How do you open a WD Passprt External HDD without damaging it?

Costco here has 'em locally for $140 (250GB 4500RPM 8MB cache SATA) gonna drop it in my Notebook. I don't wanna damage the enclosure since I wanna put my current 160GB in there. Anyone know of a guide some where?

Thank you

 

4500 rpm??? well 4200 rpm sucks... i dunno bout 4500 lol?? unless you typed numbers wrong way round and meant 5400

 

Yeah, 5400RPM, its basically a Scorpio inside.

 

I have one of the 120Gb ones ... to open the case, which I did, simply pry it off carefully. You might have to get an exacto blade into the seam to start with. Mine came apart using just fingernails. Find a part that "gives" then work your way around. I think the easiest part to start is the corner diagonally opposite to where the jack is.

 

Ranger, you just missed this killer deal. There was an enclosure for $132.99 /w Tax at Best buy that had a 200gb 7200.2 hitachi harddrive. I bought one and man is it screaming fast. Vista is much more responsive and my games load quicker. I ditched that Fujitsu 200gb 4200rpm for good.

 

Ranger, I don't think you can use the drive in the WD passport in your laptop. I have one, pried it open and found it to be a EIDE sort (proprietary model of WD) and you can't use it anywhere apart from the enclosure which it came with.

AFAIK, WD is not yet using SATA in their passport drives. Let me know if it is otherwise, I might want to buy one.....

 

Actually this models been confirmed as being SATA and is a popular upgrade for Mac Book Pros, its basicly a WD Scorpio SATA HDD. I think the 160GB as still the EIDE. Just no ones ever mentioned how they opened 'em.

 

Alright, I have opened it and saw what i have is an EIDE, but if you want to test your luck, here you go.....

Take a small screw driver with a relatively small tip and try to insert in the gap at one of the corner edges and try to push it up....
The whole plastic enclosure is nothing but 2 pieces one on top of another with small notches at the edges...
while prying it open you might get the feeling that you are actually breaking it, but believe me, just continue to do it along the edges and you will see the opening...... and once you see that you will be able to handle it manually...

Hope this helps..... Don't forget to rep me after trying this........

 

Heh, what do you think I'm running now. Its SATA! The enclosure I got had no screws and was just snapped together with some dabs of glue.

Here are the steps I took,

1. It wouldn't let me format the external to NTSF out of the box, so I had to open it up hook it to another external SATA connection I have and formatted it to NTSF.

2. I tested the HDD to make sure I could still use it through the USB, after the initial format I can now use it as an NTSF drive.

3. I booted to my flash drive with Ghost 11.0 on it and cloned my notebook HDD to the external drive.

4. Switched the drives out and booted, I'll run a checkdisk just to make sure everythings alright and then I use partition magic to make a partition for Vista and happy time.

 

Ranger, can you give me the link for this model and the link that confirms that a SATA is inside the passport drive?

 

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11236539&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=&lang=en-US

I could post links to other users on other forums who have been doing this since the beginning of the month, but thats no fun because there are no pictures (google it, WD Passport 250GB SATA). I'll take some pictures of the enclosure open and the USB to SATA/SATA Power up later. Until then I hope this will do, just confirms its a WD Scorpio. I'm installing Vista now, lets see if that gives me any other info.

 

Much better deal, Hitachi 7200rpm 200gb pretty much a 7k200

 

Are you sure this is 7200 RPM drive? the specifications say that this is a 5400.......

 

Has anyone opened a WD my book casing? I got a 500GB desktop drive and might wanna use it for an internal desktop PC I wanna build

 

Also been confirmed as a 7200RPM HDD by ppl that opened them up, was all the rage about a week ago on Hardforum.com Hotdeals section. I actually very happy with 250GB which is what I've been looking for. I had a 200GB 4200RPM in my Toshiba P105-9337/9722, though the speed was a b**** the size wasn't perfect for dual booting. Now I gave 100GB (all my games) to XP and 132GB (all my media) to Vista.

 

As he said, its 7200rpm

 

So, I have the same WD Passport drive as RangerXML, I got it from Costco this month. How can I tell I have the right drive that it's SATA? I might put this into my NP2090 if it's compatible.

 

So the Toshiba is 7200rpm AND is SATA? If so, that's a much better deal... I've been saving up to do the Passport 250gb swap, but if the Toshiba is 7200, I might reconsider... Do ya'll have any links to back it up?

 

It's not Toshiba, it's a Hitachi and yes, it's 7200rpm and SATA. I bought one and installed it in my toshiba and it's blazing fast (compared to my old 200gb 4200rpm fujitsu HDD). I cloned everything using Acronis into the external, popped it off and plugged it into my laptop and all was great. The deal seems to be back so check it out and buy the right one with the correct serial number if your up for it.

 

Yep, I'm going to best buy tomorrow. So you used a program to copy your internal hard drive to the Hitachi (sorry about the Toshiba confusion) and then just swapped the hardware? That seems really easy. No need to reinstall vista... SWEET!!!

 

yeh, its a great deal! I only hope my BB sells them as cheap as they are online!

 

If they dont have them as cheap as online, have them price match it...

 

Crap... So I bought a hitachi today and it's a 5400rpm unforunately... All 3 had similar serial numbers so I'm sure the other 2 are also 5400. I'm going to have my dad check at home to see if they have the special serial, cuz I really want that 7200rpm one...

 

If you want deals I can think of 2.

