Backup and retrieve tabs greyed out

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hello, I’m using version 3.1.0.15 of WD SmartWare (I get this information when I click on “About WD Quick View”) or version 1.4.5.2 when I go to the home page. I have the drive for two years already and I’m using it only on one and the same computer.

Two weeks ago the backup and retrieve tabs became inactive. I read other posts of people with a similar problem, and the solution they give is to click on a “My essentials book” icon on the home page. I don’t have such an icon, so I think that their versions are different from mine.

Can you help me please?

Thank you!

WD problem.png
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2

Please give more info about your WD My Passport drive:

Go to Device Manager ,

under Disk drives right click on the WD My Passport drive, then Properties, click on the Details tab.

Click on the Device description under the Property,then click on Hardware Ids , and provide the information from the first line under Value or make a screen shot if you can.

3

Hello, hereby the required information!

I hope you can help.

Thank you in advance!

Best,

Emiliya

My Passport.png

4

Thanks for the more info provided.

Here are suggestions for you:

  • Make sure that your Passport drive is configured properly in Windows file system, formatted in NTFS file system.
  • If after that the WD SmartWare Backup/Retrieve buttons are still grayed out, you need to download the later (1.4.5.x or later) version of WD SmartWare from the WD website and install it.
5

Thank you for the suggestion!

I have some questions regarding their application.

First, how do I make sure that the drive is configured properly?

And second, if/when I upgrade the WD SmartWare, is the drive not formatted / do I not lose all my data?

Thank you again!

I cherish the hope that you will help me.

Best,

Emiliya

6

Yes, formatting the hard drive will erase all data.

Before doing that you would need to manually copy all important data to other place such as internal hard drive or other USB drive.

If you are able to copy and save or write file to the WD passport drive your drive might already be configured or formatted with either FAT32 or NTFS file system. When you right click on the My Passport icon and property it would tell.

I would suggest that you download the WD SmartWare software updater from WD download and run that updater instead. Because an older version of SmartWare software will not work with newer drive model. You need a newer version 1.4.5.x or later version in that family of software to support your drive.