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

By: aurezio

aurezio — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:17:01 +0000

Forgot to mention I’m on a Mac wityh Lion…

By: aurezio

aurezio — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:16:27 +0000

This didn’t work for me. I got a 500Gb my passport elite with smart drive on it. I updated the firmware then I used virtual cd manager to disable the wd smartware but it says “Impossible to configure vcd with the current version of the firmware. Update the firmware to the latest version and then try again”. But… I HAVE the latest version of the firmware… I don’t know what to do. Please get back at me for some help. Thanks

By: Senthil S

Senthil S — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:59:21 +0000

Thanks a lot for wonderful solution.. I got my passport essential 500 GB was working fine till I upgrade my firmware. Then only power glows but not recognized my any windows machine. Nothing available in disk management. Finally I ended up with this website downloaded Apollo 1607E Firmware Updater v1.032 (1.0.7.4).exe from the above link resolved issue.

Cheer’s
SSenthil

By: James McCoy

James McCoy — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:56:26 +0000

It is wonderful people like you that make computing easy. I don’t know how you came across this information but you really made my life easier today. This has to be the best laid out instructions I have ever found when it comes to computers! Thank you so much and may you have a wonderful Christmas!

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:53:19 +0000

Did some hacking around. The USB to SATA converter in the enclosure off sets the sectors to create storage for the VCD. I offsets it by 34041344 octets, or 8310*4096 or 66487*512, depending on if you are using 512 or 4096 sized sectors. If you take it apart, then attach the hard drive to a SATA link and zero out those sectors, it will completely remove the VCD. You might want to back it up first. I do not know the format of those sectors, or even if it is a real VCD or just raw ISO file format. Didn’t do enough snooping and didn’t do a backup before I zapped it. Not sure if you can still lock it or not after.

Worked on a 3TB USB 3.0 drive.

By: Furias Styles

Furias Styles — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:20:16 +0000

Awesome! thanks! I love it when its simple!

By: Enzo

Enzo — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:11:05 +0000

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Still working fine in November 2011. Awesome not having to see the crap software floating on my desktop ever again. Bless you good sir!

By: ERICSON

ERICSON — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 04:08:11 +0000

I ALREADY USED MY WD 500GB NOW…. TNX SO MUCH,……

By: Remove ‘WD SmartWare’ from your Western Digital Passport or MyBook « Let Me Teach You Something « John Ruby's space

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:42:48 +0000

[...] Remove ‘WD SmartWare’ from your Western Digital Passport or MyBook « Let Me Teach You Something [...]

By: Dannyboy

Dannyboy — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:36:31 +0000

To all those complaining that the drive is so and so GB’s off of its said Storage space…this is just how the Hard drive business is. My whole life buying HD’s its always off, its impossible to have exactly 500GB on every HD sold. I’ve never had an exact GB or MB (Yes those existed back in the day). My 320GB internal is 298GB, my 500GB external is 465GB, and my main OS HD is 150GB but is actually 148GB.

Sometimes you will get an exact hard drive space as advertised but I doubt I’ll see one in my lifetime. Even Ipods and mp3 players, and! USB thumb drives are the same way! Thats just how it is people.

For those having problems with the firmware update that the author provided just go to the WD website or google “WD Firmware Updater” and download the lastest one and it will work and it will update any type of external WD Hard drive.

To the author, thanks for the help and information.

By: NickB

NickB — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:23:24 +0000

Even as someone not technical-savvy with computers I instinctively didn’t trust the SmartWare that came on the disk and didn’t install it (seems like it might be pre-installed on some of yours). Based on all the negative things I read after double checking I decided not to use their EasyFormat software either.

Instructions for Mac, PC, & Mac/PC below:

-So, I don’t know if this will work if you’ve already installed the software, but I’m fairly certain it will. I reformatted the drive (on a mac) with Disk Utility (Applications–>Utilities–>Disk Utilities) to a 1 Partition Volume Scheme. Reformatting DELETES EVERYTHING from your drive so make sure you move anything off it before doing this. Instructions on how to do this (for Mac, PC, & Mac/PC) are included in below link.

-After reformatting, write the entire disk with zeros (instructions here for Mac, PC, and Mac/PC [I split the link to get it to post here] http://thelightroomlab. com/2009/01/formatting-an-external-hard-drive/). Seems like it removed the SmartWare completely off the drive, though there is still about 400MB being used by something. Warning: writing zeros to the drive takes a LONG time. For my 2TB drive it took about 20 HOURS.

