Kinara Uzumaki Posted June 16, 2013 Report Share Posted June 16, 2013 I've checked out Seagate, Western Digital, Adata and Imation hard drives and for a 500 GB one, WD seems to be pretty reasonable on their prices. So I figured I'd go for it while I can Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jobonline20 Posted June 16, 2013 Report Share Posted June 16, 2013 (edited) how much is the 500gb one in your country, kinara Edited June 16, 2013 by jobonline20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† Mute point Posted June 16, 2013 Report Share Posted June 16, 2013 @Koby So, you're saying that WD is good if you format it before use and don't use the base that comes with it? Sorry, if it's not good out of the box, it's not a good product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koby Posted June 16, 2013 Report Share Posted June 16, 2013 @Koby So, you're saying that WD is good if you format it before use and don't use the base that comes with it? Sorry, if it's not good out of the box, it's not a good product. Thats not what I meant. What I said is they worked fine for me from the start, but I've also taken them out of their enclosure and installed them into a PC without any issues. You were saying if your enclosure broke, the drive was useless.. I was pointing out I've never had such an issue. In the enclosure or out of the enclosure, the drive worked and behaved the same for me. As for formatting, it's not something you have to do, but it's something I do with every drive I buy, regardless of brand. With externals they often come with some backup software thing pre-installed or something, and since I have no use for w/e they've included... I just reformat it to my liking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† Mute point Posted June 16, 2013 Report Share Posted June 16, 2013 The reason you're screwed if the enclosure breaks isn't because the drive stops working, it's because without the hardware encryption decoder built in to the board on the enclosure, you can't access any data on the drive, and have to reformat it before you can install it in any other way. You can't even be sure that buying another WD drive and using its board will work, because it might have the wrong key built in. I agree with your first point, they do work fine when you first get them. But, the usb connector is prone to breaking off. If you have the right tools and a steady hand, you can put it back on and save your data, but otherwise? You either pay to have a new usb connector put on it, or, you lose whatever was on the drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koby Posted June 16, 2013 Report Share Posted June 16, 2013 it's because without the hardware encryption decoder built in to the board on the enclosure, you can't access any data on the drive, and have to reformat it before you can install it in any other way. You can't even be sure that buying another WD drive and using its board will work, because it might have the wrong key built in. , but otherwise? You either pay to have a new usb connector put on it, or, you lose whatever was on the drive. and I'm saying that hasn't been the case with mine. I've been able to take the drive in and out of the case, install it internally on a PC, put it in a different enclosure, put it back in the same enclosure, etc.. and never have I ever had to reformat and never did I ever lose any data. I have no idea what this "hardware encryption decoder" thing is that you're referring to, but if it does exist, it hasn't ever been a problem on my end. I have 3 WD external drives, only tested this on 1 of them. It's a 2TB WD Element, which happened to have one of their "green" drives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† Mute point Posted June 17, 2013 Report Share Posted June 17, 2013 it's because without the hardware encryption decoder built in to the board on the enclosure, you can't access any data on the drive, and have to reformat it before you can install it in any other way. You can't even be sure that buying another WD drive and using its board will work, because it might have the wrong key built in. , but otherwise? You either pay to have a new usb connector put on it, or, you lose whatever was on the drive. and I'm saying that hasn't been the case with mine. I've been able to take the drive in and out of the case, install it internally on a PC, put it in a different enclosure, put it back in the same enclosure, etc.. and never have I ever had to reformat and never did I ever lose any data. I have no idea what this "hardware encryption decoder" thing is that you're referring to, but if it does exist, it hasn't ever been a problem on my end. I have 3 WD external drives, only tested this on 1 of them. It's a 2TB WD Element, which happened to have one of their "green" drives. Might only be on the mybook ones, but it's a very very common problem... As I learned while scouring the internet when it happened to mine. Or it may be that your practice of automatically reformatting removed the encryption before you loaded anything anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dae314 Posted June 17, 2013 Report Share Posted June 17, 2013 (edited) Hey Mute... I was thinking about your issue with hardware encoding and Koby's story of not seeing any of that... Now that I think about it, I've cracked open a WD eHDD with a broken USB connector, extracted the drive, hooked it up with a plain old SATA->USB bridge, and harvested the data without issue. This was for work, and the person was using a 3TB myBook. I have a couple theories for you as to why yours was unreadable: 1) You happened to buy a secured WD drive. I have no idea if they even sell that kind of thing, but I'm sure it's a feature on some eHDDs to keep your data encrypted. 