You carefully lever the bottom of the case, out of the case. Here are a couple of photos which demonstrate this:
After I got the case open, I was impressed by the amount of shock absorption that Western Digital provided. The blue mounts in the second picture are the shock mounts.
If you are looking for a replacement, you can still buy drive these drives Western Digital WDBAA0010HBK drives on Amazon.
Yes, Pierre Jolicoeur, it really is a permanent USB interface:
as this photo shows. I was so disappointed in Western Digital when I saw this. That means I’ll be buying Seagate drives in future.
Step 1. Don’t bother. As there are “user serviceable parts inside.”
Step 2. Well if you insist on opening this piece of crud, the actual steps follow.
Step 1
– using a blunt, thin object (say a small screwdriver), slide it along the gap between the “body” and the “case”.
– work the screwdriver around the edge.
Step 2
– slide the body away from the case
Had to open the case on my Western Digital “My Passport” drive tonight. You might remember, that I talked about the drive previously.
Well the drive sucks, and here’s the proof:
Yes, it’s a permanent USB interface. In other words, Western Digital took a perfectly good SATA drive, and bastardised it with a permanent USB adapter.
So, if I wanted to remove the drive from it’s case because it’s got an error I could fix with Spinrite, I can’t.
No SATA interface = no way to connect it directly to my computer.
Never ever again will I buy Western Digital equipment.
Update: Thinking of buying one? Don’t, they suck.
The Western Digital “My Digital” External Hard Drive pictured right, is my latest IT purchase.
The reason I went for a WD drive, instead of a trusty Seagate? Price. The WD was 20% cheaper. Oh, and I wanted to see how it compared to the Seagate.
In summary:
CHEAP gets a tick as, well, it was 20% cheaper than it’s competitor.
FAST. It is notably faster than the Seagate 249GB External drive. Truecrypt users might be interested that it took 10+ hours to format the drive. The average write speed dropped to 9.5 MB/s.
GOOD. Fails this. It’s made to a price and it shows. Want to use it with a USB1 equipped computer? You’ll pay extra for that cable. The case scratches easily.
No, I would not recommend buying one.