How To Shuck a WD My Book EASY & FAST (without Damage)! 

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2:09 to start youtube's 1/3rd rule working almost perfectly

This is exactly what ive been doing with my nas for the last 8 years. i never knew it was called SHUCKING! thanks for verifying.

Concise and precise, thanks a lot for making the video simple and not extending it unnecessarily. Vielen Dank.

Thanks! That made it easy-peasey, and I'm glad there's no damage to the case. The screws holding the HD into the inner case were T10, and I was afraid I'd break something trying to twist it out, but the torx driver did the trick. I only had a 4TB HDD (WD40EFRX, 64MB cache) in my WD case, which I wanted to put into a Mediasonic ProBox 4-bay unit in order to have fewer cables plugged into my computer. Good job!

Just got this drive and your instructions worked like a charm. Thanks for the help!

Excellent video and great job showing the rest of us how to so this neatly! 😁👍🏼

Just a heads-up: those four metal fixings are actually screws- if you happen to have a precision/repair screwdriver set; they're seemingly Torx 10 heads, and you can unscrew them in-place. Benefit = less bending plastic, and the rubber pieces hold the screws in place, in the enclosure, once you've unscrewed them from the drive itself. (Thanks for the video!)

Your video was SO much better than the other one I used first. Thank you!

Excellent video! I had done exactly as you said and have removed the drive without any damage or hassle. Thanks

Thanks for the video. The crap MyBook power interface failed after 3 weeks. The drive is intact though and your video allowed me to recover the files and information. Thanks

wow this is amazing, far easier than i thought it would be! i'm so glad you made this video. thank you.

Randomly did this to an older 3TB WiFi WD drive. Great video, Phil!

Thank you so much, I have been going over what to buy, And your video helped me..

Hope this might help some people out there over time. :)

Ty for the help! It works 2 yrs later, really masterpiece.

Thanks so much! I was trying to do it from the other end and it was such a pain, so I had to Google it ASAP, and found your vid! 🥺 So much easier from the bottom 😂

Very helpful video and well explained.Thank you!

Just took mine apart thanks to your help. 2 thumbs up!

Thank you, today I learned a new word of the English language ;)

Perfect procedure for my needs. Thank you.

Thanks for posting, it helped so much. I bought the WD 8TB MyBook in the orange box from Best Buy 2020.01.01 & the drive was a DAZ model. Hope that helps with your data collection!

Thanks for your informative video. I've purchased previously the WD My Book Duo (the 2 disk version) in 24TB capacity, that contains 2 x 12 TB drives. I needed 24 of those disks for my NAS setup. The versions of drives that I received were proper branded WD Red drives, version WD120EFAX-68UNTNO. I am now going to buy 2 of the WD My Book 6TB drives that I believe contain WD blues (I hope so anyway, otherwise I may have the power issue with the pin that needs covering).

This is a very helpful video, tight and neat, Thank you!

this finally answers my question of whether or not WD puts the same type of drive in their MyBooks. I bought a 3TB MyBook about 5 years ago, ca. 2016-2017, not knowing there was an actual mechanical drive inside (i'd never had a portable HD before and thought they were just oversized flash drives of some sort). When i discovered this, i decided to take it apart and found out it was a Green series, which i didn't even know was a thing back then. I now have it mounted in my PC and use it for storage of media and many of my games that dont need to be on an SSD for the sake of loading times. i've seen a few other videos where some of the drives have been Purple, but i think those might have been much older videos.

This is going to help me a lot, I am about to shuck a WD My Book Essentials 1TB bought like 7 years ago.

Im so glad I watched this, i was about to rip into this plastic. You method is a lot easier!

Awwwwwwww, man! Thanks!! I ripped the case to pieces, when i heard you saying "only two thumps..."! 8-)

Thanks for the video....wanted to disassemble my 8tb WD for a while without destroying the case👍

Thanks! Clear and easy to follow.

Thanks, that was helpful. Have a wonderful day

Thanks for the video! It was really helpfull!

Great video! HDD going inside PC, worked great!

