How to decrypt a disassembled WD MyBook Essential hdd?

Question

I have a WD MyBook Essential 3TB that stopped being recognized in every computer. But the HDD seems fine. I disassembled it and got it out of the WD case, now I have a WD30EZRS HDD but it is encrypted.

I KNOW the password used to encrypt, but need to know how or if there is some way / software that can use to read the data inside.

Solution

might be too late for you, but for future people with this issue - yes, replacing that board should have worked just fine, as the password is actually stored on a "secret" sector of the hard disk itself. If this is the board was what actually failed, replacing it should make you right as rain. On a side note - even if you had not set a password, these controllers encrypt the data 100% of the time no matter what - but only ask for a password if you have one set. If there is no password set, it simply automatically decrypts the data for you.

Comments

[jcrawfordor]

What encryption technology was used? something that WD provided? Bitlocker?

[Hportela]

It's the own MyBook Essential system, it used to pop a cd-drive in windows/mac where it has their software "Smartware". On the first time use, we install it and it requests to create a password. Then, averytime we connect it, it pops the same cd-drive with autorun, and it opens a windows where it asks for the password. Then it used to show the actual hdd content, unencrypted. This thing uses hardware encryption, through the case, I believe, using that smartware app.

[Hportela]

Today I thought about replacing the USB3-SATA + encryption board, and found this online: WD MY BOOK Essential PCBA 4061-705089-001 USB3.0 Control Board. Anyone thinks that with that replaced in the case, I might get it working along with the encryption password? I just want to get the data inside. After getting that data from the HDD, I'll just format the disk an get a NAS. No more closed external disk cases.