Hi. I’m just trying to set up a new My Book Live 1Tb for the first time for centralised backup storage for 5 home PCs. I have successfully done so using the WD SmartWare install facility on the CD for 3 Vista PCs and 1 Windows 7 PC.
On the final Vista PC I get the message “No writable WD SmartWare partition found” when I launch WD SmartWare after an apparently successful install. The Backup and Retrieve tabs are greyed out, so I am clearly unable to define a backup for this PC.
I assume this must be a commonly experienced issue, but I cannot find any help so far.
Is anyone able to suggest how to resolve the problem, and why it should happen on one PC out of 5?
You are right, it didn’t mount automatically like on the other PCs.
I’ve managed to mount it (not sure if I used the preferred route as it was a little trial and error) as drive Z, but I still get the same “no writable partition” message in the SmartWare UI.
What is the ‘safest’ way to mount the MBL manually - I could try again?
I’ve manually mounted the MBL again in a standard way and the problem “no writable partition” message still persists.
Could there be a limit on the number of available partitions on MBL? Or a corruption on part of the disk? Is there a way of showing how the partitions are set up on the MBL?
Any advice would be most appreciated - particularly if there are any pointers to where I could find out more information on this. At the moment my daughter feel rather put out that it is only her PC out of 5 in the family that cannot be backed up onto the MBL :womansad:
We don’t have a movie collection, only photos, music and documents. So no more than 60Gb on any one PC at the moment.
I assumed there would be no problem using a MBL1Tb as a centralised networked backup, but perhaps there are some hidden quota assumptions being made in the partitioning?
Am I going to get anywhere contacting WD directly?
SmartWare doesn’t partition anything, and the My Book Live doesn’t use Windows file systems anyhow, so you’re not running into a limitation there. What’s actually happening is that your Windows Vista computer is not seeing the My Book Live over the network. We can tell this is a problem with the computer’s configuration because the other computers can see the drive properly.
Use the setup tool on the CD to try to troubleshoot your drive. Once your My Book Lives shows up when you hover your mouse over the WD Quick View icon, you’ll be all set. I’d specifically make sure your firewall isn’t blocking uPnP, Windows File Sharing, or network discovery services.
Steps 1, 2, and 3 from the knowledge base article below should help you troubleshoot your computer once it fails to detect the drive.
If all else fails, please feel free to contact WD Support. While this is a problem with the system in particular, Support might be able to find the incorrect setting.
I just had this issue too. I had backuped up about 10GB from a vista laptop last night. Installed smartware on xp pc today and started backing up. Did a 32 gig backup no problem, started another 30-ish gig backup and came back later to find that error.
I added the program wdsmartware to the firewall exceptions. I tried to launch the dashboard but it was a 404. I typed in the IP directly and the dashboard came up. I think I had to wake up the mybook ( I didn’t check the status light in the other room). Once the dashboard was working and the drive was awake again, I relaunched smartware and it resumed the backup from where it’d left off when it stalled, about 10 gigs in. My wife had tried to stream a netflix movie a few hours ago and the wii told her the network wasn’t available. I wonder if there was too much traffic for the router (dlink 825) wireless G channel and that interrupted both the netflix and the backup. Maybe the drive fell asleep after 10 minutes and that’s what gave the partition error.
but it’s working now, so try any or all of those things. I’d like to know, if the drive goes to sleep (blue light) how will it know if I’ve modified or added a file to one of my “to be backed up” folders? The documentation makes it sound like it instantly backs up, but maybe that’s only if it never goes to sleep.
The My Book Live never knows when you’ve modified a file, but the SmartWare software running on your computer does. When SmartWare detects a change, it copies that change to your backup drive, whether that is a directly attached USB drive or a network drive such as your My Book Live.
The blue LED just means the harddrive inside your My Book Live is in sleep mode but the unit itself is still running and listening to the network. Just like your internal and USB harddrives, your My Book Live will automatically wake up when it is accessed.
It sounds like your router may have become overloaded and that caused your network connections to drop. SmartWare may not have tried to contact the drive again for this reason, but it typically resumes on its own.
I’ve been through every suggestion I could find (enabling sharing, reinstall, firewall allowance) but Smartware is unable to see MBL on one of my Win7 pcs. I can map & browse the drive, and access it via dashboard, so it is only Smartware that can’t see it. Any other tips would be appreciated.
I have the same issue. After the initial install and one “successful” backup I now get the “No writable WD…” and grayed out Backup & Retrieve tabs. I can see MBL via network (Libraries via Windows 7.1) and can access the public share. I can see the new shares I created, however I cannot access them - says do not have permissions - even though I have the User/PWs correct. I’ve updated the SmartWare SW and cannot update the Firmware - says cannot find any device and to rescan or exit. Dashboard shows MBL as a GOOD status and diagnostics run ok. I have an open ticket with the support team on this as well…
It’s odd that your drive worked initially but not since. The firmware update from the Web is only for USB drives and not for network drives. You can update your My Book Live to the latest firmware using the Dashboard under Settings and then Updates. That’s worth a try.
If WD Support is able to find a setting on your system such as network discovery or UPnP that allows SmartWare to see the drive, could you share it here for others to check?
Thanks for the USB tip - I recall now it mentioning something about USB as well. When I do get a fix I will share (strange that the support team told me to do knowing I was networked attached). If I don’t I may go find some “opensource” SW to use for backups (I’m interested in incremental backups)…r
SmartWare performs a continual backup and can keep x previous versions of files around, but this isn’t technically incremential, it’s simply an continually updated copy of your files. (On the other hand, with an incremential backup you have to have the last full backup plus all steps in between.)
The Free and Open Source software worlds may provide excellent backup solutions that might even be more flexible for your particular backup plans. As long as they can write to a mapped drive or a UNC, you shouldn’t have any trouble using third-party software to back up your computer to your My Book Live. If you decide to stop using SmartWare in favor of third-party software, you can remove your existing SmartWare backup through the Dashboard.
We were able to correct my issue. Had to do a “Factory Restore” (Dashboard/Utilities/Factory Restore/Quick Restore). This wipes out all your data on the drive and restores it to factory default. So far it has been working ok - have 2 PC’s running backups to the drive now…r
I have the same problem. I got my Live 3 days ago. Just plugged it in, turned my macbook pro on and got my timemachine in. But when i am switching to my moms windows 7 pc the smartware parition won’t show up. Any solution?
on the windows 7 machine, can you get to the dashboard by typing the IP assigned to your MBL by the router directly into the address field of Internet Explorer?
Hi, I’ve the same problem with one of my machines. Win7-64 and Vista-32 PC runs fine, another Vista-32 machine has the same problem. The second time I installed smartware it worked first with the original supplied version 1.4.2.4. After updating to 1.4.3.4 I had the error again. I can acces public and private shares vis windows explorer and also the status icon in the windows taskbar shows everthings fine when I move the mouse over it (green light, 5% used, temperature OK). But when I start smartware I get the same error. Any new ideas on this? Thanks!
