I installed it on
    a computer and then didn't work after that. Even tried to reformat the
    drive and it worked for 2 days. After putting all my files back on, it
    failed again. Just a bad product! Try a new computer, get your files
    off and return it to where every you got it. Line forms here!

  • aswudgeta Dec 30, 2007

    I'm having the same problem with mine. mine's a 250 GB. It didn't come with installation software, just had to plug in. The problem started yesterday, first it started making a clicking sounded, then it locked up. I shut my computer down, but the drive would not shut off, I had to unplug. tried hooking up to 2 other computers, starts makes clicking sound, and thats it. It won't even shut off with you push the button.

  • amanda17 Jan 02, 2008

    THis is the exact same problem I have had, the drive has worked like a charm for a year, now today it doesn't show up on the drive list, and there is that clicking sound. I need the data, of course. And sooner, rather than later, of course.



    I'm not even sure where is the best place to go to have the best chance of getting the data?

  • Mgraine Jan 03, 2008

    I have the same Problem my 500gig MY Book just clicks and will not show up ...this is the 2nd one to do that the first one I finaly got to show up after pluging and unpluging it for hours got my data off it but the 2nd one will not work ....I am never buying WD HD's again I had it full of data now I cant access it at all.

  • Dinotsi Jan 09, 2008

    Got up to get something out of the living room while my laptop restarted and came back to listen to some music on my laptop. The drive turned back on and I heard 3 clicks and then the light on the drive started flashing. I restarted it 6 times and it repeated the same clicks and then light flashing. I knew it probably crashed at that point --- or did it?

    what do I do?

  • erokocho Jan 22, 2008

    My Book crapped out on me too. I was copying a file over to it the other night and got an error message saying "Error Performing Inpage Operation". I used Active File Recovery to get a lot of the data off of it before it froze up on me a second time. Now I can't access any of the data at all. It now just clicks when I turn it on. Is the thing fried or what? I really don't want to lose my music collection that I had on the HDD. What are my options?

  • bradman1479 Feb 08, 2008

    I can't no longer access MY Book. When I turn it on, all I can hear is the 3 annoying clicking noise and it goes idle....my computer see it as USB device connected but I can't see the hard drive or access it!!!

  • emhol Apr 23, 2008

    I have the same problem. The three clicking sounds and then it goes idle. My Powerbook doesn't detect the harddrive at all. I'm very happy for all the tips on what to do and I will sure try them all until I find a soloution. 3 years of my life is on that stupid thing!

  • bushell23 May 11, 2008

    Same problem here. Mine clicks 6 times then gives up.

  • prozim May 12, 2008

    Hello,


    My My Book makes the same clicking noises. I have a My Book Essential Edition external hard drive (Western
    Digital, model WD5000C032). My computer is a HP Compaq dx2200
    Microtower with Windows XP and Pentium 4 processor. The hard drive
    always showed up as an E drive. Now, it is not showing up at all. No
    drivers are needed for install. I went to the Western Digital website,
    but did not find any updates that needed to be installed. I've
    restarted the computer and tried plugging the drive into every USB port
    that I have, but none of this has worked. Fortunately, I had everything
    backed up on my computer's hard drive as well, so I don't need to recover the data. I'd just like to be able to continue to back up my data on an external hard drive without buying a new one, although I can if I have to. Any ideas?



    Kevin

    [email protected]

  • shonky1 May 31, 2008

    I have the same problem with mine. Turn it on and you can hear three distinked clicking noises before going into idle. It no longer appears through windows explorer. Good work Western Digital!!

  • scritchy Aug 02, 2008

    three clicks and nothing. the power button does nothing. wd stands for whata drag!

  • jimhollis Aug 02, 2008

    When powering on I consistently get this pattern - The drive spins up... I hear six clicks... the drive spins down... the drive spins up... I hear two clicks... the drive spins down... the drive spins up... I hear two clicks... the drive spins down and stays down.

  • Anonymous Aug 06, 2008

    I have the same problem, tried all the fixes here and then dismantled using the Ransackery site plugged it into my PC still have the clicking so i would guess its the reading head not initiallizing. I think we have all learnt something from this 1) back up everything thats Important to DVD or CD 2) Never ever trust HARDWARE! 3) have a box of tissues next to the PC for your tears when said hardware breaks lol. 4) Don't buy WD!

