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    What kind of connector is this?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Hirohata, Mar 3, 2011.

  1. Hirohata

    Hirohata GBF Danchou

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    Kay people. I need your help on this. I have NO CLUE whatsoever on what kind of connector this is. It would help is someone helped out on this.

    [​IMG]

    Kudos to all that can help me shed some light on this.

    Model no. is WD7500KMVW
     
  2. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    That's WD's proprietary connector for some of their Passport externals. Did your cable die?
     
  3. Hirohata

    Hirohata GBF Danchou

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    Nope. A friend of mine ordered one and asked me what kind of connection it was. He wanted to stick it in a caddy or something like that.
     
  4. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    WD basically made a proprietary USB PCB so you could not just buy the drive and take it apart and use it in a notebook. Many other manufacturers are doing this, if your drive dies you are basically SOL and have to ship it out to data recovery specialists.
     
  5. Hirohata

    Hirohata GBF Danchou

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    Kay thanks for the info. I guess he'll have to return then XD
     
  6. Pitabred

    Pitabred Linux geek con rat flail!

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    Part of why I only buy bare drives and separate enclosures any more
     
  7. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    Oh I wasn't doubting you lol, plus it's cheaper buying a drive and DIY! Though sometimes those premade drives will have a weekend special. :rolleyes:
     
  8. Thisisalamp

    Thisisalamp Notebook Deity

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    Why do they do this? I kinda like the idea of stripping it apart to be used somewhere else.

    I had a Buffalo External drive that failed on me one day; I took the HDD out and plugged it into my desktop and it worked like a charm. Seemed like the HDD controller fried a pancake on itself. Since then, I am indebted by the ways of stripping failed controllers to recover data.
     
  9. lead_org

    lead_org Purveyor of Truth

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    i did not know the hdd companies is getting so dodgy now... i have to be careful next time when purchasing these drives.
     
  10. Judicator

    Judicator Judged and found wanting.

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    This is actually kind of old news; we have some older threads on this from over a year ago. A not small amount of it was that back then, it wasn't uncommon for an external drive to be cheaper than an internal drive, so people would buy the external to rip out the drive and use it as an internal.
     
  11. talin

    talin Notebook Prophet

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    Wow, that's news to me too. I loath propriety anything, just really limits you. :rolleyes:
     
  12. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

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    I hate when they do that.
     
  13. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    They do that because hard drives are becoming less and less profitable. They have to compete with other companies, and the drive to become cheaper and cheaper they were forced into a corner and go proprietary. This is not uncommon, people were breaking open externals and putting them into laptops because OEM drives costed more.
     
  14. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

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    I used to do that, but mostly because it got me a drive and a case at the same time.