3 Brand New WD My Book Essential 2TB HDD Disconnecting and Reconnecting - WDBACW0020HBK-UESN

Hi,

I’ve just purchased three brand new Western Digital My Book Essential 2TB Hard Drives (WDBACW0020HBK-UESN).

Plugged the first one in, installed the SES software and copied some files across - half way through it disconnects. It then reconnects again, and the windows pop up appears. Anyway, I carried on transferring the files and it does the same thing, disconnect/reconnect. This carries on a couple more times but eventually the files are transferred (about 10GB’s worth)

So I try to access those files and every time I so much as click on any of the files. Disconnect/Reconnect.

I then assume that it’s a dodgy cable or power supply - these are the usually suspects. Luckily I’ve got two more of these drives, so I take the cable and power supply out of one of the other packs and plug it all in.

Exactly the same things happens when transferring/accessing files - it might work for a bit, but then it disconnects and reconnects. So it must be a dodgy drive right? That’s unlucky (I think), but I’ll just send this one back and use the other two for now.

So I grab the 2nd HDD and plug it all in. Guess what? Disconnect/Reconnect except this one’s even worse than the first one!

OK, so then I think maybe it requires the stupid bloatware to be installed. So I somehow managed to load the WD SmartWare on my PC and I’m still getting this disconnect/reconnect!

Lo and behold, plugging in drive three gives me the same problem.

What’s up with these drives? I’ve never had ANY issues before and I’ve got plenty of harddrives!

Computer runs Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. It’s a one year old top spec. Dell Alienware M18x

Any ideas?

Solved, I hope.

Removed the SES drivers from my PC.

Updated BIOS drivers (I think this is key)

Re-plugged the HDD in and let it install automatically. 

Ignored all the bloatware included.

It now appears to be working!

I assume it’s probably some type of driver conflict between the USB 2/3 BIOS settings?!