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Problem
I bought brand new WD Caviar Green hard disks and put them into My Book World Edition II White Light case but… surprisingly it doesn’t work or even start! Only top LED is blinking/flashing and MBWE doesn’t appear in my network environment! Similar situation is with WD My Book World Edition I White Light or with my previously working disk that stopped working.
How to recover or rebuild firmware of bricked WD My Book World Edition White Light or install/replace brand new hard disk(s)?
Also following questions will find here their answers:
- Which disk to buy for WD My Book World Edition White Light?
- How to increase/upgrade WD My Book World Edition White Light capacity to 3TB (MBWE I) or 6TB (MBWE II)?
- How to downgrade WD My Book World Edition White Light firmware version?
- How to clean personal data (completely erase to the factory defaults) WD My Book World Edition White Light in purpose of sale?
What’s going on?
If suddenly your MBWE stopped working, firstly decode your MBWE situation by LEDs state/action and refer to the My Book World Edition User Manual on page 10 (LED Indicators). Maybe nothing serious happened there but only something unusual.
Anyway, MBWE is booting from NAS OS written on disk, so you can’t start MBWE:
- with brand new clean disk(s) or
- when your current disk(s) has broken boot partition or master boot record (MBR).
There is no user procedure provided by Western Digital to repair MBWE or start brand new disks. You can only return complete MBWE (with disk(s)) to Western Digital to recieve new one, if you have void warranty (for warranty conditions see: support.wdc.com).
I couldn’t agree with this, so I’ve decided to make it on my own and here it is…
What’s this?
This is linux bash script solution to restore MBWE White Light (install firmware once again) with a FACTORY STATE and CLEAN DISK:
- Works with both MBWE White Light (I and II) with any size of disk (even 3TB HDD)! but only WD Caviar Green!
Be aware also that not all WD Caviar Green drives may be MBWE compatible! (see WARNING below for details).
- Designed to auto download & install always the latest MBWE firmware directly from wdc.com (manually available here and fw revision info is here). But you can also install any firmware since & including ver. 01.02.06, that I’ve tested on 2011-04-20. If you encounter any problems with the latest version, just pick ver. 01.02.06 and then upgrade to the latest firmware using native MBWE management interface any time you want.
- Full install takes less than 1 minute! excluding firmware download.
- In MBWE II only 1 disk needs to be prepared! – the second one (clean) will be adopted by MBWE itself.
- Config with only 4 lines to adjust: disk label, serial number, model type, MAC address.
- 1 script to fire! and little wizard will guide you.
WARNING !!!
This solution WILL ERASE ALL YOUR DISK DATA, if you connect your old disk!!!
If you want to rescue data on bricked MBWE, contact Western Digital on wdc.custhelp.com or find DIY solution on mybookworld.wikidot.com. You can also boot Ubuntu from CD and try to make your data copy before this operation (4th partition is DataVolume partition) and move them back to your „new” MBWE. This should be possible if you got MBWE I or MBWE II with RAID 1 (mirror) or JBOD disk configuration. In other case, you shoudn’t do anything but call Western Digital if you care your data and you don’t know what to do.
Don’t buy new WD Caviar Green disk without being sure this model works with your MBWE!
As Western Digital online customer support says, Advanced Format Drives are not compatible with MBWE but they don’t say which one particularly is advanced/incompatible (more about Advanced Format Technology). Particular WD Caviar Green disk models with MBWE compatibility statuses are (for specs go to wdc.com or Specs Sheet):
- EADS, EAVS, EACS (SATA II 3Gb/s) are definitly compatible as WD says.
- EARS (SATA II 3Gb/s) are compatible as tested on my own and by the community.
EARX (SATA III 6Gb/s) compatibility varies as community report successes (1 case) as well as failures (1 case). WD support hints it may or may not work due to relatively older MBWE SATA II interface. Try different jumper settings as a last hope (see pic).
- EZRX (SATA III 6Gb/s) is compatible as tested by the community (here is the proof of 2x3TB WD30EZRX).
- EADX, EZRSDTL (SATA III 6Gb/s) compatibility unknown yet.
REMEMBER: If you buy new disks to your MBWE II, always take both disks of the same type and the same part (production series) due to RAID performance and conformance. Therefore, you should buy both disks from the same retailer at once (at the same time).
Quick How-To
- 1 Boot Ubuntu
from CD/CDRW/PenDrive/HDD. How-To on: Download Ubuntu.
NOTICE:
If you have problems with other linux distributions/versions simply use Ubuntu 10.10, because I’ve tested it.
