Oct 31, 2018 sometimes hard drives arent recognized on windows computers. I keep getting the message that the drive is currently in use try again later. Or, you can uninstall wd drive utilities from your computer by using the addremove program feature in the windows control panel. Its unlocked by using master password available for western digital hdd. Without the password, the drive cant be opened to view files. Jun 21, 20 today i spent nearly half day in trying to unlock western digital hdd. But, no matter how many times i try, i keep getting the same message. Figure 5 on page 8 and locking and unlocking the drive on page 20. Wd security auto unlock feature, stech anfo,how to unlock hard disk password,how to remove auto unlock drive for this user external drive western digital, my passport,western digital,western. It may be possible to reverse engineer the driver and work out how the chip is accessed but that is not a trivial task. If the school pcs won t allow the unlocker application to run, all you can do is remove the password from the drive. Whats the good way to get rid of wd drive utilities.
How do you remove the wd smartware virtual cd drive from. Like i say, i blacklist wd so i dont have experience with getting rid of it. Hey guys, im having problems safely removing my book essential 3tb. Jan 29, 2019 i have wd my book 1tb external hard drive. Registration checked then rebooted my mac, and removed the security password still on usb connections. So here you go, the steps required to disassemble a newstyle western digital my book drive enclosure. Wd my book essential wdbaaf0020hbk hard drive 2 tb usb 2. How to remove hidden virtual cd vcd partitions on your. Fix and repair wd my passport ultra not detectedshowing. However, it behaves in the normal way on my friends win 8. How to remove auto unlock drive for this user external drive western. The unlocker vcd remains hidden unless you set a password, and hides itself again when you remove a password, but it cannot be removed from the drive. How to change or remove password from wd ultra external.
Wd smartware for windows supports the following operating. So here you go, the steps required to disassemble a newstyle western digital my. Western digital wdbbep0010bbk user manual pdf download. The wd hard drive failed to show up on my pc and i couldnt access saved data either. Fix and repair wd my passport ultra not detectedshowing up. Dec 21, 2011 wd 1140 my book usb device will only show up as local disk. Wd smartware is another great tool for recuperating access to your hard drive. Remove wd unlocker partition from wd my book super user. When you remove and reconnect the my passport ultra drive. Wd drive utilities by western digital technologies. Ive only had it for a couple months and now its not showing up on my macbook pro. After researching the issue, it appears that the western digital my book drives use software called wd discovery to lock and unlock the drive.
How to remove auto unlock drive for this user external. Downloads download software and updates for your wd product at. Uninstall wd drive utilities how to fully remove wd. What happens is i plug in my drive to power and the drive starts spinning up. My book drive, with the wd backup, wd drive utilities, and wd security. That particular 2tb wd behaves in the bizarre way on my win 7 desktop and my win 10 surface pro 3.
Aug 20, 2015 the size would depend on the model wd my passport that youd choose, but for now the wd portable my passport drives for windows are up to 3tb, this being the new my passport ultra. The system interprets unlocker as a virtual cd rom which doesnt make sense to me. I know the password, i disabled the password when i first got it just under a week ago but when i turned my pc on a few hours ago it wasnt showing up under my computer and after swapping usb connections, restarting. On the start menu for windows 8, rightclick the screens bottomleft corner, click control panel, and then, under programs, do one of the following. Mar 06, 2020 wd smartware is another great tool for recuperating access to your hard drive. Western digital hard drive data recovery definitive guide. My passport for mac portable hard drive, with the wd security and wd drive. How to unlock bitlocker drive without passwordrecovery key. Help me get my data off a wd mybook techspot forums. After installing the wd my book software to manage the external drive i noticed there was an additional drive letter.
I recently needed to removed the drive from a western digital my book external usbesata drive enclosure. Please note that while unlocking, hdd unlock wizard will erase and recertify the drive, meaning to say all data in the disk is lost and not recoverable. It installed a pointless virtual cd drive on my system. Wd my passport uses 256bit hardware disk encryption encrypted with a key.
