We owned a My Book Live, with 1TB HD as a “fancy” NAS Drive probably released around 2012. Because Windows 11 now comes with default SMB 2.0 and upwards, you cannot use it unless you install SMB 1.1 (SMB 1.1 is insecure and old). I had some older 256GB SSDs and I wanted to replace the existing HD with the SSD and use it primarily to stream music from the drive. I also had saved a 3TB image of the firmware a couple years ago. Here’s how I did it.

1. Extract the Firmware Image

Run a Ubuntu Live Disk (ran version 24.x). Use Ventoy, makes your life a lot easier.

sudo apt install p7zip-full -y
7z x "mybook3tb (2020_10_23 23_11_18 UTC).7z" -o./mybook_image

This produces:

mybook3tb (2020_10_23 23_11_18 UTC).img

2. Write Image to the New SSD

Connect your SSD to the Ubuntu Live machine via USB. You can buy a kit or resue the board and cable from a dead external HD by taking it apart. Find your SSD device (example /dev/sdg):

lsblk

Then flash the image:

sudo dd if="mybook3tb (2020_10_23 23_11_18 UTC).img" of=/dev/sdg bs=64K status=progress
sync

3. Fix GPT and Create a New Data Partition

The data drive is large and it turns out, we can just reduce it to fit the SSD. So here you go:

sudo gdisk /dev/sdg

Inside gdisk, do the following:

d          # delete partition 4
n          # create new partition
4          # partition number
<Enter>    # default start
+220G      # safe size for 256 GB SSD
<Enter>    # accept default type (8300)
w          # write
y

4. Format Partition 4 on MyBook Live

This is the data partition that needs resizing.

Plug the SSD into MyBook Live and power it on.

We’ll need to SSH into it but SSH is not turned on. So go to the portal add ssh after UI so the ULR is /UI/ssh. Enable it.

SSH into the device. You need special commands because it only accepts ssh-rsa:

ssh -o HostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa -o PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes=+ssh-rsa root@<IP_ADDRESS>
# Default password: welc0me

Format the partition:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4

5. Mount It

mkdir -p /DataVolume
mount /dev/sda4 /DataVolume
df -h | grep DataVolume

6. Enable Auto-Mount on Boot

echo "/dev/sda4   /DataVolume   ext4   defaults,noatime,nodiratime,discard   0   0" >> /etc/fstab

7. Take the SSD to Mybook, connect it, power it on.

reboot

After reboot, the LED should turn green and the web UI will show Status: Good. But you cannot see the “Public” share. The easiest way to fix this is to go to the Mybook portal –> Utilities –> Factory Restore –> Quick Factory restore. Let it reboot and now your Public folder will be visible, your machine is ready to use with the new SSD Drive.

Note, I just removed the entire Mybook casing, connected the SSD and hung it up using screws and some of the pre punched holes on my network board. :) You can be innovative to reuse the case or create a new case.

Optional

Your machine is using an SSD instead of the regular HD so I had these enabled.

8. Optimizations (Optional)

Disable forced fsck:

tune2fs -i 0 -c 0 /dev/sda4

Disable swap:

swapoff -a
sed -i '/swap/d' /etc/fstab

Confirm /etc/fstab entry:

/dev/sda4   /DataVolume   ext4   defaults,noatime,nodiratime,discard   0   0

This process restores MyBook Live to a working state with a 256 GB SSD, boots correctly, and mounts the data volume automatically.

Lastly, save your music, let Mybook parse through and enjoy listening.

Remember, its a very old device with a very old Linux kernel so don’t use it for any data or sensitive stuff. Security experts would probably say not to run such devices in your network if you’re worried about security.

🐦