My Passport Essential - impossible to delete virtual cd partition

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi ,

I just bought this stylist hard drive…

At home i verified that it appears on my pc as two drives: one virtual cd and the hard drive

As my application intended for use on that drive works only with a single logical unit i tried to delete the virtual cd partition…

Guess what ? it seems impossible…

Now i am really upset with this drive (or the software that comes in it and that i can’t get rid off…)

Can anyone give a help!?

Regards, Pedro Pereira

2

I also wish to remove the virtual drive and make it one full partition. Please can anybody help before I take it back to the store for another brand?

3

I am working on it, I am very upset too; I paid for 1T not for less, so I will get it done and then show you how to do it.

4

Read here:

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdsmartwareutilities

5

Don’t use the WD update unless you want to risk serious problems with your PC or laptop.  It makes updates to your core drivers that it doesn’t fully inform you about. 

I tried complaining to WD customer service (as you can see on my separate thread) and was basically told that there was no solution they would give me.

6

I bought the 1T drive with $200 plus 9.25% tax.  This actually is a series of WD hard drives that I bought.  Through the years I have bought many WD hard drives which including those boat sinkers in early days. SCSI, IDE, SATA etc…

However, I have decided to make this the last WD drive that I bought from WD, unless after 2012, all other manufacturers will be hit by the disasters and WD was the one one got the ark. 

I will not buy any more products with WD labels either.

Here is what I will suggest how you can get rid this virtual CD partition.  I have not done it because my 1T drive is too huge and I already had tons of software on it before I found it is such an unstable drive.  On and off, on and off, on and off, on and off …  with my VAIO notebook.  Just believe me I will do it as soon as I have some time even it may destroy the drive for good.

Please note the drive has integrate non-standard interface so the bare drive is useless for any other purpose except as an external drive with its original case.  Don’t  try to change the case, no other cases will accept the drive.

The drive use MicroUSB connector, so don’t lose the cable.  I have not able to get any replacement and waste a lot of time running from store to store.  Last time I went to China with the drive but forget the cable.  It just became an useless brick for the entire month I was in China.

1.  Got yourself a cloning software.  There are quite a few out there.

2.  Get yourself another clean external drive. A small drive with a case or connector.

3.  Clone the dirve on the WD drive with sector to sector option.   If the drive is dead afterward, so be it, send it back to WD for warranty repair.  If it is a new drive, take it back to the store and claimed it is a bad drive and get your money back.

4.  Note:  The other drive should be a small old dirve so it won’t take too much time.  After the cloning, repartition and reformat the drive.

5.  Note:  Don’t use your existing C drive (one that 's in your notebook or desktop) for cloning.  If you did that, Windows found two identical drives in the system and will not mount the new cloned drive.

Let everyone knows if that works for you.  I am waiting for other manufacture 1T drive so I can dump the stuffs over first before I will do that.

Regards,

7

To purchase a Hard-drive and find it litters your computer with CD partitions and **bleep**ware is appauling!! [text deleted - keep it courteous] . Actually **bleep** that, keep doin it, dig your financial grave!!  BTW: A tool which HIDES not deletes the partition IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!  **bleepers!**