For those of you concerned about why your 2TB drive is showing up at 1.8TB or your 100GB is showing up as 93GB, etc., this has very little to do with the software. WD advertises a 1 TB drive as 1 TB because it has 1 trillion bytes on it. To the layperson 1 trillion bytes=1 TB. For some reason or other though, 1 TB in the computer world is 1 trillion 99 million something bytes (1,099,511,627,776). The latter is what your computer reads so it ends up showing 900GBs instead of 1TB despite the fact that you’re still getting those 1 trillion bytes of storage. In other words: SMARTWARE IS NOT EATING UP 10% OF YOUR DRIVE. This is simply the way ALL computer storage is advertised and sold.

Good luck. Let me know if this works for anyone.

By: Alessio

Alessio — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:57:58 +0000

Good Job Man!
Tnx for your insight!

Regards

Alessio

By: jmc

jmc — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:08:20 +0000

Have carried out instructions, but not bothered about not seeing software as I have sufficient space for back-up. Time machine now running – BIG THANKS

By: Brillo Brown

Brillo Brown — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 22:51:03 +0000

PS – Scuse the typos in recent post

By: kmc

kmc — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:30:47 +0000

Life saver! i bought x3 1tb drives and thought it was a total waste of money, they have been sitting around as paperweights for a few years, thanks!

By: Brillo Brown

Brillo Brown — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 07:23:02 +0000

WD Smartware. Junk. Nuff Said.

Here is a workaround for using the drive on a PC running Wondows even after you have used WDS to run a backup, password protected it and then discovered what a pain in the arse it is.

Kudos to Marc C for posting the hiding solution. My alternative DOES NOT REMOVE OR HIDE THE VIRTUAL CD. It DOES allow you to access the drive and keep it password protected.

1 – Attach drive to USB Port

2 – Close Autoplay window (if it pops up)

3 – Open Windows Explorer

4 – Open the virtual cd drive (called WD Smartware)

5 – Run WDSmartware – enter password. Your drive should appear in the drive list in windows explorer.

6 – Unfortunately at this point WD Samrtware will want to install. Click ‘Do Not Install’

You can treat the mounted volume as a ‘normal’ external HDD, however I have noticed that the transfer progress floodbar fails under Vista, but the data WILL be moved. As always DOUBLE CHECK it has successfully copied/moved your data.

Each time you want to write to or access data that is on the drive volume you will have to go through the above process. Mildly painful but if you have password protected the data using WDS and wish to keep it passwaod protected then it works WITHOPUT HAVING WDS INSATLLED.

To remove the drive ‘safely’ simply:

1 – Ensure that the drive is not selected in any Windows Explorer windows and that no data is being read from or written to the drive (i.e. it is not in use by ANY software)

2 – Right click the drive letter in Windows Explorer and select ‘Safely Remove’

3 – Once you receive conformation you may unplug the drive.

Personally I use TrueCrypt to protect data but I discovered the above rescuing a non-techy friend from the evil clutches of WD(S).

I hope someone finds this useful until a REAL solution is provided by WD.

By: Rory

Rory — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 20:45:24 +0000

Bless You!!!

This was driving me nuts, and interfering majorly.

May good stuff happen for you!!!!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 03:29:22 +0000

I’m wondering if anyone can help I have a 500 GB WD Passport with Smart ware on it, It has locked it’s self leaving a password hint of “ME” we didn’t lock the drive and we were wondering if anyone else has heard of this problem or experienced it. Help is really needed as there is all our baby’s photo’s on it. I found hidden data showing this.

23-Jan-2011 03:16:36 PM> Apollo drive( WXJ0A79Z0558 ) detected.
23-Jan-2011 03:16:36 PM> Apollo drive letter not assigned.
23-Jan-2011 03:16:36 PM> Apollo drive locked.
23-Jan-2011 03:17:35 PM> Exception Assertion!
File = .\ApolloDrive.cpp
Line = 572
23-Jan-2011 03:17:35 PM> Application exiting…

and this as well.

23-Jan-2011 03:19:45 PM> Apollo drive( WXJ0A79Z0558 ) detected.

This info was hidden in Appdata under local on my drive C:

I hope someone can help.

Thank you all…

By: DeFiNiTioN

DeFiNiTioN — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 04:52:05 +0000

What a pain this is, nice tutorial mayn.

For people claiming WD Smartware is what is stopping their drive from showing up on their xbox 360; i’d suggest formatting your drive in FAT 16 or 32… most externals are formatted NTFS leaving the factory, although they support large files, xbox 360 DOES NOT support NTFS.

