WD My Book drives and encryption automatically enabled?

[sdifox]

It's an anti-shuck measure more for WD's protection than yours. Just need a replacement controller board to access data again. There are people fixing boards and sellingthem on ebay.

This is separate from software encryption mentioned on the box.

 

[Elixer]

It's an anti-shuck measure more for WD's protection than yours. Just need a replacement controller board to access data again. There are people fixing boards and sellingthem on ebay.

This is separate from software encryption mentioned on the box.

I don't buy that, since you can shuck it on day one, and it will work fine.

It might be used as anti-seagate drive in our enclosure though... now that has me thinking as well, wonder if the controller polls to see what it is hooked up to?
I forgot to take pics of the PCB, maybe we can see who are they buying the chipset from.

 

[LPCTech]

This is shocking.

I will never buy another WD drive. Now I have to move all my data off the one I just bought and sell it.

encryption without asking. nty

 

[sdifox]

This is shocking.

I will never buy another WD drive. Now I have to move all my data off the one I just bought and sell it.

encryption without asking. nty

Blame Backblaze. They bought shit ton of external drives destined for home cuz of the flooded factories in Malasia. Hdd vendors had to respond somehow. I just wish WD used a better board, lots of report of premature encryption board failure.

 

[Elixer]

Blame Backblaze. They bought shit ton of external drives destined for home cuz of the flooded factories in Malasia. Hdd vendors had to respond somehow. I just wish WD used a better board, lots of report of premature encryption board failure.

Again, this does NOTHING to stop backblaze or whomever else to shuck the drives.
The HD itself is a normal blue or red drive (both are actually greens) (depending on what they use) and can be used like a normal HD. The controller is the one adding encryption without user notification or consent and leaving the key up to WD.

If you use the software to actually set a password, then, that is what you wanted, so people shouldn't complain about anything.

Speaking of the software, anyone use it? I assume that the HD must be reformatted again after you pick a password?

 

[C1]

It's an anti-shuck measure more for WD's protection than yours. Just need a replacement controller board to access data again. There are people fixing boards and sellingthem on ebay.

This is separate from software encryption mentioned on the box.

Ya, after reading more about what is going on with these encrypted drives, I believe that the above is correct.

It seems that the way to view these category HDDs is as specialty devices. If you need data that is portability secure with password protection AND IS ABLE TO WORK SUFFICIENTLY FAST (true random access Read/Write) AT THE WHOLE HDD LEVEL (ie, large amounts of data), then these drives sort of fit the bill.

If you want to better understand what is going on then try doing what these drives do using a regular HDD (eg, handling large amounts of data using something like 7-Zip) .You will see that trying to do on-the-fly random access R/W (or encrypting large amounts of data) using pure software is time consuming.

As most always, processing in hardware vs software is way way faster (hence always new GPU & CPUs, Chipsets, etc.).

 

[Captain_WD]

Here's a list of the current WD External drives that feature Hard Ware Encryption which cannot be turned off and it is on by default:
WD My Book: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=1cK97p
WD My Book Duo: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=AB0uYL
WD My Passport Ultra (all versions): http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=75DxGe ; http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=HLtQ0w ; http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=YHRS0v
WD My Book for Mac: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=aNNDKd
WD My Book Studio: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=x47FcK
WD My Passport for Mac: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=pFsNX7
WD My Passport Studio: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=FzQRt5
WD My Passport Air: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=IyJ9vy

Here's a list of the drives that do not have hardware encryption on them:
WD Elements Desktop: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=t9JBUR
WD Elements Portable: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Qa0eZL
WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=yXn1oc
WD My Book Pro: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=G56blh
WD My Passport Pro: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=yN2yH8
WD My Passport Wireless: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=EcjUHc

Swapping drives between enclosures shouldn't work as the encryption is different on each drive.

WD External drives don't come with additional drives with software but rather with preinstalled programs, depending on the model. You are free to remove them or re-download them from our website. 🙂

Captain_WD.

