Bad Firmware Flash Woes on External HDD

[AuroEdge]

So umm... I used the latest firmware flasher for my Western Digital My Book Pro and managed to completely erase the firmware or corrupt it. It doesn't even turn on anymore but if I connect it via USB it comes up as Blank Oxford Device. Windows won't mount it as a Hard Drive so I don't see any way to fix the problem. Any ideas short of RMA?

[semicolo]

you probably can't do anything more, you'd need to reprogram the flash using a flash programmer since the self programming part must be damaged now.
Maybe there's some jtag workaround but only the manufacturer must know of it and you'd need specific hardware to do this.
And I assume you can't open the enclosure without voiding the warranty.

[Roofus]

Firmware upgrades are usually an "at your own risk" kind of thing and therefore probably wouldn't be supported. Why would you flash the firmware on a hard drive, anyway?

[Ex-Cyber]

Since it enumerates, I'd expect that there's some kind of recovery/debug mode. Unfortunately it seems that Oxford Semiconductor keeps all real info on their chips under wraps. I'd call WD tech support and see what they say. Modern devices shouldn't brick unrecoverably on routine updates unless the hardware itself is faulty. The techniques for avoiding this are not particularly arcane or expensive, and are applied to plenty of consumer-oriented devices.