Also, anyone given any thought to fdisk or a similar utility to re-partition these drives? I’m not in a position to test a format… would be interested to know if it’s possible?

By: GEEZ

GEEZ — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 04:29:40 +0000

THNAKS SO MUCH….U HELPED ME A LOT!!!

By: Wadey

Wadey — Wed, 18 May 2011 11:43:46 +0000

Well i got as far as the “select drive to configure” section of the mac setup 2 and i can’t select my new tofay WD drive

By: stephanie

stephanie — Sat, 14 May 2011 14:55:51 +0000

If I do this will it delete all of the contents on the drive? The warning pops up saying a reformatting of the drive will delete all existing data. I hate to be obviously ignorant, but this doesn’t seem like a good idea for me…
If I go through with the formatting will I still have all my data?

Thanks!

By: Hans de Vries

Hans de Vries — Fri, 13 May 2011 00:18:23 +0000

Thanks, great! Finally if got rid of this junk.

Hans, Amsterdam.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 03 May 2011 06:33:17 +0000

Hello,

I bought, tried and was upset with Western Digital and returned it. But now I have all the Western Digital stuff on my computer and I think it is slowing it down. I have long since moved on to another backup system, and cannot get this stuff off the top of the page and off my machine. Can you advise. Your fix it appears to require that you have the actual unit, serial number to get rid of it. Am I able to do it without those two items?

thanks.

By: daniel

daniel — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 04:20:59 +0000

I’m using a PC. I have tried this process twice (using the same information listed above, but found on the WD site), on two different computers. Both times, I got an error stating that no drive is found. “Please insert a WD SmartWare drive to continue; them click Rescan.

The drive is clearly mounted and is viewable in Windows Explorer. The SmartDrive icon is present in my system tray, and shows that the drive is active.

I have always like WD drives, but this SERIOUSLY sucks.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:35:55 +0000

Hi, Thanks so much, I have been trying to delete their crap for more than an hour. Your method worked fine. Definitely I will send WD a mail that next time my choice will be more careful for sure !!.

By: Barbik

Barbik — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:34:01 +0000

Dear Marc,
I have been trying to get rid of this for weeks. I was hopeless but it worked.
Very easy to do. Perfect instructions.
Thank you very much.

By: djjeffbutton

djjeffbutton — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:50:16 +0000

I want to try the “uninstall” option (I know it just hides it, but whatever.) I have over 600GB of media on my HD, should I worry about losing it when performing the uninstall, or does it work without effecting the existing files? Any insight would be appreciated!

By: Ralph Slatton

Ralph Slatton — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:08:49 +0000

I usually prefer WD drives over others, since they’ve proved to be very reliable for me. However, I knew something was problematic about that smartware software. It would consume 80% of my cpu resouces whenever I would boot up. At one point, my Norton security suite was disabled; although, I can’t confirm it was caused by the smartware. This invasive program was unacceptable and had to be removed. After firing down my machine, I unplugged my drive. This allowed me to use windows to uninstall it. It took about ten minutes to remove, but I think it’s gone. So far, I’ve had no more problems. I don’t really care if I lost anything on the drive. I intend to reformat the drive anyhow and find a 3rd party backup program.

By: bill

bill — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:19:39 +0000

Formatting and cleaning will remove the Snartware software, but not the firmware that creates the virtual CD which is stored in read-only memory. That will stay active. That firmware will interfere with using the drive as a boot disk.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 21:11:55 +0000

Thanks for the fix . The smartware virtual CD was annoying enough that it prompted me to buy hard drives from WD’s competitors . I’m glad there was a fix that didn’t include opening the drive case and running boot and nuke . While Seagate drives have a similar offering it can be side stepped by running a simple format from my computer .

By: tony

tony — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:43:42 +0000

Easy to remove WD Smartware.
Download Microsoft Diskpart, run the program, select the the WD USB hardrive, clean the disk. Format the disk, and done. Smartware is gone forever.

By: Jim H

Jim H — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:43:36 +0000

Western Digital should have included an option for storage
of data and not just “Install WD Smartware and Backup” options . This would have
saved a lot of grief for me and others. The packaging clearly states
“Premium backup and storage”.

A different approach would be to have any software updates available, applied
directly to the external WD drive(s) and not not chew up the resources of the customers laptaps,pcs etc. which inevitably slows them down to the point
of crashing !

