How to Replace a WD My Cloud hard drive

[Kevin 0]

 

***** WARNING: Performing this process will cause the total loss of any data on your hard drive. Save anything that you wish to keep, BEFORE performing any of the steps outlined in this video. Any data loss is your responsibility. *****

 

Downloads needed:

Download a 2TB or 3TB image for the My Cloud here:

mycloud2T.7z mycloud3T.7z

 

Download SystemRescueCD here:

systemrescue-7.01-amd64.iso systemrescue-7.01-i686.iso systemrescuecd-x86-4.7.3_.iso

http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

The tutorial used while making this video can be found here: https://community.wd.com/t/guide-how-to-unbrick-your-2tb-3tb-4tb-my-cloud/93336

 

Commands used in this video:

 

mkdir /mnt/usb mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb
ls /mnt/usb
dd if=/mnt/usb/mycloud2tb.img of=/dev/sda

 

NOTE: If you're using a 2TB Drive, you can stop here. For larger drives, continue:

parted
nit s
p
OK
Fix
rm 4
mkpart primary
ext4
9428992s

NOTE: The following number is what I had to use for a 6TB drive. If you're using a different sized drive, this number will be different.

11721043967s

Also, in the video, I had to boot into UBUNTU to format the partition properly. I was using a 6TB drive, if you are not using a 6TB drive, you may be able to skip that step. This is just what I had to do in my situation.

Credit for the tutorial goes to the original author "Ouglee" on the WD Community website, there he or she also gives credit for sources used in its creation.

 

 

 

mycloud2T.7z mycloud3T.7z systemrescuecd-x86-4.7.3_.iso

systemrescue-7.01-amd64.iso systemrescue-7.01-i686.iso

[Guest ASHIM GHOSH]

Please advise star and end number of 2TB WD HDD

[Kevin 0]

On 10/2/2021 at 2:05 AM, Guest ASHIM GHOSH said:

Please advise star and end number of 2TB WD HDD

Sorry for the delay, I just saw your post. For a 2TB, the end number is 9428992s. It's been a while since I did this process, but I believe that's the only number that you should have to enter. 

[Guest Jordi Mayor]

Hi Kevin !!! Thank you very much !!! My WDMyCloud 3Tb has been damaged. Sorry if you've commented this on the video, but can I replace the 3TB with a 4TB? And then, I've to download the 3Tb image, isn't it?

Thank you very much. If you're so kind, please answer me directly here: jordimayor with gmail and dot com as mail response. 
 

[Kevin 0]

On 11/8/2021 at 6:53 AM, Guest Jordi Mayor said:

Hi Kevin !!! Thank you very much !!! My WDMyCloud 3Tb has been damaged. Sorry if you've commented this on the video, but can I replace the 3TB with a 4TB? And then, I've to download the 3Tb image, isn't it?

Thank you very much. If you're so kind, please answer me directly here: jordimayor with gmail and dot com as mail response. 
 

Hi, I'll post this here and email you as well. That way if anyone else has that question, they can read my answer here. 

Yes, you can replace a 3TB with a larger drive. You can even replace a larger with a smaller drive, as long as your data will fit the smaller drive, of course. 

You don't have to download the 3TB image, you can download the 2TB. Just follow the tutorial and use the correct numbers when you install the software. It will expand to the 4TB drive. 

In my video, I used the 2TB image to install a 6TB drive. 

[Guest Mariusz]

how do i get the end number for 4TB drive?

 

[Guest Heath]

On 12/24/2021 at 7:08 PM, Guest Mariusz said:

how do i get the end number for 4TB drive?

 

I would like to know how to calculate this number as well in case I would like to use say a 12TB drive.  Is it just the very last sector on the drive?

[Kevin 0]

On 3/30/2022 at 6:41 PM, Guest Heath said:

I would like to know how to calculate this number as well in case I would like to use say a 12TB drive.  Is it just the very last sector on the drive?

It's been a while since I did it, so I'll go back and see if I can remember what I did and let you know. 

[Guest Ali]

Hey, Kevin,

I praise for your efforts. I have been following your helpful instructions lately in trying replacing my old 4tb hdd in my Gen1 unit with a 500gb ssd. Overall, I did everything as far as instructed but the unit shows only "90MB Free". I have tried the following methods but to no avail:

- Update Firmware (running firmware is v03.00.03-413 and the latest is v04.06.00-111): Error -- Device does not have enough space for upgrade. (370002)

- Diagnostics Test, Reboot, Factory Restore (tried all 3 options: System Only, Quick Restore, Full Restore): Nothing works.

