@1oldman: Thank you for responding. I have tried to be sure that everyone understands the risks of doing this. They are very real and cannot be understated.
There’s still a virtual CD “stub” left behind, but it doesn’t seem to stop you from using all the capacity of the drive in your enclosure. It may or may not mount on your desktop or show in My Computer depending upon your luck. (That’s the best way I’ve got to put it.)
I’ve had some discussions with WD support over the few days since I’ve posted this message, and I’ve tried hard to make it clear that I (and I’m sure, others) purchased a My Book drive in good faith and with the belief that any optional software bundled on the drive would be removable. I’ve also tried to make them aware that the support site presently does not have correct information on file for owners of Studio model My Book drives–you cannot presently hide SmartWare on these drives.
The most they’ve said is “an update might be forthcoming in a few months” and that I should basically wait for it. That is, to be polite, absolutely ridiculous. I will not wait for an update that may never show up, and take the chance of being stuck with a product that is completely incompatible with my requirements. They also haven’t even taken the small step of updating their web site with the correct information for My Book Studio edition owners!
As it is, I don’t think the Firewire interface on the My Book Studio edition drive really works. I’ve noticed a lot of “stalling” while doing file transfers under FreeNAS, stalling that isn’t present with other enclosures that also use WD hard drives and are based around Oxford Semiconductor bridge products.
I’ve drafted a letter that I intend to send to Western Digital via the good old postal service. I’ll see what they say, but I have a feeling that this My Book drive and I are about to part ways. I’ve simply had enough at this point, and the efforts of customer service are not sufficient.
