Question Does anyone know if I can remove the encasing around my WD SATA hard drive ?

[Joshuacm]

corner seems to protect part of hard drive

I do not see screws

it does not seem to fit an enclosure


Hello, my laptop was damaged, and the only way I have to try to salvage the data is to try to use something like an enclosure. However, the hard drive has this plastic encasing around it. perhaps somebody has some experience with this. I have noticed that underneath one corner of this encasing is what appears to be part of the hard drive, and I do not want to try to remove the encasing without knowing what I am doing. So far, I am not finding an enclosure or other device that I can plug into my hard drive to salvage it (due to the dimensions with the encasing). I would like to find out if anybody might be able to advise me regarding this matter. This is a western digital hard drive if it helps at all. Thank you in advance.

 

[USAFRet]

A SATA - USB cable would almost certainly work.
Like this:
https://www.amazon.com/SABRENT-SATA-USB-Cable-Converter/dp/B011M8YACM

 

[evermorex76]

I don't get what you think might be part of the drive. The silvery bit you have the arrow pointing to is just a grounding strip to make contact with the drive's metal casing and the laptop's frame. The rest is just a rubbery material for vibration dampening and to protect a little bit from shock if the laptop was dropped, with "pins" going into the screw holes on the sides. Otherwise that's just a standard 2.5 inch mechanical drive.

 

[Misgar]

You should be able to remove the ribbed (black) shock protection from the drive with relative ease. Whether it's clipped on to the drive, screwed on. or glued on isn't visible in your photos.

If you intend to fit a drive back into the laptop, try not to destroy the black shock mount.