WD _ Anybody hearing?

Is anybody from WD  hearing all these customer complaints and problems arising from VCD and SES drivers ?

Please give us a final answer if you ever intend (or can) remove permanently the VCD partition.

The VCD Could Be ‘‘DISABLED’’ But NOT ‘‘REMOVED’’ , it Comes inside Of the Drive in the Board, So theres NO WAY TO REMOVE It   But You Can Disable it …

In Case You Need further Assistance you Can Always Call Wd Tech Support  Click the link Below…

http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

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Why would they remove it?  They put it there for a reason in the first place.

They sell (cheaper) equivalent drives without the VCD.

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With the VCD Or NO however the Drive Works As an External Storage Device So, Whats the Deal ?

If you Dont Want to use it  Just ‘‘Disable it’’ and thats it… Is not that Complicated…

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I still don’t get why, when there’s a drive with a non-removable VCD partition on it (whether it can be “disabled” or not) sitting on the store shelf, and there’s a functionally identical drive sitting next to it (generally for cheaper) with no VCD, why you pick up the one with the non-removable VCD and then complain that it has the non-removable VCD.

If having the VCD is that bothersome to you (whether it can be “disabled” or not), just buy the drive next to it that won’t have the VCD in the first place.  You’ll probably save money too.

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Because Not Everybody knows How To transfer files manually to the External Drive

Actually the buy Something that can do the Job for them

However If you Know what you Are Doing then You Wont by the HD + Smartware , Instead you will Buy the normal Ones…

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The Deal is that the drive sometimes is not recognized because of the VCD. For example if you want to use it as a PVR in an MPEG4 decoder the drive is not recognized (because of the VCD) and therefore is useless for this use.

Please also don’t say that we should have bought another model (cheaper or not) because there is no indication outside of the box of the existence of VCD. You learn anything about VCD only after you have bought it.

It  is clearly WD’s mistake (or misinformation) and not the customer’s wrong decision.

So… let me get this straight.  You didn’t look anything up online before your purchase… you didn’t ask in the store at the time of your purchase… you just grabbed the first thing you saw, and then when you got it home and it wasn’t what you want, instead of taking it back and exchanging it for something more suited to your purpose, you complain to WD that the drive isn’t what you want?  When you were perfectly capable of grabbing an Elements SE instead?  And this is WD’s fault?

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Whooooo!!!

Guys Lets Keep this Professional , I mean We are Not Looking In here who’s Fault is

We’are Just Looking For a Solution About which is Going to be The Best Thing to do and

RoofingGuy  is Rigth i Mean, You’d Better Look For what you Want Before you Purchased something!!.

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For your information my 1st external disk was bought back in the 80’s (an NCR disk of 10MB !). Since then I have bought plenty of external disks and I have never had a problem.

So I consider myself an “experienced” user and I do not have to ask somebody before I buy a"PLAIN" disk.

If WD is not giving the right information upon the box this is :

  1.     A bad business practice.

  2.    Misinformation about the product’s abilities.

  3.   In many countries it is illegal to oblige the customers to use only your special software or not to be able to freely format the disk.

Bottom line :

YES it is WD’s fault.

P.S…   Are you answering for WD or just expressing your opinion?

Well, I couldn’t get a replacement without the software. They sent me the same drive I’d had, and claimed it was worth $169, when I paid maybe $89 for it at Costco. The fact that I had a problem worthy of replacement, only to get a drive the failed even worse, means Western Digital has a big problem. Wonder if the product is so far outsourced they can’t control quality?

I don’t see a WD logo next to my name.

I’m just confused… you still never answered (not that you’re obliged to answer me) why you chose the Passport over the Elements, when the features chart for comparison shows one has the Smartware and one doesn’t, and the Internet has been alive for ages with people complaining about the VCD partition on the Passports and the Essentials, and the Smartware software itself, regardless of removability.

You say that it doesn’t say on the box that the partition exists and can’t be removed, but where does it say on the box, perhaps under “Contents”, that the software comes on a separate DVD or CD?  It doesn’t.  That should at least have tipped you off that the Smartware that’s listed as being included would be on the actual hard drive, and not on separate optical media since there is no separate optical media listed as being in the box… especially for such an experienced shopper as yourself.  Where did you think the Smartware software was?  If you weren’t expecting it on the drive, and the drive doesn’t come with any CDs or DVDs and the box doesn’t say that the Smartware has to be downloaded separately from the Internet but says it _ is _ included, where exactly was your experience saying you’d find the Smartware?