- Dissemble the ssd, format the free partition (ext4) in SystemRescueCD environment, Assemble again: No change.

I have search all over the internet and at this point It seems I am the first to have this problem. I think if it can be solved, it would most likely be a breakthrough. Hope my comment reaches you well and yearn for your troubleshooting.

[Kevin 0]

18 hours ago, Guest Ali said:

Hey, Kevin,

I praise for your efforts. I have been following your helpful instructions lately in trying replacing my old 4tb hdd in my Gen1 unit with a 500gb ssd. Overall, I did everything as far as instructed but the unit shows only "90MB Free". I have tried the following methods but to no avail:

- Update Firmware (running firmware is v03.00.03-413 and the latest is v04.06.00-111): Error -- Device does not have enough space for upgrade. (370002)

- Diagnostics Test, Reboot, Factory Restore (tried all 3 options: System Only, Quick Restore, Full Restore): Nothing works.

- Dissemble the ssd, format the free partition (ext4) in SystemRescueCD environment, Assemble again: No change.

I have search all over the internet and at this point It seems I am the first to have this problem. I think if it can be solved, it would most likely be a breakthrough. Hope my comment reaches you well and yearn for your troubleshooting.

The issue could be the number of sectors that you enter (or don't enter). Are you using 9428992s when you get to that point in the process? That would be for a 4TB drive and could be the issue. 

[Guest Ali]

3 hours ago, Kevin said:

The issue could be the number of sectors that you enter (or don't enter). Are you using 9428992s when you get to that point in the process? That would be for a 4TB drive and could be the issue. 

Thank you very much for your prompt reply. :)

After 'dd if=/mnt/usb/mycloud2tb.img of=/dev/sda' my unit is inaccessible by SystemRescue, even after rebooting. Using 'gparted' gives a 'Libparted Error: Invalid argument during seek for read on /dev/sda'. Proceeding while ignoring the error only leads to gparted showing one unallocated partition (465.76Gib) on /dev/sda. So there is current no way I can try 'parted' and use the rest of the commands right away.

You are right, I think it may have something to do with the incompatibility between the virgin image and my ssd. All images I can find are at least 1tb large. I tried them all but the same error occurs.

During my trials, I had to plug the 500GB ssd into a Windows PC in order to access it. It does show up the full partition table that is exactly the same as the virgin image, with the last partition ended up being larger than the actual ssd (but showed as RAW instead of ext4). At this point, I tried deleting the partition in Windows which made it display its correct size and also made the ssd accessible by SystemRescue subsequently.

After deleting the partition, using 'gparted' in SystemRescue graphic environment showed no error and the partition table looked like this:

Partition | Name | File System | Mount Point | Size | Used | Unused | Flags

unallocated | ------ | unallocated | ----- | 15.00MiB | ----- | ----- | 

/dev/sda1 | primary | linux-swap | ----- | 489.00MiB | 0.00B | 489.00 MiB | msftdata

/dev/sda2 | primary | linux-raid | /dev/md126 | 1.91GiB | ----- | ----- | raid

/dev/sda3 | primary | linux-raid | /dev/md127 | 1.91GiB | ----- | ----- | raid

/dev/sda4 | primary | unknown | ----- | 95.00MiB | ----- | ----- | msftdata

/dev/sda5 | primary | unknown | ----- | 96.00MiB | ----- | ----- | msftdata

/dev/sda6 | primary | unknown | ----- | 1.00MiB | ----- | ----- | msftdata

/dev/sda7 | primary | unknown | ----- | 2.00MiB | ----- | ----- | msftdata

unallocated | ------ | unallocated | ----- | 461.27GiB | ----- | ----- | 

(sorry, I couldn't insert the image so I typed ^^)

Since I am no tech expert, at this point, I don't know how to target the last unallocated partition so I can not use 'parted' correctly as 'rm 4' would target the 95MiB partition instead. I could only try creating an ext4 partition from the last unallocated partition which then became /dev/sda8. Using 'parted' to set the number of sectors for /dev/sda8 ends up making /dev/sda8 become unallocated again (FYI: mine is from 9428992s to 978856464s).

Hope you can provide a workaround.