External hard drive connection issues

I've got this Western Digital external hard drive, USB 3.0, and it looks like the USB port on the drive itself has completely snapped off. What should my next move be?

Adam Nguyen7 said:I've got this Western Digital external hard drive, USB 3.0, and it looks like the USB port on the drive itself has completely snapped off. What should my next move be?

Maybe try dropping it off at the store where you originally picked it up?

😂

Bought this thing a century ago...

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=...nal+hard+drive

Maybe try swapping out the connectors?

So, you're talking about Chipotle? What kind of connector is that even supposed to be?

It’d probably be a good idea if you just snapped a photo of it, since you didn't really give much detail on the actual HDD model name...

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I haven't personally messed around with swapping those out, and honestly, my gut tells me it’s a non-starter—everything seems soldered directly onto the board as one solid unit.
If you're feeling particularly masochistic and want to play around with a soldering iron, or if you know a decent technician who won't charge you an arm and a leg for their time, maybe... this kind of work takes a lot of patience and focus. We’d really need to crack it open first just to see how much of a headache we're actually looking at.

On the flip side, you could always just spend about $67 on an external HDD enclosure https://www.amazon.com/external-hdd-enclosure/s?k=external+hdd+enclosure&page=2—basically, you pull the drive out of the old junk and slide it into the new housing.
Just make sure you check the drive size—whether it's a 2.5" or a 3.5"—and double-check what kind of connector it uses. It would be a huge help if you could snap some photos once you get it out so we can see what we're dealing with inside. You mentioned this thing is practically ancient, and I’d rather not cause any more damage than already exists.

With newer drives, like some of the Western Digital models, they tend to weld the wiring and the electronics together, which makes things way less straightforward. I doubt yours is built that way, but it's worth checking... 🙂

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This is the model I’m talking about: https://www.amazon.de/Western-Digita.../dp/B003QLQPA4

It’s definitely not a century old, but man, this thing has seen at least a decade of service...



So yeah, that connector on the back? It's gone. Completely snapped off and slid right into the casing. I'm going to tear this thing apart tonight and see how much of a mess I'm actually dealing with...