external WD my book 3TB convert to internal drive

[JackS06]

Not sure if my case is similar to

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2064774/3tb-book-internal-drive.html?xtor=EREC-8889

but I thought I'd double check.

Recently I'm 99% certain my WD 3TB My Book (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136749) has the SATA-USB bridge inside going dead. I've replaced both the USB cable and power cable with brand new cable, and it'd show up as ATA/ATAPI USB device randomly on windows from time to time the past week. Luckily the last time windows actually recognized it as a drive I was able to back up all my files from that drive. I did check the integrity of the drive and the SMART status is healthy, leading me to think the drive itself is still OK. Based on what I've read it seems as if the SATA-USB is the most likely problem.

In any case I really don't care about finding a new SATA-USB PCB at this point to prolong it as external drive and just want to take the drive out (its way past warranty) and plug it into my computer as an extra internal drive for my desktop. I understand that WD has encryption on it, which means it won't read my current data, which is fine. But before I take it out and plug it into my mobo, I just want to make sure that once I connect it, I should be able to go into Disk Management in Windows 10 and initialize the hard drive, and repartition it as "new" hard drive with 2.72 TB space. I'm not missing anything that the encryption will bar me from using it as an internal will it? I've gotten all my files off from the My Book.

Here are my desktop specs:

Windows 10 Pro
AMD Phenom II X4 955
M4A785TD-V EVO BIOS 2105
12 GB DDR3
2x1GB seagate HDDs in software RAID/mirroring

Thanks in advance!

Sorry if this is a repeat, if there is a RTFM thread that you know of that has the answer to my exact question, please kindly redirect!

 

[BFG-9000]

Some of the earlier external drives also had the bridge board lie to the OS about the drive parameters, translating it into something XP could understand. That's why some 3-4TB external disks could work fine in XP, and moving those to internal use may require a reformat or even a zero-fill to get working. Later external drives simply formatted them GPT and dispensed with the XP compatibility. That's what you'll have to do if you want to see >2.2TB.

Could be worse--their current drives dispense with the housing's circuit board adapter entirely so are USB-only:

 

[SkyNetRising]

I just want to make sure that once I connect it, I should be able to go into Disk Management in Windows 10 and initialize the hard drive, and repartition it as "new" hard drive with 2.72 TB space. I'm not missing anything that the encryption will bar me from using it as an internal will it?

There's no encryption. It's a standard sata drive inside of WD MyBook.
It is partitioned in non-standard way, so once removed from enclosure it must be repartitioned to GPT.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

One problem you might encounter is finding that the drive has a proprietary connection interface rather than the regular SATA one you get on drives manufactured for internal use. I've seen this for myself when I cracked open a couple of Seagate Expansion external drives, I didn't recognise the connection interface on the stripped-down drive at all.

That was in 2014.

Just looked at your (excellent) photo, looks like it's a regular internal drive they've put in it. Mine didn't even have an info sticker on the drive casing.

 

[JackS06]

I just want to make sure that once I connect it, I should be able to go into Disk Management in Windows 10 and initialize the hard drive, and repartition it as "new" hard drive with 2.72 TB space. I'm not missing anything that the encryption will bar me from using it as an internal will it?

There's no encryption. It's a standard sata drive inside of WD MyBook.
It is partitioned in non-standard way, so once removed from enclosure it must be repartitioned to GPT.

Great thanks for the info. Do you recommend GPT over MBR when I reformat my new drive? I won't be putting windows on this converted drive, most likely just media files. Pretty sure my mobo is not UEFI and still legacy, if that changes things. Concerned with 2TB limit if I have to partition it as MBR.

 

[BFG-9000]

If you want a secondary storage drive, format it GPT so you can use the whole 2.72TB

If you want it to be bootable, you'll have to format it MBR 2TB because your board is not UEFI so cannot boot GPT disks.