Good simple & clear video, but it's hard to believe that shucking will be cheaper than actually buying the internal drives.

great video, straight to the point have you had any experience with 6TB drives? are there any drives that come with wd red drives?

this tutorial just saved my old hard drive. TLDR of it is that I needed to replace the component that accepts the cords connecting to the outlet and computer itself. still had to buy a new drive, but this saved me from having to re-download a lot of things

Excellent, I am going to throw the assembly but it was easy following what you showed.

Worked great, thank you

Wow l never knew you could do this with my books! Thank you

Really good info. Thank you.

Hi, thanks for the video. Sorry, I'm a newbie, so the one with SMR (air filled) technology is the better one?

Worked for my 4TB. Thanks

Thank you for the video. It helped me but not as I expected: I bought a WD My Book several months ago. It was sitting unopened until last week when I found it would not work on any system (tried multiple Windows and Linux systems). I could not find the receipt so I figured I was out of luck. I came across this video and thought, "Hey! At least I can try removing and using the drive." After watching this video opening the WD My Book case was easy. Upon opening it I was surprised to find a Seagate drive! I bought the My Book at Walmart. It appeared to be sealed but I suspect someone traded a Seagate 80GB drive for the WD 8TB drive, repackaged it, and returned the device to Walmart. There is data on the drive. Looks like some medical software artifacts. I will see if I can determine where it came from and follow-up with the authorities if there is any HIPAA violations.

Very handy information!

Thanks to your instructions this was very easy and worker like a charm! Inside was the same white WD80EZAZ 8TB like in your video.

simply amazing! thanks!

This worked for me, thank you.

Awesome man!!! Thanks a lot!

Thank you for your videos phil

🙏🏽 thx man, I used two flatheads and a lockpick and it came out instantly. Just gotta watc for the for tabs and the top will just slide out. Appreciate it the info

Outstanding. Well done.

Thanks so much. Worked like a charm,.

Excellent. Thank you Sir!

Thanks for this! I thought my My Book had failed and I had lost all my files; thankfully after using your tutorial to get out the 4tb drive from the enclosure, it seems like it was the daughterboard that turned the drive into an external drive that had failed, as plugging the drive directly into my motherboard showed that it was still in perfect working order and all my files were still there. Thank you so much for this again!

Amazing video!

You helped me, thank you very much.

Thanks, it works fine for the 16tb version too

excellent! short and sweet.

Thank you very much to show how to open this.

after disassembling it, can I install it for PC case as I did with usual HDD ?

Thanks my dude. I got it with a plastic wedger from a ifixit case. No damage!

Thanks for tutorial

Wonderful idea thank you so mach my data is lose but your ideas is most my data is ready to use👍🙏

Thanks for the tips! My case was somewhat different in that I wasn't shucking the drive to use elsewhere - I actually have one of these WD externals that I have owned for 6+ years where the internal HD had gone bad. The 4 "studs" are actually the mounting screws for the drive and can be backed-off using a Torx T-8 (if you have one), which makes drive removal somewhat easier in case the plastic frame of your unit is not as flexible as in the video (mine wasn't). Since the actual internal HD is standard SATA 6GB, my plan is to replace the failed unit with a refurbished 8TB bare drive from Amazon and reuse the USB enclosure.

You are great, man Thanks ❤❤❤

Great video. Cheers

Thanks for the video. I noticed on my WD My Book there were two additional clips at the other end of the drive in the middle. It was obvious they were binding so I just used your credit card technique and the unit came right apart. My drive was a WD80EDAZ-11TA3A0 My son tells me this is likely a CMR model (he's up to date in this stuff, I'm just an olde phart)

You've got the right technique to open the casing. I've tried as well and I don't succeed without damaging the casing!

great video. I just followed this to shuck a 4TB WD blue to put in my new Unraid Server.

Fabulous! Thank you so much!

Very helpfull, thanks !

First time shucking, didn’t break a single tab on two MyBooks. thanks!

Brilliant! Thank you!

Are all these WD My Books the same? Because my 6TB seems to be one piece except for the side opposite you started on. I can get guitar picks into that side, but so far I don't see any way to pull the drive out. NEVERMIND ... It is just as you say, I just could not get anything into the side that your mentioned it was too tight, so I worked from the other side and pried it out. Thanks.

