Defunct WD passport. Connector types? Help?

MonsterMoshi · 5 Apr 2012 at 22:16

Ok, so my brother brought to me his WD Passport 1TB external hardrive and says the USB connector is dodgy, can you fix it. When i say its broken, what is happening is i get a flashing lite on the drive itself, disk manager crashes when the drive is attached, my computer shows a drive with no name or capacity and does not open. So i opened it up expecting to find a SATA connector and thinking an easy fix. Instead what i find is no SATA, the broken USB and some pins.

On the left is 12 pins over two rows. On the right is just 2 pins.
If anyone has any knowledge of this then your help would be greatly appreciated.
Are the pins of any use? Or is there any other way you can suggest to get the data off the drive?
Or am i wasting my time?

Thanks

Justintime · 5 Apr 2012 at 22:48

Unfortunately i remember opening one of these i got from a mate as a gift to possibly use as a laptop drive and discovering the very same thing... no SATA, the USB controller was built directly on to the drive board. The pins will be for various configuration changes/test modes etc not for data connection. Also the darn usb connection is not a mini usb and is proprietary. Only thing i can suggest is trying a new cable or somehow getting a new pcb.

MonsterMoshi · 5 Apr 2012 at 23:11

Hmmm.... Thanks anyways
I've read about getting a new pcb but this id dodgy as they have to be of matching firmwares and other mumbo jumbo so i guess its dead

ElectroBlaster · 8 Apr 2012 at 01:14

That broken usb socket is a standard Micro USB. The same thing you can find on a Blackberry Curve 8520 and 9300. Also my sons LG GT350 phone has the same sockect. The bay of flea's will turn one up for a few quid. The hardest part is getting the old socket off and the new one on.