My money or my life....

Aiadi

Just had my 500GB NAS Western Digital hard drive dying on me. It is still within the one year warranty but I don't want to sent it back with the huge amount of personal data stored on it. Have I lost my money? and what shall I do??? I am starting to get a bit panicky but what is keeping the lid on things is that I have most of my vital data backed up although I would still lose a lot of files.

leboof

Is it possible to use it for a little longer or is it completely dead? Not sure what you mean by 'dying on me'. If so, how about encrypting your data with a piece of freeware.

OR

Can you backup personal data to pen/external drive and the securely delete it from the dying drive?

Now that I've written this it seems a bit obvious and stupid of me, sorry.:o

Okay, on another tact, maybe you could contact Western and asking them about your privicy and gaurantees of this?

Aiadi

It seems like it is spinning but the blue ring (if you have seen one) is completely off, some ominous clicking sound could be heard and the drive does not appear on the network and ca not be mapped. I have emailed WD but it seems from looking at their forum that all I'll get is the automated reply. As I can't access the drive then it is impossible to transfer or delete any files and it feels like I am held to ransom as I can't return it to Amazon with all the stuff on it.

hc25036

I had this with the same model - in my case overheating so that the fan failed and took out some component on the motherboard in the enclosure. The hard drive was OK though. You can get the disc out (Google for instructions), install it as a slave in your PC (or in an external USB enclosure) and read it (but it is formatted for Linux and you need a freeware utility (Google for it again) that will read a Linux partition on a PC. Apologies I can't get the links now - I'm on the wrong computer.... It wasn't difficult, but it will void your warranty.

Aiadi

hc25036 wrote: »

I had this with the same model - in my case overheating so that the fan failed and took out some component on the motherboard in the enclosure. The hard drive was OK though. You can get the disc out (Google for instructions), install it as a slave in your PC (or in an external USB enclosure) and read it (but it is formatted for Linux and you need a freeware utility (Google for it again) that will read a Linux partition on a PC. Apologies I can't get the links now - I'm on the wrong computer.... It wasn't difficult, but it will void your warranty.

hc, I am really very grateful for your advice and will definitely go down this route. I have also contacted Amazon to see if they would return it (although unfortunately I have misplaced the receipt). No more WD for me at least.

Thanks again guys for all your advice.

iashem

click here http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp#policy it says your hard drive is covered for 3 years i emailed western digital customer service after purchasing my 500GB NAS and they confirmed it had a 3 year warranty