One is wait untill black friday wich is only a month away then zoom into best buy or circuit city ect for there sales wich are really really good, external hdds will for sure be one of the items on sale since they cary so many and its a hot item.

The next was emailed to me from frys today and I was thinking about getting it.

179$ for a 750gb external w/ some free software its a steal.
http://www.frys.com/product/5309748

I read into the company and its reputable its just not a big market name like WD or Seagate.

Plus frys is a great company I like them even better than newegg.

 

For me? I dont need THAT much space, but I do prefer speed... However I do not want to pay $200+ for a direct replacement. I'll find one of the DTG serial # hitachi's eventually

 

Yeah I d/l alot of movies so I use alot of space, plus games eat up space really fast too.

Its a deal for anybody tho.

 

Yeah, but right now I just want a cheap, FAST internal replacement. I can get a larger, full size external later on.

 

Internal for desktop or notebook?

for a notebook I recomend a 250gb WD scorpio its a 5400rpm drive but if you look at my benchmarks its on par with a 160gb 7200rpm drive in almost all test. if you go desktop just look at newegg.com for alot of stuff or frys.com

Again black friday is around the corner and will have sales for internal desktop drives for sure, notebook drives may not be in stores atleast not much of a varitiy or sale, however online is sure to have sales pop up.

 

Laptop internal. Well I was sorta hoping to use the WD Passport or the 7200 Hitachi for my laptop. I'd rather have speed than the extra 50gb of capacity, but if the WD drive does, in fact , work that well, then I may just buy that for less confusion (less searching for serial numbers...).

 

Ranger, will you posting the pictures of the opened enclosure? I was rather hoping to have a peak at those pics before ordering one for myself.
And how did your vista installation go? which flavor did you install?

 

Are both the EIDE and the SATA the newer 2nd gen black Passports?

 

Here are some pictures of the enclosure open, they show my Seagate 160GB 7200RPM SATA 2.5" HDD in the enclosure. Note: I am at work, please ignore open boxes of BF2: Special Forces and LOTR Online

 

DO you have any pix of installing it into the laptop?

 

Thats already my old notebook drive which is currently in the external drive. I might put up pictures of my notebook open, but there are plenty of pictures of the Asus C90S open.

 

so DMANbluesfreak, are you saying you bought one of the Hitachi's and it came with a 5400rpm drive?

 

A seagate drive in a western digital passport!?! That's an odd sight for sure.

 

Yeah, tell me about it.

I feel really bad about having a 7200RPM in an external USB enclosure, but theres nothing I can do about it. My friends are really in the old mind set that notebooks aren't for upgrading and don't want me to switch out there 100GB and 120GB for this 160GB 7200RPM.

 

I'm still having issues opening the damn thing, it's tricky. Is there some kind of spot that's best to pry this thing open from, I don't want to break the case.

Also, I don't want to waste my time on a drive that's IDE; I got a WD 250GB 5400RPM drive from Costco earlier this month, is that enough evidence to prove that my WD Passport drive is SATA?

 

"Thus far", all WD Passport 250GB (black version) have been only SATA HDD. I think there have been reports that the 160GB might be IDE.

As for the trick, two credit cards work really well. Just work your way around, theres very little glue in there and it should just pop a part after a little while. I actually used a knife, very sharp to start it on the opposite corner fro the USB port.

 

Can you show me a picture of the case opened, as that might give me an idea how the hooks go and plan it from there. I don't want to damage the case too much as I would like to put my current notebook hard drive in it.

A picture showing the underside and a picture showing the underside of the top side would be nice.

 

Thanks for the pics Ranger......

I see that the some silver color sheet inside the enclosure has holes at the corners, is the HDD fitted with screws by any chance?

 

Yep, but it didn't have the DTG serial number or the UPC sticker on the bottom of the package, so I returned it. My dad just picked one up at the best buy near my home and they had the DTG serial # and UPC on the bottom, so we'll see what it is when I go home for thanksgiving.

 

Yes, there is a some rubber pads, four that are stuck to the top of the HDD and four at the base with little nubs that fit with the four screw holes at the bottom. Its a nice and standard size so one fit for all. I recommend keeping the four stick on rubber pads and moving em like I did to the other HDD, helps with shock and for good measure I also kept the foil. All was carefully set aside while I changed out the HDD and put back in the external enclosure. Still don't know what the jumper dose, so I left it on the WD (read on a couple of forums to leave it).

 

Do you reccomend I keep the jumper when I get my Hitachi? Would I leave the jumper in the external or put it in the laptop? That is, if the Hitachi has a jumper...

 

Leave the jumper as is for now unless you find instructions otherwise if I get bored today I might call WD and ask about mine. Easy enough to take out later on.

 

If there is one, do I leave it on the 200gb drive that I'm putting into my laptop or do I leave it in the HD enclosure?

 

Don't ever mess with jumpers unless you know what it does. If there is a jumper inplace on your HDD and you don't know what it does, leave it alone. If you want to, call the manufacturer and ask what it does. It could be a 1.5GB/s to 3.0GB/s switch, could be a 5400RPM to 7200RPM switch or it could be for how much juice your drive need to work right and you could fry it. SATA drives don't need special jumper configurations to work properly most of the time.

 

So it should stay with the HD? Allright thanks.

One final question: does the 15 day Acronis trial include all the features (or at least enough for me to directly copy my current HD image to the new one)?

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/wd-passport-250gb.html

Thank you htwingnut for the link.

 

So how does the wd passport compare to the hitachi 7k200 in terms of speed?