  • aric719 Aug 17, 2008

    I have the same problem

  • Anonymous Sep 19, 2008

    I have the exactly same problem. Argh!

  • rkirsch Sep 19, 2008

    My Book is also making clicking noises and my computer will not recognize it.

  • cmadt Oct 18, 2008

    I just lost my second My Book.Same clicking noise both times.
    First one after six months, second only lasted three.
    And no, It's not the power supplies.
    WD's RMA process is easy. But I'll never trust a WD drive again.


  • magedarkness Nov 03, 2008

    I have the same problem! After about 6 months, the drive started clicking and I couldnt get any data off of it. I left it alone for 5 months, and then tried it again. It started working again! I dont know what happened in that 5 months, but it worked. After about another 6 months, it started clicking again. I did the usb stick idea, and that worked for about 3 days, now, nothing again.

  • imascarman Nov 08, 2008

    Drive just keeps clicking....I followed the steps to take the drive out of it's enclosure and put it in my other computer as a secondary internal drive and it still clicks and stops spinning. The device manager shows a second disk drive but doesn't know what it is. Doesn't show up in explorer. I really need to get some of that data off. This was my backup but had recently been storing data on it only as I was going to rebuild the computer it was attached to and then dump it all back down to the PC. So much for trusting WD My Book to be my reliable backup...I'll never buy WD anything again!

  • Anonymous Dec 16, 2008

    ive had my 400 gig for nearly 3.5 years now. yesterday for the first time it was not recognized by my laptop. I hear the same clicking when trying to power up. Luckily its not completely dead and with patience it will eventually power all the way up. Although it has not lasted more than six hours, i was able to transfer all my data to a new hardrive. im still looking for a fix though.

  • Anonymous Jan 16, 2009

    Same problem as everyone with the 3-3-2-2 clicks. No solution up to now. Still hoping to get my data back.

  • Anonymous Jan 20, 2009

    Same problem here, at least it lasted for a year or so... no more WD's for me either...

  • swoan Jan 31, 2009

    Today for the first time I've encountered the same problem.  It just kept making a weird clicking noise and my computer no longer recognizes it.  I am a photographer and I used this to back up my images.  I need help.

  • andrewsleon Mar 10, 2009

    Same thing! Computor won't recognise it and it has clicking noises!

  • Anonymous Mar 20, 2009

    same exact problem. I've been holding on to my drive for a year now hoping to finda solution...

  • proton5111 Mar 21, 2009

    it clicks to show that its reading it bt does not recognise it anymore....this then makes my pc un responsive

  • Anonymous Apr 05, 2009

    I've got the click. Tried everything ( except the freezer solution ) nothing works. i'm frustrated

  • Anonymous Apr 24, 2009

    Mine lasted a little over two years. I had noticed it would run continuously sometimes and I tried to remember to make sure to turn it off manually, but then it started turning off every few hours, then finally the clicking began.

    I've got it in the freezer now hoping I can get it to work one last time. After that I will tear it apart and try to hook it up with the SATA.

  • Anonymous Apr 30, 2009

    WD My Book 500GB. Six clicks, stops spinning, light stays on. Not recognized by Toshiba A6, WP pro.

  • scgshit66 May 24, 2009

    my book doesnt show up when i plug it into my computer its makes the sound that lets me know its connected but it doe not show up in my computer

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THIS WORKS....Here try this...unplug everything including the power cable...press and hold the button on the unit for 10 seconds. after that hook the unit back in the power cord first..and it should work...files and everythin are there...I got this from tech support and it worked for me

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  • Posted on Aug 08, 2008
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OMGOMGOMG!!! PAY ATTENTION! I have been depressed all day reading these reports on the click of deat. I had the same noises in the same 6-2-2 pattern. As i contemplated suicide i decided to fiddle round with the cables and it miraculously came back to life!!!!

1) Unplug everything

2) plug in the power cord yo your wall outlet and make sure its flush

3) plug in the adapter to your hard drive

4) Press the on button (this is where it gets exciting)

5) i heard one click and the drive started running

6) in nervous anticipation plug in you Usb cord to your hard drive

7) praise whatever god you want that your hard drive has risen from the grave!!!!!