2) Your system for some reason decided to encrypt the drive for you (unlikely but possible). The next couple theories rely on a piece of data that you haven't given us: Why did you try to move the drive out of the enclosure in the first place? Did the USB connector break? If so why? Well I'm going to assume you had some sort of hardware trouble with the drive. Maybe you couldn't read it anymore or it wouldn't show up in Windows. 3) The same thing that caused damage to your USB interface also caused your drive to become corrupted. You were just unlucky. 4) When you were cracking open the drive, something jared the drive enough to cause damage and corrupt the drive. Again, unlucky. Depending on the circumstances surrounding your need to crack open the eHDD and extract the drive, I believe something from the 3/4 reasons is most likely to be your cause. It's entirely possible that WD does hardware encryption, but I think they would monetize that by advertising their drive as "secure" and making you pay extra for it. Edited June 17, 2013 by Dae314 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† Mute point Posted June 17, 2013 Report Share Posted June 17, 2013 My searches for the specific problem on that specific drive were, as stated, overwhelmingly conclusive that that model does have hardware encryption by default, and many implied that WD does that in all external drives. If that's not the case, then I'm glad, and I'll probably consider buying from them again. The USB connector broke off inside the case. Maybe I moved it too often, I dunno. Just moving the thing shouldn't be enough to break it unless you throw it across the room to move it.. Which, if you're doing that and it breaks, it's your own stupid fault... Maybe it was unhooking it and hooking it back up whenever I moved it. I assumed that would be safer than stacking it on top of the PC... And it really should be designed to handle that. I had the drive for 2 years. Maybe they're not supposed to last longer than that. (My first seagate drive lasted 5 before I retired it to make room for a bigger one.) Regardless, thing broke, so I thought "Okay, maybe I can hook it up to the computer and just use it as an internal drive." So I take the case apart, it comes apart easily without breaking anything. Then I open the computer, insert a new SATA cable to hook to it, and then power up the PC again. Windows sees that there is a drive there... but says it needs to be formatted. I refused... and then began searching for an answer to why the hell it isn't working... and that's when I learned about the joys of hardware encryption, and learned that no one has figured out how to crack it yet Sakura'Kinamoto on the IRC had a couple of suggestions that were helpful, despite not working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinara Uzumaki Posted June 17, 2013 Report Share Posted June 17, 2013 Lolz the computer talk continues. I think I'll go for WD because it is generally recommended even by tech experts here. how much is the 500gb one in your country, kinara The place I checked says Sri Lankan Rupees 8,100 which is pretty super because most of the others are 10,000+ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_Angel13 Posted June 17, 2013 Report Share Posted June 17, 2013 Lolz the computer talk continues. I think I'll go for WD because it is generally recommended even by tech experts here. how much is the 500gb one in your country, kinara The place I checked says Sri Lankan Rupees 8,100 which is pretty super because most of the others are 10,000+ That's like 65 bucks for me... Wow, I'd have to pay 70 for that size and brand, get me one too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinara Uzumaki Posted June 17, 2013 Report Share Posted June 17, 2013 Lolz the computer talk continues. I think I'll go for WD because it is generally recommended even by tech experts here. how much is the 500gb one in your country, kinara The place I checked says Sri Lankan Rupees 8,100 which is pretty super because most of the others are 10,000+ That's like 65 bucks for me... Wow, I'd have to pay 70 for that size and brand, get me one too! With my current status, I'm not sure when I can go to get it. I've already missed something like 3 and a half day of work already this month.......hehehehe 