Never buying again because of smartware…

I recommended a WD drive to my mom, only to find out that it’s totally broken her Time Machine automatic backups because it has a firmware password (that cannot be removed using Mac software) and this ridiculous VCD partition on it that makes it impossible to reformat using standard linux or OS X tools (fdisk, Disk Utility, diskinfo, etc.). Time Machine doesn’t know how to deal with the password and the drive unlock feature, so it just fails and weeks pass without any backups :frowning:

I will never buy a WD drive again. You should include a disclaimer before people buy letting them know that it has permanent junkware installed on it. I certainly did not expect to spend 4+ hours searching the internet trying to fix my mom’s backup drive. This is a complete joke, and your company is in denial if they think this isn’t a problem. There are hundreds of posts right here on your own forums about it! Not to mention hundreds of posts on apple.com, ubuntu.com, and superuser.com where even technically proficient people can’t figure out how to use this drive because of the junkware you’ve pre-installed on it.

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The use of SmartWare is optional, you can also disable the password protection.  if you are using Time Machine you can also get rid of SmartWare, this will not affect the drive’s performance.

It’s not optional, though, because it can’t be turned off. You can hide the VCD, but you can’t deactivate it.

I spent several hours and could not figure out how to disable the password protection using the Mac software available on WD’s website.

It shouldn’t be this hard! I’m not an ■■■■■; I’ve been using computers for years. I wouldn’t be angry if they called it a “Backup Appliance” because then it’s my fault for buying it. But they call it a “Hard Drive” and it doesn’t work anything like any hard drive I’ve ever used! It requires the execution of proprietary software to perform it’s essential purpose. Does it even work on Linux at all?!

For the sake of other people that visit here, I did find a solution. This will void your warranty in an extreme way, but it’s a cheap way to salvage your drive if you’re past the return period. (I was doing this on my mom’s drive that is way past the return period…)

  1. Using a small screwdriver, jimmy open the plastic case, separating the plastic tabs that hold it together.

  2. Slide the curved front of the case off of the drive enclosure.

  3. Pull back the rubber stoppers in the corners that hold the hard drive casing in place and slide the hard drive out of the plastic enclosure.

  4. There is a daughter card with an L-shaped adapter that is attached to the drive’s SATA port. Slide this out and discard.

  5. Buy a 3.5" USB/SATA enclosure (I found a generic Toshiba enclosure for $20 at microcenter) and install the hard drive into the new enclosure.

  6. Hook the new enclosure up to your computer with a USB cable and repartiion the drive down to 1 partition.

This works because the WD firmware is on the daughtercard that you remove in step #4. Installing the SATA hard drive into a new enclosure won’t have that goofy VCD stuff and will make your drive compatible with third party products.