Everyone who does any sort of data recovery knows that Western Digital external hard drives can be a real pain to break into if they fail.  While I’ve found plenty of extremely helpful visual guides to disassembly of these models in the past, the model I received today for repair wasn’t among them.  It’s a WD5000F032 (also WD5000C032, and perhaps other similar model numbers as well), and the method to disassemble it is completely different.
So I took it upon myself to create a guide of my own. Â Hope this helps you!
Western Digital WD5000F032 external hard drive Disassembly
Step 1 – Remove the rubber liner
Step 2a – Press the plastic tabs on top…
Step 2b – …and bottom
Step 3 – Slide the contents out of the shell casing
Step 4 – Remove screws
Step 5 – Remove more screws
Step 6 – Remove the final screw
Step 7 – (Optional) remove the drive from the bracket
Thanks very much for posting this helpful piece. It gave me the confidence to finally open my unit to identify the replacement disk drive I needed to order. Unfortunately I’m having problems closing it up. Tried both with and without prior installation of the rubber liner. It closes easily without the liner but then it’s difficult to install the liner. With the liner preinstalled the cover goes on but so far impossible to engage the tabs to complete the final 1.5 inches of travel. Of course it works but would look better completely closed. Any suggestions would be appreciated.