I mean other manufacturers put the software on the drive too.  Whether they allow it to be removable is a different story, but such an “experienced” shopper of external drives should have at least been expecting the Smartware to be on the HD and not on a separate optical disc.

So the software being there should have been no surprise, and I don’t understand how it was such a shocking surprise.  Then a quick double-check into whether the software was removable or not, would have gotten you all the information you needed to make an informed purchase.

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As you already answered yourself “other manufacturers put the software on the drive too”. But all of them (to my knowledge) give you the choice to either use it or completely remove it.

It is the customer’s right to use or not use a certain software. Microsoft was hugely fined in Europe for forcing its customers to use Internet Explorer and not giving them the right(or option) to safely remove it. Finally Microsoft gave that option.

IT IS THE CUSTOMER’S RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT SOFTWARE HE WANTS TO USE. If a company decides differently it must be clearly written outside of the box, so that both the experienced and novice customers can easily decide if they want to buy it or not. You do not have to search all the Internet to just buy a Plain External Disk.

As far as the ironic use of the word “experienced” I prefer not to comment (as you say that you are not from WD).

P.S.  The subject of the message is “WD _ Anybody hearing ?” . I was expecting someone from WD to answer this, so as to have an “official” answer or point of view.

akala wrote:

As you already answered yourself “other manufacturers put the software on the drive too”. But all of them (to my knowledge) give you the choice to either use it or completely remove it.

 

It is the customer’s right to use or not use a certain software. Microsoft was hugely fined in Europe for forcing its customers to use Internet Explorer and not giving them the right(or option) to safely remove it. Finally Microsoft gave that option.

 

IT IS THE CUSTOMER’S RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT SOFTWARE HE WANTS TO USE. If a company decides differently it must be clearly written outside of the box, so that both the experienced and novice customers can easily decide if they want to buy it or not. You do not have to search all the Internet to just buy a Plain External Disk.

 

As far as the ironic use of the word “experienced” I prefer not to comment (as you say that you are not from WD).

 

P.S.  The subject of the message is “WD _ Anybody hearing ?” . I was expecting someone from WD to answer this, so as to have an “official” answer or point of view.

The official answer is that we are not taking SmartWare off the drives anytime in the near future.

As has been said you can purchase an Elements drive if you want a drive that does not come with software.  Moreover, your use of Microsoft being fined for forcing customers to use IE doesn’t even compare.  You don’t have to use SmartWare.  You can refuse to install it, or you can uninstall it if you don’t like it.  And you can use any other kind of backup software that you want with the drive.  There is no one forcing you to use SmartWare.

The VCD is NOT SmartWare.  It is not even software.  It is a part of the drive itself.  The VCD is necessary for being able to password protect the drives.  So, it is really a feature of the drive.  To provide this feature we need to use a small part of the drive volume.  If you don’t like looking at the VCD, you can hide it.  However, the VCD cannot be removed.  But still, nobody is forcing you to use the VCD.

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akala wrote:

For your information my 1st external disk was bought back in the 80’s (an NCR disk of 10MB !). Since then I have bought plenty of external disks and I have never had a problem.

 

So I consider myself an “experienced” user and I do not have to ask somebody before I buy a"PLAIN" disk.

 

If WD is not giving the right information upon the box this is :

 

  1.     A bad business practice.
  1.    Misinformation about the product’s abilities.
  1.   In many countries it is illegal to oblige the customers to use only your special software or not to be able to freely format the disk.

 

Bottom line :

YES it is WD’s fault.

 

P.S…   Are you answering for WD or just expressing your opinion?

Sure all drives used to be just blank volumes, but things change.  Who are you to define what is a bad business practice?  Just because you found out that it wouldn’t work for your needs, you are upset.  That I can understand, but WD made the choice to build this drive.  Whether it fits into your scheme of things, or not, doesn’t make it our fault.  And it certainly doesn’t make the drive illegal, nor our practice of chosing how we want to build a product, illegal.  Moreover, there is no misinformation about the drive.  If you would have taken one minute to search on these drives, you would have run right into this forum.  We’ve hid nothing about these drives on this forum.  

It’s our job to sell drives.  That’s why we’re in business.  It’s your job to know whether our drive is the right one for you.  With the amount of information instantly available on the internet, today, you can no longer blame us for your mistake, especially if you consider yourself an experienced user. 

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