By: Sean Gomes

Sean Gomes — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:06:17 +0000

Had this same problem.
Using Windows 7.
Type Disk Management in the search box
Click on Create & Format Hard Disk Partitions
Delete the partition on the WD Drive then format it.
Once you’ve completed then you should be alright.

By: fady

fady — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 14:58:33 +0000

thanks so much it works

By: alex elaments

alex elaments — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:16:07 +0000

hello peeps. if u r lookin for a drive from wd tat doesn’t have this smart ware, u could consiter getting a elaments drive. thay r just like the old pass ports but no software and thay r quite reliable. i have 3 of those and i am never getting passport unless thay have a way to deleet the wd smart ware thingy thanks

By: LB

LB — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 00:45:43 +0000

Chrysa, does the Acronis uninstall the Smartware, or do I need to do something else to uninstall it and then run the Acronis to format the drive? Thanks

By: Chrysa

Chrysa — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:58:08 +0000

Worked! My Passport no longer has Smartware, and it’s now recognized as a regular backup drive… do a Google search for Acronis True Image WD Edition. Good luck!

By: Chrysa

Chrysa — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 06:49:37 +0000

Ok, I have spent ALL day trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with My Passport Essential (500GB). It had been working fine and I loved having it over the past 6 months. It helped me restore my computer quickly after a crash a little while back. But over the past 3 days, I noticed it was consistently getting stuck 75% of the way through the backup. After several attempts at system restores and software uninstalls, the stupid software would not reinstall correctly. It kept giving me the error about not being able to create a file in the Program Files section, then exiting the installation process. I worked on this for over an hour with no results, changing administrative settings, running in Safe Mode, etc. After a little reading, I checked to see what version of the .NET Framework my PC was running. It turns out that Windows Update (naturally) had updated me to version 4 three days ago (aha!). I uninstalled the update and reinstalled version 3.5. That got me a little further than before, but still no luck. Several hours and more research later, I came across a blog that recommended uninstalling SmartWare completely, and downloading Acronis True Image WD Edition. So far, the installation process went well. I will let you know if it was successful after the reboot….

By: Chelsea

Chelsea — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 23:39:23 +0000

Ok, this time i tried uninstalling the formatted hardware inside the properties tab of my hard drive. When I started up the disk manager again, it took a few minutes to format, but it was successful. Just as WDhater mentioned though, it only formatted 128GB of my 500GB drive. Once again, onto the next solution.

By: Chelsea

Chelsea — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 23:27:26 +0000

I decided to try the disk manager first. It started to work just fine, but about 5 or 6 seconds into the formatting, an error message popped up, stating that the files were write protected. Onto the next method…

By: Chelsea

Chelsea — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 23:04:12 +0000

I was confused at first when I encountered the software on my 500GB MyBook. I mainly wanted to use it for a GINORMOUS flash drive to store extra music and junk on my computer, but soon found that the only way to access the drive at all was through the SmartWare program. I found this blog trying to see what other people were doing about it and I’m amazed at all the long drawn out instructions. If you don’t want to use the software, why can’t you just HIT THE FREAKING DELETE BUTTON? It amazes me that the company felt controlling enough to make it impossible for that to work too. The last time I encountered this problem was with a U3 flash drive. I simply deleted the software on it and had the full 2GB to work with afterwards. I’m about to try the EASEUS Partition Master mentioned above, then I’ll let you know what works.

By: WDhater

WDhater — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:52:37 +0000

So, I wanted to get rid of this virtual cd partition completely rather than just hide it in hopes that getting rid of it completely would allow it to work on my PS3. It took many hours but I was successful.

TR’s command prompt method took two hours to format and didn’t work. The HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool kinda worked. I formatted several times going back n forth between NTSF and FAT32 and eventually it worked… The only problem then was that the HP tool only would format 128gb of my 500gb drive. I went to CNET.com and got EASEUS Partition Master 6.5.2, and it formatted the entire drive as FAT32. I tried it on the PS3 today and it worked. Never buying a WD product ever again!
Thanks everyone for the info!

By: James

James — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 23:04:52 +0000

Just thought i would add that i did the above and could not see my drive anywhere after the update…Disk manager didn’t even see it. So the fix for all the people have this problem is to redo the firmware update. This has happened to me on three different drives and this fixes it everytime. Thank You

By: WDhater

WDhater — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:52:54 +0000

Western Digital really screwed themselves on this one. I’m sure there are A LOT of people who will never buy a WD hard drive ever again. I’m one of them. F U Western Digital!

By: Christina

Christina — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:08:05 +0000

Thanks! This worked great to hide the VCD!

