My first entry to the community, and I am blowing a hot wind with all the others who enter here with complaints which string along in large numbers,
Western Digital was often a common selection for my internal drives as they were routinely well installed with no fuss or text manipulation, but then most drives were accepted by MS Windows if the needed info was on the install disks or the drives. Take away a prepared install info device, and Windows often became a dice throwing operation. Hardware from overseas and MS’s cryptic content and path details made failure possible on what should be a 1,2,3, path. Chaos in appearance while the river of corporate excuses took us to uncharted shadowlands. That was a thirty year path that became similar to a Grand Canyon rapids vacation. I believe it became worse with added complexity, and the history of cryptic file coding, and Far East language incompatible interactions.
I bought a 2TB My Book three weeks past, and somehow the drive worked with Free Download Manager reasonably without being obviously present. Maybe luck carried forward. This week I bought another, for another computer I use, and thought to use it on the first computer initially to ensure it worked. It simply isn’t recorded and rapidly blinks. I’ve tried for three hours with every combination, and WD Smartware cannot see it, my computer cannot see it, yet it does shoe a generic USB mass storage device, and separately a WES device in two spots on Device Manager. No drive info, no updates or formatting possible.
Prior to this USB 2.0 My Book second device, I also bought and tried to install(plug-in) a USB 3.0 My Book. The same lack of recognition by Windows and online WD Smartware and Updater. Seven hours of wasted effort additional.
I returned the 3.0 and tried the current failed USB 2.0 speed device, as I described.
The WD story score is 1 win, and 2 failures.
I called support in India, and they listened but obviously didn;t know what to say about technical possibilities. No info, so I gave a list of complaints. I received a silent response, and nothing more. That took about 1/2 hour.
The tele service worker actually repeatedly claimed I should reformat my first working drive, ever though it worked, and had 200+ GB of image files on it.
All I see now is damages and non-sense at WD.
This should be investigated as gross product failure/fraud possibly.
I use more than a dozen Seagate external drives without even one failure, and not even a glitch of confusion or mis-functioning w/ them for several years. 5 year warrantee w/ Seagate, and only 1 1/2 year with WD. 1/2 year shelf expiration?That’s real deceit at work.
Bad technique. Not Windows friendly. Lack of printed warnings and ref info. Lack of knowledgeable support. Software can’t even find the drive and Windows can’t find the drivers/software.No CD/DVD
" MS lit the fire, but WD is fanning the flames. "