  • 2 more comments 
  • kati3_09 Sep 30, 2010

    This was so helpful, I'm usually pretty good with computers, but for some reason, unplugging it never occurred to me, although I have the 1TB MyBook Essential Edition 2.0 using with Vista, so it does not have a button on it, but worked the same. Before it malfunctioned I was moving large files(multiple files that happened to be kinda big) and so I now know to take it slower on it. I was very disappointed in the WD website, there was no help found there what so ever and so I decided to Google and search forums before I would email them. When I typed in the keywords for the Vista pop up of this drive is malfunctioning, it simply told me that my hard drive was screwed and I had to buy another one. I also tried to download drivers and it would not let me, and I think I had to register it, although I bought it a year ago. I am done rambling now, but thank you very much for this ! It helped me from having a nervous breakdown!

  • Zen Martinsen
    Zen Martinsen May 23, 2014

    OK I was sitting here contemplating suicide and found this page. Thought... wow... others are comtemplating the same thing. My WD Book Ext HD was doing 6 clicks then 2 then 2 then nothin. I undid everything and used the wall socket. I only used the power cord. No USB was attached. I pulled up a chair next to the wall and prepared to spend the evening trying to raise the drive from the dead. I started powering up. 6-2-2-dead. Repeat. Then I Held the power button in for 10-15 sec after pulling the cord from the wall after it had died again. After about 8 cycles of doing this... I noticed the unit did not automatically come on with the light around the power button. So that was different. Then I had to turn the unit on witht he button. I realized it had been awhile since I had to turn it on that way. My guess is that holding in the button after pulling the power source is dumping any built up chargein the unit. After a few more repeats of the new turing on and then 6-2-2 clocksx.... lo and behold.... OMG! YES! YES!!!!!!! It started to power up and not click. It was trying to turn on. It took two more cycles to get it to go on and then I added the usb in my tower. Yes, tower. Old school. I turned on the pc and held my breath. There it was. That beautiful book showing up and allm y files are there.

  • Zen Martinsen
    Zen Martinsen May 23, 2014

    Needless to say, I think I am buying a new ext HD tomorrow after work. I am supposed to be working on a website tonight but instead I am transferring years of photography files over. THANK YOU AKIM211. Your info helped me get back my files and set down the Glock. It is so devastating to think you have lost all your files. Tears, nausea, panic. not a fun night but it seems things are ok again. Thank you again AKIM211.

  • SallyInce
    SallyInce Mar 24, 2022

    I have often had a similar problem and this method works but as practice has shown not always, still makes noises. Also there was a problem with saving data and reading them. Unfortunately hard disks tend to fail and there is nothing you can do about it.
    I had the unfortunate experience of losing data on a very important project for a website with ready essay sample homework assignments.
    I think I have to go to a cloud storage service, though it is inconvenient.

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I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM ... CLICKING ... CLICKING ... CLICKING ... THEN I BOUGHT A NEW EXTERNAL WD 500 GB HD TRYING TO SAVE SOME DATA, BUT OOps IT'S NOT MOVING NOR COPYING, AND THEN BY MISTAKE MISS PLUGGED THE OLD EXTERNAL WD 350 HD WITH THE NEW ONE MINI USB CABLE, AND IT WORKS ... YES JUST IT WORKS WITH NO NOISE OR CLICKS, THANK YOU FOR THIS GREAT WEBSITE.

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Ok, my myBook started making the 3-clicks...3-clicks. The drive is dead. It is now a race against time to save your data. Believe it or not, this worked (once) for me. Put the drive in the freezer and then plug it in while its cold. Ice cold. I had mine in the freezer for like 2 days. Make sure you have another drive to transfer the data to as this trick worked for me once and only once. I tried to put it back in the freezer and it is just clicking now. This is actually an old hard drive data recovery trick. It has nothing to do with the myBook in particular.
I have been a loyal Western Digital customer for years. This drive is about 18 months old; warranty just expired. I have been reading online and it seems many people are experiencing drive failures immediately after the warranty expires. I will never buy Western Digital again. Buy Maxtor - 5 Year Warranty on my new OneTouch!

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My Book just did this today, was working before lunch, died after I got back. Click click clik! Found this online:
http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-mybook-open-case-recover-data.htm

I think mine is a power issue, so I'm going to try this as soon as I get back home and have access to phillips screwdriver and get extra sata cable.

I need an external with a higher crash rating anyway, like a solid steel case or rubber so it'll bounce next time I drop it. You'd think the my book was steel for all its weight.

