How do you remove the WD Smartware virtual CD drive from your system?

I bought the WB My Book Essential external 1.5 Tb HD months ago. It installed a pointless virtual CD drive on my system. 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 " . . . working on an update to the Virtual CD Manager to allow the image to be removed from the disk entirely." I just revisited the Knowledge Base, apparently after working on this problems for months, WD has not been able to find a solution to it. This is not an organization I want messing around with my system.

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The VCD is not designed to be removed.  If you want to hide it, you can.  Check out the link below for help on doing that.

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

Bill, thank you for your response to my question. If I uninstall WD Smartware from my system and reformat the external drive, will that remove the virtual drive?

You can uninstall SmartWare, and you can reformat the drive, but it won’t remove the VCD.  We made it so that the firmware will hide the VCD if you use the VCD Manager.  There was a link on the page that I sent you for how to do that.  It’s below.  Read through it before you download and Install the VCD Manager.

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

and mac users?? when is back??

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

* sorry my english is not good

I’m sorry.  I don’t have a time frame for that to be fixed. 

I managed to fix my problem with the VCD and smartware on the 2 Mybook Essential 2TB drives I just purchased.  I no longer have the VCD or Smartware at all.

Solution:

Returned the drives to place of purchase for full refund and purchased 2 Hitachi 2TB drive instead.

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How did returning the drives remove the VCD. My impression is that once your system is infected with the VCD there is no way to remove it short of reloading your operating system. I will certainly never buy another Western Digital external hard drive. The arrogance of a company putting an unremovable device on one’s computer without permission or warning is pretty scarey.

Arledge wrote:

How did returning the drives remove the VCD. My impression is that once your system is infected with the VCD there is no way to remove it short of reloading your operating system. I will certainly never buy another Western Digital external hard drive. The arrogance of a company putting an unremovable device on one’s computer without permission or warning is pretty scarey.

Just so you know, the VCD is not on your computer.  It’s on the drive connected to your computer.  It’s a small, locked partition on your external drive used to provide password protection, etc.  It just shows up on your computer because it’s a partition designed to look like a virtual CD.   You’ll notice that if you disconnect the drive from the computer, the VCD disappears.  Nothing has been infected on your computer.  The only software that loads onto your computer is SmartWare, and that can be uninstalled. 

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Thank you Bill; I was laboring under a misapprehension. That makes a big difference in my attitude toward the VCD. I will follow your instructions to hide it. My apologies to WD.

Excellent.  And thank you for being a part of the community. 

Bill_S

Do I have to do this for each drive  and everytime it is changed out?  We use these drives as backup drives and have several of them.

slcslc wrote:

Do I have to do this for each drive  and everytime it is changed out?  We use these drives as backup drives and have several of them.

Sorry, I wasn’t ignoring you.  No.  Once you disable the VCD with the VCD Manager, it won’t appear again.  Just make sure you follow the instructions for how to do it.

New to the community, so pardon me if I’m asking a repeated question or failing to start a new thread.   In the grand scheme of things, using the WD Smartware is not bothering me really.  My problem is trying to update the firmware.  I’ve read the link you provided, same thing I’ve read when trying to do the update.  I never get to Step 2.  The firmware updater will just run and run and run.  I’ve let it run for 45 minutes before shutting it off.  I follow all the directions, turn off Avast, don’t have any other drives connected.  I have tried to update 5-6 times, same result.

Suggestions???

Are you updating your drive on a PC or a Mac?  If you use a PC, have you installed the WDSES driver?  Have you tried updating your drive on another computer?

Hello there Bill,

You are obviously in the know with this particular drive - My Passport Essential.

The problem I have is that I purchased the drive as a 640gig External Hard Drive with the intention of not sharing it with anyone.

Unfortunately, I having to share what I would consider a reasonable part of my hard drive with th esuppliers for thier benifit of running thier software on what is now MY hard drive.

MY brand new 640 gig My Passport Essential Hard Drive is in fact showing 595 gig in explorer. This is not what is advertised on the packaging, the propmotion from which I purchased it not the information on my reciept. The drive was purchased through Amazon.com and delivered to an address in London (England) prior being forwarded to myself in Melbourne (Australia)

What I want to do now is to recover ALL available space from MY new hard disk for my use and my use alone.

With you knowledge and your contacts, would you please tell me how to remove ALL the pre-installed software and remove the VCD. This is not what I wanted to purchase. Maybe another time but for now I would like my HD to reflect the 640 gig for me to use.

Thanks kindly Bill.

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Actually, 595 GB’s is just about exactly what your drive should show after it’s formatted.  Read the link below to understand why.  As for SmartWare, you don’t have to use/install it, and if you have installed it, you can uninstall it. Then you can use the drive to copy and paste to.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=615

Hi, I have read the forum and it reports a proceed to disable te Virtual CD drive on an external HD formatted for WINDOWS. At the time the last question for HD for MAC was posted the reply was that there was not yet a solution. Few month have passed so what I am asking is: is it possible to disable the Virtual CD function for an HD formatted for MAC and running on Leopard 10.5.8? Many thanks for the kind support. Regards,

bill_s, you seem to be very pleased with doing something that almost every one is complaining about. the idea of an unremovable vcd totally ■■■■■. i unfortunately made a big mistake of buying that ■■■■. my intention was to plug it in my car to listen to mp3, but whatever i have done it seems impossible. so i will never ever buy nothing with a brand wd on it. have a nice satisfaction with all those complains!

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Why is it that we buy a Hard Drive to use for OUR files and then we find out that the mfg has put a bunch of blotware or anythint at all on it in a separate, apparently unremovable,  partition that renders part of the drive unusable. Who knows what else it on the drive. I was just on my way to buy a WD drive today and read all this about this virtual drive ■■■■, so I decided to look at other brands than WDC and when I find one that gives me for what I pay for, I will buy that one. What is with you people at WDC?   Leave all the stuff OFF the hard drive and offer it on your site as a free download for the very few who want it…Simple solution!  What were you thinking? I have always bought WD drives buy WD is losing me with this baloney!

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