Well I dismantled the case. Its a silver 250GB one an it has hidden tabs at each side of the top that hook in and break when you try to open it, so there goes the warranty.
As I figured, the drive works perfectly once removed from the case.
Before it went kerfut I ran it for a short time as a boot drive for a MacBook migration and it got very hot so I don't recommend using the WD Passport drive for this for extended periods.
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Out of interest, here is what's on the WD site - what will void the warranty:
* The label on the drive has been tampered. For more details, please see our warranty limitations.
* The drive has been tampered.
* For FireWire, USB, and Combo drive - the drive is removed from its external case. (This does not apply to the WD My Book Pro II and Premium II external hard drives)
* The drive was repaired by a company not authorized by Western Digital. If you use a company that is not one of the authorized preferred data recovery partners to recover data or repair your drive, your warranty will be voided.
* Replacing the system's circuit board.
If the drive does not show up in Disk Management (Windows), or Disk Utilities (Mac), and you have tried all the troubleshooting options relevant to your drive, then your drive has most likely failed and you will need to contact a data recovery company to retrieve your data.
Well I proved that last paragraph wrong!