And in this video i have a brand new western digital drive that isnt working on my computer but im going to go over the steps. I checked disk utility to see if it shows up there and it doesnt. I have a wd passport that is currently not allowing me to access any files within it. Dec 23, 2007 whenever i plug in a flash drive or my external hard drive western digital my book, i cannot safely remove when i click on the icon. Jun 03, 20 my house was hit by lightening a few years ago and it fried my computers so i very quickly went out and bought a wd 500g mybook external hard drive which i have everything stored on. In recent weeks, it has become impossible for me to safely remove my external drives.
Wd external hard drive not recognized windows 7 help forums. Western digital is not recognized solved closed abzy. I have a new 4tb my book external drive that im ready to toss in the trash. I end up having to shut down my computer to remove the device. Once its downloaded, it should auto detect your external drive. Like an, i set up a password lock when i first installed the drive not realizing that rendered it useless for backups.
One more method we can try is using a recovery program to get the data off the drive, then proceed to format to remove the password. How to delete wd unlocker udf partition microsoft community. How do you remove the wd smartware virtual cd drive from your. I have noticed ever since i first installed the drive that in my drives list there is a cd drive f.
Currently, it can only decrypt jmicron, initio, and symwave bridge chipbased devices tht use aes256ecb encryption. Uninstall wd drive utilities how to fully remove wd drive. Please pay attention to a fact that the program cannot be fully removed by the regular removal method, because many of its registry entries and other files still locate on the computer after the removal. Download recommended tool to fully and quickly uninstall wd drive utilities on pc. Wd cant force the school to install the unlocker application on their. How to delete wd unlocker udf partition so far i have not been successful or am i able to find any information showing how to remove a western digital wd unlocker partition. Feb 14, 2015 forum forum my book world edition white light replace 1tb for 2tb or 4tb. Windows external hard drive not showing up usb drive not. Click on preferences and there is a checkbox for open wd smartware when drive is.
I have a western digital external hard disk, which i. To uninstall wd unlocker, you would need to have wd security installed. Ive closed down shadowprotect that was the only program using it no others are and even tried restarting my computer but it just won t safely remove. Once the cd is recognized it should display in your cddvd drive as wd smartware. Western digital my book opening the case removing the. Is there a possible way that can help me to repair the.
Open wd security if you dont have it download and install it. I did everything 123 under step up drive using the usb connectivities. How to change or remove encryption on westerndigital ultra external hard drive using wd security. Its existence is why i have blacklisted wd products. Fix wd external hard drive not workingrecognizedshowing up. Dec 20, 2011 the actual password will be stored on a chip within the drive hardware which itself will be encrypted. Wd my book essential drive not recognized on my mac. I then have to restart my pc a bunch of times to get the wd unlocker to come up again.
May 21, 2010 hey, im having problems with my 1 tb wd my book essential drive external usb hdd. This morning, wd my passport suddenly became inaccessible, couldnt be detected by my computer. My wd passport ultra 2tb external hard drive is not showing up in explorer when i plug it into the usb port in a normal way. Wd my passport not recognized in win 10 page 2 windows. How to unlock a wd external drive without a password ccm. How can i unlock wd external hard drive without losing all data. Whenever the wd unlocker software registers 10 invalid password attempts it gives you the option to erase your my passport. First you will want to insert the cd that came with the wd my book 1tb external hard drive wdbaaf0010hbknesn into the disc drive of your macintosh computer.
The driver that came with the hardware knows how to access this chip. If you want to remove password with mhdd you have to use dispwd it locks out drive forever, unlock is only till you reboot. Jul 03, 2010 the tutorial explains how to do this with western digital wd disks, but the general approach should work well with all devices by all vendors, if and when you stumble across a bad example. Wd 1140 my book usb device will only show up as local disk. Connect your hard drive that you want to remove wd unlocker from. Why wont my computer boot when i connect my usb drive to the computer before. When i try to click on it to bring up the password screen, it just disappears. Western digital hard drive problems and data recovery. Solved how to unlock forgotten wd hdd smartware password. How to remove wd smartware virtual drive jared heinrichs. Western digital hard drive problems and data recovery youtube.
I cant safely remove my wd external hard drive microsoft. Sometimes hard drives arent recognized on windows computers. Hey, im having problems with my 1 tb wd my book essential drive external usb hdd. I have a wd my passport ultra 1tb portable drive for storing movies, photos, and important personal files. Cannot safely remove external drives windows 10 forums. The security of the drive is locked with the help of a password. Giving an example with the new wd my passport ultra, and quoting its user manual p. When i highlight all the files and folders, it shows about 8.