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I have a 500 gb My Book Premium Edition WD5000N that wouldn't show up and was continuously clicking every 1-2 seconds. I discovered it as soon as it started to malfunction and tried several ways to get it to show up on the MAC Desktop by trying different cables/computers/USB versus Firewire/turning on and off multiple times/using DiskWarrior and Disk Utility/Applejjack to do repairs for about an hour or so. Nothing worked. The disk wouldn't show up on the Desktop and continued to click.

I then read about others who removed the hard drive from the external unit and mounted the drive internally so I decided to try this.

Mine differed from these enclosures:

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/7/t819501-how-to-take-apart-your-wd-mybook/

http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-mybook-open-case-recover-data.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FlySnyJ0CQ

It is closest to this one:
http://www.sigg3.net/b2perma.php?p=1185&c=1 but no rubber band - only glued on metal cover.

I had to destroy the case to get the hard drive out as mine differed from the ones described above (and they are not built to take apart!!!!). First there are no external screws. Pry off the metal perforated grill that covers the back of the unit. This is just glued on. Instead of a rubber gasket, my unit had vinyl that was all part of one piece so I couldn't peal off the gasket. Taking off the metal perforated grill reveals 3 tabs on the bottom (these were covered up) plus the readily apparent 3 tabs on the top. Press these down and hold them down by wedging something in the perforations. On the long edge close to the connectors, pry outward with a screw driver since there are tabs here that prevent you from sliding the hard drive out. Then try to slide out the hard drive away from the metal skin. This method is based on the disassembled unit. I had to pry the whole plastic unit away from the metal front casing so if the above method doesn't work, try brute force (just don't pry on the hard drive.

One you get the plastic holder away from the metal front piece, take out every screw you can see. Be careful with the flat screw that holds the on/off switch (if your unit has one) since this is easy to strip. Take out the 4 screws holding the SATA circuitry to the hard drive and unplug the wires, the 3 screws holding the front switch, and the 4 screws holding the hard drive to the plastic piece. This allows you to remove the metal holder and the hard drive. Now take off the 4 screws that hold the hard drive in place. Then pry off the silicone washers. This releases the hard drive which is covered with a metal film. Carefully pry/peal this off. Don't damage the controller board.

This revealed a WD5000ks caviar drive se16 which is a SATA drive made April 22, 2006.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

No jumpers were installed.

I installed the drive into the internal slot of my PowerMac G5 and it now shows up on the desktop. I rebuilt the drive with Disk Warrior (it had minor errors) and checked it with SMARTReporter which reports that the drive passes the SMART tests.

It's has been up for 5 hours and works fine, no data loss.

So, I think that the problem was with a defective SATA connector/circuit. If you catch the drive early when it begins clicking (don't leave it on long with it clicking as this may mess up the hard drive heads), you can remove the drive and use the SATA circuits in your computer to mount the drive.

Hope this helps. Again, my advice is the minute you hear the clicking sounds, try fixing via usual techniques but if these don't work, take the hard drive out of the enclosure (sooner rather than later) and try it internally. This will void your warranty but might allow you to save your data (and maybe even the hard drive).

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My issue was in fact a USB power problem. The WD drive works fine on my (1 year XP old) Dell and iMac but will not work on my old Powerbook G4. The only activity I get is a clicking sound and a continious flashing blue light indicator. I will try the dual-head USB cable option to see if that helps.

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  • Posted on Jul 11, 2012
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I've owned a WD 1T My WorldBook external hard drive for 3 years. It worked fine until 10 days ago when after a thunderstorm near by and the power went off the unit would not restart. Symptoms were when you plugged it in the blue circular light would flash then nothing except a repetitive but soft clicking sound inside the unit. I deduced that the two hard drive were trying to boot up but could not. Instead of thinking that both hard drives had gone bad I thought maybe the power supply had just enough no hard load juice in it to flash the light on the hard drive unit when plugged in but not enough to power up the drives. The power supply block light was on and my DC meter would indicate 12VDC when it was not plugged into the drive unit. But I had no easy way to measure the voltage out of the power supply under load, i.e., plugged into the drive unit. SO, I decided to buy a new 12VDC 4A power supply block for $12 plus $4 S&H and try to see if it was a weak power supply. I got the new power supply block today. I plugged it in and the WD My World Book unit powered right up and is working fine. So, if your unit won't start up and you hear repetitive clicking sounds coming out of it, consider the power supply being weak as the culprit. That was the problem with mine. And $16 for a new power block was a cheap and simple fix and well worth it. Hopes this helps some others facing a WD WorldBook unit that won't start up and just makes repetitive clicking sounds when plugged in, even if the blue light does not flash momentarily. Try replacing the power block first before, i.e., the simple things first, it's like checking to see if a unit is plugged in if it don't turn on. :-) best wishes