By: alex

alex — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:54:16 +0000

wd smartware virtual cd manager:your wd smartware drive is locked;please remove your password to remove security before attempting to configure your wd smartware VCD can be enabled or disabled.HELPPP!

By: Keevinw

Keevinw — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 06:13:31 +0000

Neither TR’s commnand prompt method, nor the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool worked for me! Anyone else?

By: Lassi

Lassi — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:25:46 +0000

Hi! I did the steps and configured the drive in “set up drive” -section to disable VCD. After that I also changed software settings so that it won’t “automatically start when connected”. STILL the smartware pops out every time I connect. It appears on the os x desktop although it’s not open. AND I can’t open the Virtual CD manager -program anymore or can’t get to “set up drive” section anymore to change the settings. What have I done wrong and how can I get rid of it?

By: rtp

rtp — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:48:37 +0000

The only way to effectively REMOVE the Snartware is to format the drive with HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool as explained in the link: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/passport-vcd.html
I had tried many things before but the virtual CD was always there, even though hidden. That HP tool really removed it.

By: V8x

V8x — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:36:12 +0000

As a million other people already explained, this trick only hides it but does not fix it. It still needs smartcrapware to be able to use it. It is not a USB mass storage device compliant disk. That’s why it will never work on a ps3/xbox or efery other computer where you don’t have admin right, like public computers.
And that is inexcusable and defeats the purpose of this drive.

Why didn’t WD made a USB mass storage compliance device? Why force their own standards?

By: KarenC

KarenC — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 06:28:52 +0000

Thank you so much!!!

By: latecomer

latecomer — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:11:25 +0000

tr’s method didnt work.

By: latecomer

latecomer — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 07:22:09 +0000

trying what tr said. hope it works.
didnt install smartware. just bought
it today for 55 bucks at waly world.
it seems that it takes up close to
700megs out of 320gigs.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 05:02:49 +0000

Your directions only HIDE it, not REMOVE it.

By: SomePeopleAreIgnorant

SomePeopleAreIgnorant — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:55:43 +0000

All these people whinging about the SmartWare “taking up 23GB” or whatever – are people still ignorant about 1024 vs 1000? Sadly, I guess so.

I wish Windows would be updated to use proper megabytes (1 000 000 bytes) and gigabytes (1 000 000 000 bytes) rather than the stupid 1024 versions (which are more correctly called mebibytes and gibibytes, and inappropriate for disk space). Macintosh has finally (Snow Leopard) been updated to use the proper versions (YAY!). A pity Windows hasn’t caught up (BOO!).

Thank you for putting a clear summary of the problem and the best available solution in one place. Perhaps you could add a comment about how Smartware is occupying zero space on the hard drive, and maybe even clue the ignorant masses into the difference between 1000 and 1024?

By: Brent

Brent — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:01:57 +0000

Hi ive done all steps to “hide” the WD smartware VCD and its worked perfectly but im having an issue with trying to create extra virtual drives using Daemon Tools lite, i can create them but cant see them through explorer. The only way i can possibly see them to any extent is by right clicking on any of my viewable drives then going to properties and clicking the hardware tab, I can then see all my drives and all say “This device is working properly”. I have only started having this issue after installing my WD 1TB hard drive does anyone have any advice for me?

By: A

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:24:58 +0000

This just hides it and seems even more intrusive that you have to install their extra programs to hide the autorun partition…

I am glad for the knowledge and option, so thank you. It’s not your fault the option they want people to do to hide this is install even more of their software.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:57:46 +0000

Hi guys is it possible to remove the “Smartware” without erasing or formatting the drive?

By: Rowley

Rowley — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:31:05 +0000

Dude, that is sweet. I am a neat freak and when I have too many things on my desktop like that it pisses me off. Looks like crap. I like my things to look good. You made my desktop look good. Thank you very much

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:10:28 +0000

Thanks for this quick guide.

What a stupid piece of junkware to force upon us. WD, this is the last drive I buy with your name on it.

By: Harvey

Harvey — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:23:59 +0000

I got as far as P.C. Step One: point #7 “the updater will scan the drive; this may take a few minutes…”, and it has now been scanning the drive for the past hour and a half. The exit button doesn’t work, and the warning states “please do not disconnect or disrupt power to the drive.” I’m stuck in limbo!

By: Bill Cool

Bill Cool — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:00:51 +0000

I just acquired Passport Essential SE. I have not yet installed Smartware software and based on reported user experiences, I prefer *NOT* to install it. How should I proceed? Please advise.

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