Since my 1tb wd is working properly, i try to switch the usb cables between them. Wd drive utilities by western digital technologies should i. Unfortunately, this wasnt an obvious process and this excellent article by scott cramer didnt apply to the newer version 1 tb drive enclosure i have. Western digital my book opening the case removing the drive i recently needed to removed the drive from a western digital my book external usbesata drive enclosure. Apr 12, 2010 uninstall wd smartware using installation cd. I have my book essential 3tb, it was very easy to unlock the drive when it was locked without smartware running. I went to the wd knowledge base site to find out how to get rid of the thing and read that wd did not know how to get rid of it, but was. Unlock my book without wd smartware external drives for. But having actually removed a drive from one of the earlier models it requires a little patience but can be done and even see the drive put back in while the idea is to utilize a different bus entirely. They remain, even after erasing or reformatting the drive. Unlock western digital hdd using master password techno krat.
A small portion of drive space on your new my passport or my book hard drive has been used to create a virtual cd vcd. Wd portable drives come with wd backup software wd smartware or wd backup for the customers ease and backup solutions. It doesnt show in the drive list and no tricks seem to make it appear. My passport ultra portable hard drive user manual western digital. My wd my book external drive, i can access it, and only a few files are visible, most of the folders which used to have files in them show 0 bytes and are empty. Here, you will find more information on how to erase the drive and unlock it. If you install the wd software then i believe it is possible to set it to autounlock perhaps the windows 7 pc does this, but that software wouldnt be there. How can i unlock wd external hard drive without losing all. Unlocking the drive without the wd smartware software whenever you connect your passwordprotected drive to a computer that does not have the wd smartware software installed, you can use the wd smartware drive unlock utility to unlock the drive there.
I run unlocker on the drives, and unlocker shows no activity or actions that i can. After i backup onto it using storagecrafts shadowprotect i cant seem to eject it safely. My house was hit by lightening a few years ago and it fried my computers so i very quickly went out and bought a wd 500g mybook external hard drive which i have everything stored on. This is a partition on the my book drive that contains the software that will allow you to unlock the drive. How to disable the western digital vcd smartware on mypassport. A workaround for removing western digitals smartware. Tips for getting started with the wd my book backup drive. Erasing your drive does not erase the wd drive unlock utility password protection software files that are on the drives virtual cd. Sep 12, 2019 i have a wd my passport ultra 1tb portable drive for storing movies, photos, and important personal files. Whenever i plug in a flash drive or my external hard drive western digital my book, i cannot safely remove when i click on the icon. How to remove auto unlock drive for this user external drive. Solved wd my passport usb external hdd now shows up as. I am able to unlock the hard drive with my password however g.
Wd my passport not recognized in win 10 page 2 of 3 first 1 2 3 last. Jan 01, 2020 hdd unlock wizard is a userfriendly application which allows you to easily remove hdd password. That wd smartware is the crapware that wd shoves at you to enforce digital rights management. If you set the security password on the drive, you will be prompted for it if you connect the drive to a different computer. If you arent, open my computer and look for a cd drive called wd unlocker. Explore if you have a linux machine, use it first for examining the new hardware. I only have one cd disk drive and its empty so dont understand why it shows that. This post will cover how to remove wd smartware virtual driver from wds mybook. No matter what computer you plug it in to you get the same. I have a mybook essential western digital external hard drive. A workaround for removing western digitals smartware virtual.
It was password protected from bios some unfortunate guy locked it and forgot. The actual password will be stored on a chip within the drive hardware which itself will be encrypted. I have to manually unlock the drive every time i use it. How to password protect a western digital wd my passport. On the edit security settings dialog, the remove password option is selected by. For some bizarre reason my book essential 1tb hdd is locked and wont unlock. If there are some files missing after unlocking this drive, try m3 data recovery to recover lost data. Page 1 of 2 windows won t boot w wd my book plugged in via usb posted in external hardware. Mostly, i use western digital passports, passport ultras, etc. Unlock wd my book essential hdd guru forums view topic.
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