Hi which is better ? The green box or orange box ? Sorry for my stupid question and my bad english , thank you :D

Brilliant. thank you

What do you call the adapter that gives with USB port and power? Thanks!

Thinking of doing this with my two 12tb My Book drives. Do any of the power connectors have to be covered up. I see sometimes that's an issue with various drives

You have a great German accent. Thanks for this

Recently I bought a My Book 8tb for 15 bucks at a local pawnshop! after testing it out, my computer was unable to see the drive. Looking at how to open the case I found this tutorial THANKS! After removing the HDD and finding the HDD was not hooked up and after further inspection, all labels were removed including the HDD's PCB! A very sad surprise was an old crummy Maxton HDD thats now in the trash. :(. Is all the extra my book hardward worth saving?

What about the encryption issues with WD "MYBOOK" drives. The board you removed from the HDD holds the required encryption right? So separating them effectively kills the drive right?

Hi. I bought new one today and have some tapping sound every few seconds. It's normal?

Do you need to cut out one of the pins or use tape for it to boot as an internal hard drive?

10x for this tutorial, very helpfull

Does this have SATA connectors to install into a PC bay?

I have Several of these WD80EZAZ Drives, and ALL of them give me an "Invalid Function" Error in Disk Management, when trying to initialize them. Is WD Locking these drives from Shucking?

thanks for the help :) I shugged mine which came in a white-green box - a WD80EZAZ

Hi Phil, thanks a lot for this video. I recently got 2 MyBooks 12TB same look (Orange Box) and they came both with WD120EDAZ (Helium filled, as Crystal Disk Info reports) inside You have Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year 2021, hopefully healthy, mate! :-)

Does this still work with current drives? I've read that apparently WD started to mess with their drives so a regular SATA connection will no longer work. It's alrleady bad enough having to copy all the files from one drive to another first, when trying to salvage a brolen external drive, but if they don't even work at all anymore, i ain't buying no WD drives no more.

THANK YOU!

I recently picked up a My Book 12 TB to transfer my Plex Library to. I had been using a software Raid of 2 4TB My Passport drives, but recently had the drive I used for Time machine backups fail. So I got the 12 TB to Move the Plex library to, and then separated the 2 4TB drives and re purposed one for time machine. The 12 TB My Book, i bought locally from Office Depot over here in the US, and the box was orange like your 8 TB one. I usually don't take the case apart unless it fails. I wanted to also mentioned, I had watched a similar video to this one, and the guy in that video mentioned pin modifications because some of those drives won't power up outside the original enclosure. Have you run into this problem?

Got 2 of the Orange box ones at Costco Canada, I got WD80EDBZ drives out of them.

Pardon my asking this question. Once you have taken the HD out of its casing, what’s the next step?

Are these drives not binned as not as good ? Having sub par HDD sold as a backup device primarily would mean it should have lower usage than a standard hdd used say in an OS and would? ?? ? ?

Thx for this video. Also needed the HDD for my computer. Got a 14 TB version called "WD140EDFZ". It was interesting, abusing my guitar picks. 😉

Hi, I have two WD80EZAZ 8TB salvaged from MyBook. Would like to know are there any problems with USB-SATA interface PCB shown at 4:20? Will the drive work fine outside of this enclosure, without USB-SATA PCB. I somewhere read that it has a encrypting chip on that PCB so you cannot read the drive without that PCB. Is it so? Can you use naked drive without problems?

I got the 8 Tb bought at walmart came in green box and decided today to open up the case using your method and I got the WD80EDAZ

Thanks, now what to pick? Seagate internal 8tb barracuda smr or pay 30$ more and get the WD My Book 8tb and shuck it? Is it true all newest 8tb my book are Hgst hc 320?

thank you!

Just shucked an 8GB WD My Book, id had a WD80EDBZ (ordered 04.10.2023). It runs noticably louder than the 5400rpm hdd I had before. Also, I had to use the guitar pick on the clips on the opposite side as well to get it to slide out. The rubber dampeners have little "feet", be careful when inserting a new hard drive as these feet tend to easily shear off.