Recovering Data from a Broken WD MyCloud (with solid red light) by using Linux on Mac and Windows

#noexpert #nas #westerndigital #mycloud
Hey guys, in this video we are going to take a look at my broken WD MyCloud Drive which suddenly stopped working. It has a solid red light and doesn't do anything anymore.
I tried out some easy reset methods, like a soft reset and a factory reset. Because this didn't work, I took the whole NAS apart to gain access to the hard drive inside, which is a WD Red with 2 TB of storage. When I connected it to my windows and mac computers, I wasn't able to read the files so I created a Linux USB drive and booted Linux on my Mac.

This made it possible to read the files and save them to another hard drive. I now got all my data back and with this video I want to show you how to do it step by step so you don't have to waste so much time trying to recover the data from your WD MyCloud.

How to salvage your data from a failed WD My Cloud?

First of all - you need a SATA to USB 3.0 Adapter

In order to connect the hard drive to your PC, you will need a special adapter. I got mine from amazon and it’s a brand called aplic, but it does not really matter - any SATA to USB 3 adapter should work. What’s important though is that the adapter has a port for an external power supply, because 3,5“ drives can generally not be powered by USB only. Once you got the SATA adapter, you need to somehow get Linux onto your Mac or Windows PC.

Linux Option 1 - Virtual Machines

In order to get Linux onto your Mac or Windows PC you can use a virtual machine. A virtual machine emulates another operating system on your computer as long as you choose to run it. It uses the resources of your computer to create a new machine. The good thing is, that this new virtual machine runs within a window that you can close, so you never really loose the familiar feeling of your computer.

Create Virtual Machines on Mac and Windows
- Parallels.com
https://www.parallels.com/products/access/compare-plans/

- VirtualBox
https://www.virtualbox.org/

Linux Option 2 - Create a bootable USB Stick with Linux

Download one of these Linux Distributions:
https://linuxmint.com/
https://www.debian.org/
https://ubuntu.com/

Etcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB Drives
https://www.balena.io/etcher/

This is my device:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/products/product-detailweb/p/126

Link to the manual:
https://products.wdc.com/library/UM/ENG/4779-705147.pdf

"How to Pin Reset and System Only Restore My Cloud OS 5 Device"
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/29445/h/p2

I hope this helps with getting your data back if you got the same problem as I had.

No Expert

Видео Recovering Data from a Broken WD MyCloud (with solid red light) by using Linux on Mac and Windows канала No Expert