Chosen Solution
I have a WD Elements 1 TB external hard drive. I would like to find out if it’s a SATA drive in there, and more importantly, if I can pull this out of its external housing and put it into my computer. The P/N is WDBAAU0010HBK-00.
Any drive over 400GB is almost certianly SATA, you should be able to try this, as I have a 1TB MyBook, and it appears to be a standard SATA PC 3.5" drive inside, so as long as your computer has a 3.5" Bay, and a SATA connector for data, and for power, you should be good to go. This will not, however work in a laptop, they use 2.5" drives.
The WD Elements SE 2.5 external portable USB drive, however, does not. They went away with the SATA connector and have their micro USB port right on the drive inside.
Hi Nathan & Chris i have 1TB 2.5 external HD from WD elements. the micro USB port has been damaged, hence the HD is not getting detected properly in my pc or laptop. All my data is in the HD. Is it possible to connect this HD with anyother port. I see only the micro usb port. am not sure about other port. attached the screen shot my HD for better understanding of the internal design of HD. if anyone can help to extract data by any means it will be helpfull. Thanks.
just got one of these drives the hdd drive inside doesn’t have the usual usb to sata converter that you just pull off to reveal the normal sata and power connectors of a drive that would fit into a laptop so if the micro usb gets damaged you will have no other option other than to get it looked at by a professional to repair it
The statement about the elements 2.5 not having an SATA interface is false. I just bought one and tore it open because USB 2.0 is unacceptable. I now have a nive WD Caviar Green inside my PC! I got the thing open using my fingernails and a nail clipper. It looks scary when you see the tear-down photos, but if you’re gentle and take your time you can get it out without a scratch!