 

[Elixer]

Here's a list of the current WD External drives that feature Hard Ware Encryption which cannot be turned off and it is on by default:
WD My Book: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=1cK97p
WD My Book Duo: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=AB0uYL
WD My Passport Ultra (all versions): http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=75DxGe ; http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=HLtQ0w ; http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=YHRS0v
WD My Book for Mac: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=aNNDKd
WD My Book Studio: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=x47FcK
WD My Passport for Mac: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=pFsNX7
WD My Passport Studio: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=FzQRt5
WD My Passport Air: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=IyJ9vy

Here's a list of the drives that do not have hardware encryption on them:
WD Elements Desktop: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=t9JBUR
WD Elements Portable: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Qa0eZL
WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=yXn1oc
WD My Book Pro: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=G56blh
WD My Passport Pro: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=yN2yH8
WD My Passport Wireless: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=EcjUHc

Swapping drives between enclosures shouldn't work as the encryption is different on each drive.

WD External drives don't come with additional drives with software but rather with preinstalled programs, depending on the model. You are free to remove them or re-download them from our website. 🙂

Captain_WD.

Thanks for the list!

I have to ask this again, since it seems to have been lost, but, if a user uses the My book drive 'as is' (everything is encrypted by default), then goes to install the software that you mentioned before, that allows for setting of a password, what happens?
Is this basically a password for the USB logic board to allow access, or is an additional layer of encryption on top of the automatic encryption?

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

The different drives come with different pre-installed software programs, but all feature the WD Security. The application is used ONLY to set a password. You can set a password from the OS too or from another third-party tool. When you have the WD Security on the drive you will be asked for this password every time you plug the drive in your system or any other system.
There is no second layer of encryption, just the one done by the chip in the case. 🙂
Here's some more info on the WD Security application: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=fDOOpj

Captain_WD.

 

[ReignQuake]

I'm not anyone important but I personally praise your honest and open attitude. If certain other hardware manufacturers were this honest people wouldn't be avoiding them like the plague right now. The encryption really wont matter to me because there will be two or more copies of my data. I will probably continue to match a passport ultra with a desktop elements.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

That would be a good plan for both backing up your data and for potential chance of recovering it yourself if you wanted to. 🙂 Thank you for the good words!

Captain_WD.

 

[Breacher]

Western Digital is about to get slapped with a law suit. In legal terms this is the same as ransomware.

 

[Kenn159]

A friend has a 4TB My book external drive, and his 2 year old managed to damage the unit from working.

Anyway, I was over there trying to help him get his data back, and opened up his case (it was out of warranty), and attempted to plug the HD into another machine I brought with me.
That did work, the HD is seen, however, the data seems to be encrypted.
I asked him if he ever set any password, and he said no, he just plugged it in, and starting writing data to it.

Looking online, it seems that WD is doing this to "protect your data", even if you didn't ask for said data to be encrypted to make it impossible to recover any info in case of disaster.
There is a encryption key that seems to be stored in a EEPROM chip most likely on the USB PCB, and I haven't seen any tools that could decrypt it.

Funny enough, I just saw a press release from ACE recovery saying that can now crack this encryption of these units. http://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...CE-Announces-Data-Recovery-Solution-Failed-WD

Why is WD automatically doing this without the consent of the user?
It seems the only thing this does is make sending these drives to professional recovery services mandatory. With HDs this size and higher, that tends to cost thousands of $$$, so, this seems rather shortsighted by WD.

Luckly, here, this was used as a backup drive mainly, with only some stuff that wasn't backed, but, they still had the originals of the other stuff, so, I just reformatted the HD, and stuck it in a regular USB 3 case (with fan), and, no more of this encryption nonsense.

Anyone know if this encryption is always on, on ALL WD external devices now?

 

[Kenn159]

I'm guessing if you find yourself in possession of a My Book(like I have) and want to feel your files are safe in the future...a work around would be... transfer your files to another drive temporarily, buy a separate 3rd party hard drive enclosure, take out the My Book internal WD red drive and put it in your new 3rd party enclosure. Then, format your WD Red drive, transfer your files back to this same WD red drive in your new 3rd party enclosure.
Will this work? Any experts want to weigh in?