Factory Files/Folders need to leave on MyBook?

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hello all.

I just recently picked up one of the 4TB MyBook’s with 3.0 USB and as most know, it comes formatted and with a lot of stuff on the drive already.

Was wondering though how much of that can I take off and still have the drive work as normal? Of if maybe it can all go?

Note: Although I did setup up on my PC first, I am now using this drive to feed a DLNA media server via the usb to a router I have which can do this.

For what I see of the drive now, it shows up and works as it should but on my network.

All in all it seems to be working fine, but I do have to come across all those factory files & folders in navigating it with my Roku units, so would like to get off all I can.

Kinda mentioned all this as if there is anything on there that might be needed to have the drive work right outside of a full PC environment, such as something for the sleep settings, or just for the drive to work at all for recognition and proper working on the network, I assume will need to leave those on?

Thank for any help.

2

Hello,

The files that come with your drive are not necessary in order to use the drive. You may delete those files and just use your drive as an external storage device. 

3

Actually I can report and naturally I don’t understand all of what happened or why, but this is what I experienced

After posting this question I decided to indeed remove all the files from the drive and found that right off the bat I had major issues.

For one, every time I would plug in the drive, it would tell me the drive needed to be reformatted.

After this it would take a bit to load but then when ever I clicked on it, it locked up my whole system, until it was unplugged again.

Basically could then get it back visible when plugging it into the router again, and was able to get the files back on I took off, but this never fixed this issue.

Eventually the drive stopped showing up as a MyBook in the drive list and eventually the drive would not even come up at all even when plugged back in to my PC USB, and wouldn’t even be found by the Quick Format program (btw copied all off it before deleting them).

At that point I took it back to BestBuys about who exchanged it no questions asked. When returning the new drive right off did the same thing (would not be seen by anything) so I tried deleting and reloading all kinds of stuff, but eventually just decided to use system restore to before I installed the drive, and that brought everything back an I installed and used the drive just as before.

This time I had it for over night an eventually  was looking at it and looked at just what I should leave and figured it can’t be anything but the few drivers in the Extra folder, and so took off all else and then again, I had all the same issues.

This time at least I was able to at some point get the Qucik Formatter to work and did that and the drive worked kinda just as you said on the PC, but when plugged into the router usb, would not be regognised even with all the software back on and all things installed.

Anyway, after trying everything I could including the system restore and complete reinstallation, with none of it working I took this second drive back to BestBuys and even told them what had gone on and mercifully, they gave me a third drive.

For this one, I brought it home, did the same system restore thing to the PC first, installed the drive and took nothing off but the manuals and for about two days now, it has been fine.

So again, I don’t claim to know all the hows and whys of this, but what seemed to me was that there was some kind of relationship made of the drivers either installed or used on the PC, the stuff on the files on it, and what ever else is running things software wise also on the drive that cannot be gotten too, that once any of the software is remove, it corrupts something probably in that stuff that cannot be gotten too, and is never the same after.

So don’t know what to tell you guys, but all I can say is BestBuys sure made a fan out of me with this as if they had not been so nice, I would have been really stuck.