Comments on: Remove ‘WD SmartWare’ from your Western Digital Passport or MyBook

By: Jeanelle Auzenne

Jeanelle Auzenne — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 06:07:07 +0000

I found your blog in the “Trackback” section of another blog. You write excellent content. I subscribed to your rss feed so I’ll return for a visit later. Keep up the good work!

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:17:06 +0000

I sorted it, I just had to install then uninstall. Strange! Next time i’m buying 2.5 WD internal and case.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:45:28 +0000

Still, does not work. Apparently I have it “locked” yet I have never set a password. I have used windows to do a full format of the drive and its still popping up when I connect the drive.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:49:33 +0000

Roy you have to run the cmd prompt as administrator…… Then do what TR said to do…

Right click on icon and run as administrator…..

By: Sollien

Sollien — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:02:36 +0000

Thank you!!!!!!!! The wd smart ware is gone and with it the annoying mac message that tells you that data migt be destroyed or the disk fucked up. Now I might start to like this little 500 gb WD beuty…

By: roy alexander

roy alexander — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:18:13 +0000

Hi,

I bought one of these today, (500gb) and their stupid software takes 35Gb!!!!

I ran the firmware thing as suggested, it simply hid it, I still am 35Gb down.

TR, I tried what you suggested and it just kicks up an access denied, and nothing else. (windoze 7)

I can’t even see the drive in acronis disc director….

If I can resolve this I’m taking it back in a couple of days.

By: nOtrAB

nOtrAB — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:27:10 +0000

m00FER thanKS For THE INFo!

By: West

West — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:46:37 +0000

Back to the WD Smartware issue….. I followed the above instructions by Marc on Windows XP for getting rid of the WD Smartware package. At first I thought it was still there but when I checked my corresponding G: drive (the main drive) and it had jumped from available space of 298G’s up to 319G’s which is 1G short of what is advertised on the box. I’m okay with that…. Thanx Marc.

By: TR

TR — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:14:15 +0000

It seems that everyone has forgotten the basics of computers…always needing some special software to fix a problem! Simply go to the command prompt in the windows start menu, change the drive to the WD harddrive (expample–type f: to change to the f drive if that is how your computer has recognized it) then type format f: You will then be prompted to confirm that you want to format and that all data will be lost. Now, because WD has played this trick with the virtual CD you will see the following message:

“Format cannot run because the volume is in use by another process.
Format may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES
TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to for a dismount
on this volume? (Y/N)”
Enter y and return. You will see: “Volume dismounted. All opened handles to this volume are now invalid.” At this point the formatting will begin. Once complete all WD VCD problems will have been removed.

By: IndyJones4420

IndyJones4420 — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:06:32 +0000

Anybody got any advise for this PS3 issue?

By: shane

shane — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:08:19 +0000

Best advice for this issue. Almost gave up and returned my drive. Thanks very much!

By: IndyJones4420

IndyJones4420 — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:16:56 +0000

The smart ware is gone, but it still wont show up on my PS3 via usb. My Toshiba 500gb worked fine, but this wd 1tb wont show up at all. I hate it.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:27:33 +0000

i’m fairly mac savvy, and after step one the drive no longer shows up anywhere, not in disk utility or in the step two software, got any solution to this?

thanks for the help

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:54:07 +0000

I have bought WD drives for years, but I will never buy another one! Not only do they infect your computer with this BS – WD SmartWare rootkit that you can’t really remove (you can only hide it from yourself… it’s still on the physical harddrive and still takes up that space), it appears that they have a serious reliability issue with their MyBook external drives.
In the last two weeks I have had two 500 gig MyBooks fail with the infamous “click of death” and tried everything (including freezing them) to get them to work long enough to do a final backup before they croaked completely. No go… they’re dead, dead, dead… so I lost a few gigs of music, photos, and videos that I hadn’t backed up in the last month!

By: mondo

mondo — Sat, 29 May 2010 15:37:40 +0000

i’m using a mac btw

By: mondo

mondo — Sat, 29 May 2010 15:36:09 +0000

please help! i followed the instructions and now my passport elite’s lights are just on and the it’s not mounting on my desktop what should i do?

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:38:59 +0000

Followed the WD firmware update and their latest removal update. The CD icon is gone, but every time the hard drive is attached the Smartware software launches automatically. Can this be stopped?

By: Sven

Sven — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:38:16 +0000

Thanks a lot! Worked perfect. I think WD should reconsider this software talibanism if they like to have returning customers

By: Christopher

Christopher — Mon, 17 May 2010 05:03:37 +0000

thanks! just used this and it worked perfectly (for the PC)

By: Jeff Wahlund

Jeff Wahlund — Tue, 11 May 2010 00:49:48 +0000

I called WD and the tech said the software was on a flash card. That’s why you can’t delete it. I still don’t know where the extra 50GB went. Oh well.