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  • Chris Aug 05, 2013

    Charles, Thank you so much. I submitted a request for a quote but then decided to keep reading these postings. I came across yours and grabbed another power supply as you suggested. It worked on my WD My Book. You just saved me a lot of stress and time. So thank you. I got my data back and now I am in a better mood! I also do not have to waste my time trying to disassemble the case or spend money trying to get the data recovered. I guess I am glad that the power cord has the adapted box on it as this may have protected my hard drive from a surge or something....or maybe it is just cheap! Again Thank You and your deserve the BEST WISHES!

  • Chris Aug 05, 2013

    I bet people who had issues and solved them by unplugging everything and replugging stuff in also have an underlying power cord issue. Thanks again!

  • Chris Aug 05, 2013

    Charles, Thank you so much. I submitted a request for a quote but then decided to keep reading these postings. I came across yours and grabbed another power supply as you suggested. It worked on my WD My Book. You just saved me a lot of stress and time. So thank you. I got my data back and now I am in a better mood! I also do not have to waste my time trying to disassemble the case or spend money trying to get the data recovered. I guess I am glad that the power cord has the adapted box on it as this may have protected my hard drive from a surge or something....or maybe it is just cheap! Again Thank You and your deserve the BEST WISHES!

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Every answer is basically the same. Unplug. Try again. Unplug. Try again. Repeat until it works. It might take like 20 tries like it did for me.

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  • Posted on Mar 14, 2010
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I too have recently had this problem. I took the drive apart, and inserted it into a my PC, but the clicking didn't stop and the computer wouldn't boot with this failed drive set as a slave drive. The BIOS on my PC wouldn't recognise it, though did manage to say it was a WD drive much to my surprise. So then I decided to run it out of the PC lying FLAT on a table (still connected to IDE and power within the PC though). I noticed after turning it on and off multiple times, that on one time, it stopped clicking. So I put it back into the USB enclosure supplied originally, and plugged it into another PC and it recognised it. I immediately have xcopied off my data, and since screwing it back properly into the USB housing, it's stopped working again.

Therefore, perhaps running it flat and letting it run like that after the 6-2-2 clicking, may have just helped it a bit.

Anyway, data has been saved which I'm so happy about, now drive is going nowhere else but the bin.

Regards,
PC

  • Chris Oct 03, 2015

    I bought a new power supply which made the clicking louder. The power supply may have been a part of the issues as the original power supply made another WD drive I had click as well but the new supply I bought started the other WD drive up fine. Anyways, I took my clicking WD drive with the new power supply and turned it on its side like this post recommends. The hard drive works now and I am copying my information. Thank you so much.

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Clicking is usually caused by bad heads and in this case drive needs heads swapped by a pro.
Check out this page with sounds hard drives make with problems explanation. Hope it helps.

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Sounded like mine was dead too. spent a day just plugging in the power and turning it on and then back off whenever i heard the second click. watched die hard 2 and after about the fiftieth time i heard only one click. so while it mite not be dead i think you casn get another run at. it done shutdown after being on for a few hours tho. but i managed to copy all the data before that. so just try turning it on and off a bunch of times and it should eventually kick back on long enough for you to maybe extract your data. a solution for those less tech savvy unable to open up there hard drives.

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  • Posted on May 14, 2017
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I had the same problem... Drive would spin up for a while with a few clicks and then spin down. A few seconds later, the same sequence would occur. Of course, the drive never showed up in Windows. For me, this was a power problem. I moved the power supply to a better outlet and everything worked. This change will not fix everyone's problem(s). However, it did work for me. Note that I got the idea of switching outlets from a WD forum. The WD forum suggested directly plugging the power supply into the wall. Good idea.

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  • Posted on Mar 01, 2012
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I've been having the clicking problem for months, couldnt get it to work no matter what I tried so I gave up and figured it was dead. Decided to give it another try today and just spent the last 20 minutes unplugging it and plugging it back in with the clicks still happening every time, until I just started shaking it lightly while it was powering up, got 2 clicks and then it started working. Transferring all my data now, I WILL NEVER GET ANOTHER MY BOOK.