DO NOT USE ANY VIRTUAL MACHINE – it can cause many additional issues. - 2 Wire your computer
to the Internet (wireless connection is often not possible due to lack of many Ubuntu CD WiFi drivers and it’s not our goal to play with it here). - 3 Extract mbwe.tar.gz
(right click and choose Extract Here) on Desktop (all files should be placed in folder mbwe – if not, correct this). If you pre-downloaded firmware image manually, place it in mbwe folder and rename it to fw.img - 4 Connect your hard disk
directly to the computer, using SATA-to-USB adapter (or any other hot plug way). - 5 Edit mbwe-config.sh file
in folder mbwe and type your disk parameters (DISK_LABEL,MBWE_TYPE,MBWE_SERIALandMAC_ADDRS) according comments. - 6 Open Terminal
(CTRL+ALT+T) and type:
cd Desktop/mbwe
sudo bash ./mbwe-install.sh - 7 Listen carefully
what is Terminal asking you and obey his commands. If you need some screenshot hints go to the Polish version. - 8 After Safe Remove disk
using Disk Utility (click Safe Removal button), place it in MBWE bay (any bay in MBWE II). Remember to unplug MBWE from the wall (electricity) before. - 9 Plug MBWE to the wall
and wait 3 minutes then go through first start procedure in MBWE web GUI (log in as admin/admin). - 10 For MBWE I that’s all.
For MBWE II go further:
- 11 Shutdown MBWE
by holding Power for 3 seconds and wait untill all LEDs are off, then unplug from the wall and put your second clean disk in an empty bay. If your second disk contains any data or structure (isn’t brand new), you must completely clean it before (unallocated space = no partitions, unformatted). This can be done using Disk Utility. - 12 Power MBWE on
and voilà.
That’s all folks
If this saved your life, you can express your happiness by your little donation.
Thanks in advance!
Regardless you had issues or not, please leave your feedback:
- Your MBWE version?: MBWE I or MBWE II.
- Your hard disk description?: WD Caviar Green WD20EARS or other.
- Your linux distro/version?: Ubuntu 10.10 Live CD or other.
- Your firmware?: installed automatically by script or downloaded manually ver.01.02.06-010411.
This will help maintain script validity and help people to resolve their issues.
Thanks Krzysztof!!!
I just replaced the original hdd’s (2x WD10EADS) of my mbweII against two new WD20EARS and it works fine with fw 01.02 12!
But at my first try I had some problems to prepare the first hdd:
I connected the hdd via an usb-ide/sata-adapter and the install.sh couldn’t create the partitions.
In my second try I connected the hdd via sata to the mainboard directly. And then it works! No matter why…
one note:
the original hdd’s had jumpers on pins 5+6 set. This activates the 1,5GB/s transfer speed (http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/1679#jumper).
Is the mbweII not able to work with 3GB/s (SATAII)?
How ever, I used the jumpers (pins 5+6) at the new hdd’s too.
Had anyone tried it without jumpers?
Good for you!
)
Regarding to USB issue, it’s definitely not the script problem. I can’t tell you what went wrong without being before your computer or just having your environment info (as stated on the end of the text) and your install log. Whatever you did it.
Regarding to jumpers, Alex had managed without any, thus it doesn’t matter, I assume. Maybe in case of some legacy hardware jumpers can help. If you want, just make some play with it and tell us if there is any difference. My MBWE is SATA II device at least and SATA III is compatible with it (supports legacy interface). Anyway, you can only achieve 8MB/s because of MBWE hardware limitations (it is a little turtle
Krzysztof,
Many thanks for your research.
I would like to upgrade my MBWE white LED to 3TB.
Unfortunetely, i can’t try your solution, because of mbwe.tar.gz file is missing from the site.
Would you please upload it again, or send me in mail recepient?
Thanks a lot!
Laszlo
It works: mbwe.tar.gz.
Hi Krzysztof,
Yes, You are right, i was mistaken. Exactly, the corporate firewall joked me, because the file is reachable from a private computer, unlike the machine in the office, where I’ve got only a „corrupted file” message and not the „blocked content” as usual in similar cases. The MBWE II is now working fine with two 3TB new disk, thanks to your research.
Hi Krzysztof
Do you know if this works on the blue led edition?
No, it doesn’t.
If you can wait 2 weeks, I could make Blue Rings version. You could be my tester…
Will look forward to it
I’ve made some solution but I really need to have MBWEBR to do some tests. Unfortunately, I don’t have any, and remote testing could be real torture.
I’m interested too in a single 500gb drive blue-ring restore !!!
It’s the only working script around. Get it, works flawlessly on completely clean disks, don’t bother searching alternatives, tried them all with no result.
Thx krzych.
It’s because it is really installing firmware in a factory manner – not reconstructing MBWE based on copy of another one.
i’ve tried everything on above but failed on WD20EARX so i just assume that i have the one incompatible, i will trying on WD20EARS and report it back. thanks for guiding you provide.
I’m sorry to hear that.
Have you changed any jumpers as presented on wdc.custhelp.com? This is the last hope, I think.
Stay in touch and give here please your further findings.