By: Rich Guest

Rich Guest — Mon, 10 May 2010 05:31:35 +0000

Ok, I understand that they want you to use their bullshit software, but I fail to understand the reasoning behind why they want to make it so difficult to remove. Surely they must be aware that the vast majority of computer users don’t like having stuff forced upon them. At least with the older external drives it was possible to delete the crap. I have been using western digital hard drives for a while now and have always found them OK, but I shall be looking for something different next time i need more hard drive space. Recommendations anyone? I’m using a Macbook pro.

By: Marc Cizravi

Marc Cizravi — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:43:22 +0000

Xhefri, that’s strange, have you reached a resolution?

Justin, you’re not giving me much information to help you out, “My machine is slow” is like telling your doctor “I don’t feel well”

Tess, TYPICALLY drives that are sold as XXGB capacity are usually XX less a small amount, I have a 1TB drive that’s only 931GB, a 500GB drive that’s only 475GB, so on and so forth. The only time I’ve ever purchased a drive that was actually what was advertised is my 2TB G-Drive. I can’t say for certain (although I’m sure Google has an answer) but I believe different file system formatting will steal a little bit of space from you. You’re not alone.

I’m not familiar with xbox360 interfacing so you’ll need to explain that as well :]

By: Tess

Tess — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:36:14 +0000

I have bought a 320GB drive and it arrived today…but the capacity claims to only be 297GB once connected! Should this WD Smartware really take up 23GB?!

And will it really not work with an Xbox 360? What a waste of money!

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:37:15 +0000

I downloaded and followed the steps that “hide” the software but my machine still seems to be running super slow. Am i screwed out of my money and time or is there a way to fix this? Even when the drive is not connected I still have the wd smartware icon in the lower right hand corner of my screen. when i try to click exit smartware nothing happens. Any help would be huge.

By: Xhefri

Xhefri — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:32:38 +0000

Now the WD website says:

Software Update for Mac Users

Windows users click here

We have temporarily suspended downloads of release 1.2.1.25 for Mac while we investigate a recently discovered issue with the software. We will restore download capability as soon as we have resolved the issue.

Well that explains why it did not work I guess and now no back up drive!

By: Xhefri

Xhefri — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:27:33 +0000

Well I followed the steps and after the firmware update the drive no long mounts… so I can do anything now, not even run the VCD step….dead in the water….

By: Bradley L. Garrett

Bradley L. Garrett — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:53:07 +0000

Oh god thank you it was killing me! What a horror of design engineering.

By: Lol

Lol — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:15:26 +0000

The best alternative if you’re a western digital fanboy is the just a internal drive and buy and external casing 3to5 year warranty vs 2 years. might cost 10-20$ more thought. but you’ll get firewire and Esata too.

By: Obvious

Obvious — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:06:48 +0000

It is NOT REMOVED. You’ve gone and hidden it! this IS a headache! you’ve only got a 999GB drive they stole your 1GB and FORCED this trash on you. Unless they release a solid fix I believe this is going back to the store. Seagate wouldn’t do this, Samsung wouldn’t and even Hitachi wouldn’t. Not even the worst 3rd party trash went so far as to put backup software onto an external as a rootkit!

By: JOHNSON

JOHNSON — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:57:08 +0000

I REALLY THANKS FULL TO YOU, THIS WAS A HEADACHE BUT YOU SOLVE THIS FOR US.
THANK-YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU.

By: g

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:49:50 +0000

This hides the software, but does not delete it….

By: John Doe

John Doe — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:18:40 +0000

THANK YOU!!! For these instructions. Just picked up a Wd passport for a client this weekend. Spent several hrs this weekend trying to figure out how to get rid of that junk. I must have reformatted the drive a hundred times. lol.

Now it’s gone and everybody’s happy. Thanks again!

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:55:36 +0000

I just want to precise that this DOES NOT removed the partition of this disk.
Especially, if you want to use it for XBox or else, you’re still fucked.

I didn’t read any real trick to remove totally the partition which is included in this bloody firmware.

If someone knows…

By: Marc Cizravi

Marc Cizravi — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:50:55 +0000

I think the drives are great, you just need to disable this garbage so that it’s out of your way. I’d be interested to hear what you would be buying as an alternative however…

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:17:16 +0000

WDSmartware is causing major grief with my new MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard — if the machine goes to sleep then I cannot wake it without a force shutdown and restart. Also, machine is really slow when WDSmartware is installed. The log indicates all sorts of problems with WDSmartware…

I cannot believe that Western Digital screwed up this badly. This is a really awful piece of software to force on people. I have used MyBook drives for two years now but will not do so ever again.

DON’T BUY THESE DRIVES!!!

By: John

John — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:25:00 +0000

Thanks, was driving me crazy!

By: Marc Cizravi

Marc Cizravi — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:47:18 +0000

my pleasure :]

By: Daron Payne

Daron Payne — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:11:02 +0000

Thank you! Thank you! It worked! I cant stand these companies having this crap on the disk and making it so difficult to remove!! Thankyou! Good instructions! Daron