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_Angel13 Posted June 17, 2013 Report Share Posted June 17, 2013 Lolz the computer talk continues. I think I'll go for WD because it is generally recommended even by tech experts here. how much is the 500gb one in your country, kinara The place I checked says Sri Lankan Rupees 8,100 which is pretty super because most of the others are 10,000+ That's like 65 bucks for me... Wow, I'd have to pay 70 for that size and brand, get me one too! With my current status, I'm not sure when I can go to get it. I've already missed something like 3 and a half day of work already this month.......hehehehe Aww what a shame it is missing work... except it's a job you hate so meh! Get on facebook! You can type in both places at once ya know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† Emotional Outlet Posted June 17, 2013 Report Share Posted June 17, 2013 Sometimes people talk trash about Verizon (my cell phone provider) and it annoys me because, first of all, if you're real keen on me switching, treating me like an idiot is the opposite of what you should do. Second, acting like Sprint or AT&T are innocent babies who never do anything wrong while Verizon is the antichrist is condescending and misleading. Not to mention they miss the primary reason I'm with Verizon at all--it has the best coverage in North Dakota, even in rural areas, and my dad and brother technically live outside of city limits. People also talk shit about my bank/credit union (USAA and NFCU respectively) but I've honestly never had any issues with them. USAA in particular gets some vitriolic reviews, and I think part of that is because it is typically a well-liked bank. I will say I have an irrational hatred of United Airlines because of a bad experience a few years ago, and while I know there are others who share my hatred, there are others yet who've never had issues with that particular airline. And that's okay! ouo My experience isn't any more valid than theirs, and no one is hurt by my personal decision to avoid flying United any more than I'm hurt by others continuing to fly United. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dae314 Posted June 18, 2013 Report Share Posted June 18, 2013 Like I thought, WD advertises their encryption as a feature and monetizes it. This is a pdf, search for encryption. Of course there also appears to be a WD sanctioned way to disable it (well... remove the VCD no idea if that actually disables the encryption): here. If disabling the VCD does in fact disable the hardware encryption, formatting the drive (i.e. wiping out the VCD) would pretty much get you there as well. The pieces are coming together. You made it sound like WD didn't advertise encryption, so I thought that it was user error. However, they're advertising the encryption, so it's just a feature you don't like. Also, for the drive I worked on, I don't know whether it was formatted on first use or not. Given the data I've seen it likely was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† Mute point Posted June 18, 2013 Report Share Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) It is a feature I don't like, and it is a feature that isn't explained. It also isn't a feature that goes well with flimsy hardware. (Also wasn't mentioned on the box of the one I bought. Excuse me for buying something from a store instead of directly from the manufacturer.) Edit: There is also no way to disable the encryption AFTER it becomes a problem unless you can fix the board. The smart thing for them to do, if they want to include that as a feature... Make it something the user has to enable! Edited June 18, 2013 by Mute point Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dae314 Posted June 19, 2013 Report Share Posted June 19, 2013 It doesn't need to be explained ._.''' It's encryption, it's there so that someone you don't want prying open your drive to look through the contents can't. So somehow Amazon thinks my shipment is going to come on Thursday when nothing's been shipped yet and I live in Hawaii ._. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† Mute point Posted June 19, 2013 Report Share Posted June 19, 2013 If it was something that you had to enable yourself, I wouldn't have a problem with it, nor would any of the other people who had the same problem I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_Angel13 Posted June 20, 2013 Report Share Posted June 20, 2013 If it was something that you had to enable yourself, I wouldn't have a problem with it, nor would any of the other people who had the same problem I think. I know I'd have no problems with it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dae314 Posted June 20, 2013 Report Share Posted June 20, 2013 (edited) Microsoft's doing a 180 . Everyone's calling it the XBOX ONE-Eighty fiasco or something like that. That makes 2 backtracks for Microsoft in one year (Windows 8.1 and Xbox 180)! Is the XBOX now a more viable system? Who knows. Edited June 20, 2013 by Dae314 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.