  • Chris Aug 05, 2013

    Mandee, see Charles's suggestion and get a new power cord.

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I plugged another power adapter into my 160 GB MyBook, only it turnes out that this was a 12V AC 1.67 amp adapter instead of the 12V DC 2 amp adapter. The hard drive green circle light on/off didn't come on all the way, but flickered faintly. I left it this way for about a minute, then plugged the proper adapter in. Then, the hard drive worked and I was able to transfer the data to my new hard drive.
I had tried unplugging/plugging in the hard drive and shutting/restarting down the computer with the hard drive attached many times previously without success. I only heard the 6-2-2- clicking of the hard drive and the computer wouldn't read the hard drive.

A

Anonymous

Ok, I got it. its a plug and play driver issue. I had the same problem and just considered it dead. Recently I had to do a complete reinstall of windows on my laptop and when I plugged in the Mybook it reinstalled its plug and play driver and worked. Lasted about 1 week and has died again. If you desperately need your data back you'll need to reinstall windows and it will work.

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This might be a good thing to check before you start voiding warranties, opening cases, or panicking, AND if you have recently reorganised your setup.
I found that my drive was making the dreaded clicking noise about once per second when I turned it on, and that it was not recognised by the computer. I later discovered that I had plugged in the WRONG power cable. The MyBook was plugged into the seemingly identical cord for a cable modem that I have. The current and voltage were different so of course, the disk didn't work. Funnily enough, the cable modem worked fine. Switching the cables back solved everything.
So as a first guess, assume your own stupidity is at fault - mine was.

  • thirtyeyes May 15, 2011

    This just happened to me. I moved and stuffed several devices into a box. I hooked it up with the wrong power supply and the drive whirred, then clicked and then repeated. I opened the case and was about to disassemble when I read this post. I found an almost identical power cable in the box, plugged it in and the drive worked perfectly. This, however, has taught me a lesson, I am going to go buy another drive. These things break down too easy.

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Anonymous

My my Book 160G was clicking-spinup-spindown-clicking spinup-spindown-turnoff and was not recognized.Thanks to the above post from Janeydoey with this link! (and Thanks Again!)
http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-mybook-open-case-recover-data.htm
I was able to recover all data. Mine had an IDE connector instead of the SATA in the article. There was no clicking going on while connected to the computers power supply and IDE. This was a lot cheaper than the $790 quote I got for data recovery!

  • TechRx Inc http://techrxgb.com

    I used TechRxhttp://techrxgb.com they swapped the heads of my western digital WD3200JS and I was good to go! 920.884.1195

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A

Anonymous

I don't have a fix for the problems with the WD MyBook 500GB drive (my issue is very similar to many listed here), but I do have a solution on how to extract data when you can't access it. I found a program called GetDataBack that I used to pull all the data off my drive. It took roughly 17 hours for 104 GB of music, video and other files, but at least I got it off of there.

WD's support is a joke. I'll just pay the 50 extra bucks and get a better drive next time.

A

Anonymous

Same happened to me this morning (Christmas). My Books generally come with a 3-year warranty, so let me know if any of you manage to get ahold of Western Digital support for a replacement. I currently can get onto their website, it appears down for my area.

I've read that if you need the files they refer you to a third-party disc recovery service that starts at $500 and goes higher to retrieve the files. Sounds like a hell of a scam. Sell a $150 500GB drive, have it break in 3-6 months, then charge $500 to get the files off. Turns quite a profit.

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/selection.asp?custtype=end

A

Anonymous

Hi, I have a potential solution to this problem. I don't know if it will work for everyone, I just know it worked for me.

I had the same problem as everyone here. The MyBook wouldn't be recognised by the computer. Fornutately for me I was merely moving file using it, so I wasn't totally screwed. I figured I'd just move less files at a time.
So, I plugged in my USB stick and low and behold, my system starting recognising the MyBook as well!
My guess is that plugging in a USB device that's not so unstable woke the system up and made it look harder at the USB ports.

So, there you have it. Like I said, I don't know if this will work for anyone else, but I thought I'd put it up here in case it did.

Signed
sgh

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My Book 320GB makes a clicking noise only with Vist or Windows 7.

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Have a look at the link below, it should be of help.

Click HERE to navigate.

Please feel free to let me know of you have any further questions.

Kind regards
Lock123
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