Updated My Book Software - Restore & Backup tabs greyed out

I updated the software on My Book Essential today to 1.6.0.  It seems to have gone well but now I notice that the two tabs for Restore and Backup are greyed out so I cannot retreive a file.

Any help appreciated.

Same experence…what to do next next?

same here (my book elite).  the drive shows up on home tab but backup and retrieve tabs are dimmed.  power recycle both the drive and PC didn’t help.  I did get an error msg during updating to 1.6; something like “smartware manager encountered a problem and needs to close”.    I also tried to restore my system (XP SP3) but couldn’t even get the previous version of smartware  to work.

Hi all, 

Click on the My Book on the home tab, after the drive is selected you will have access to backup and retrieve

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I regret to report that this does not work on my machine. After categrosizing my files (which it does every single time I open Smartware & takes some time) the Backup and Restore tabs are still greyed out.

Any other ideas?

I need to apologise!  I just realised you meant to click on the icon where it says “My Book Essential”. When I did this the two tabs appeared as they should.  Sorry and thanks!

I upgraded My Book Software to 1.6.2 and have the same issue with the Restore and Backup tabs grayed out.  I however have not solved the issue as the others have. It also is not visable as a hard drive like other divises do when veiwing on my pc.

Is Western Digital seriously not going to respond to this problem? I am having the same issue and it’s really frustrating. I got a new computer a few months ago, and now I can’t even get My Book Essentail to be recognized as a storage device. I downloaded the software and I can’t click the backup or retrieve tabs, they’re grayed out. The drive doesnt even show up on the home screen when I open SmartWare. 

[Deleted] WD, do you seriously ignore these issues? I’ve had better support from McDonalds 

Oh and BTW, your over the phone support is terrible. Just because my product is 3 years old, I only get 1 free techinical support session? AND they can’t even fix the problem! This is ridiculous. I updated to version 1.6.2 and completely lost access to over 700 gigs on my external drive. To top it all off, as a company you don’t even have a solution to this type of problem that multiple people are having? My computer is brand new, so don’t tell me it’s the PC the drive is being connected to. If I didn’t need important files on this thing it would already have flown out my 3rd story window. 

Same issue here, unfortunately.   I see that folks have resolved this by clicking on the icon where it says “My Book Essential”.  Unfortunately I do not have any such icon.   :neutral_face:    I see my computer, and it’s internal drives - but the MyBook external drive does not show up on the Home Tab screen.   Looks like the software can’t see the drive.

Question -  can you back up the same data to multiple drives?  I did a full backup to one drive, which is stored offsite. This backup is done monthly.  Now I’m trying to backup the same data to a different MyBook onsite - as I’d like to have regular backups running at all times.  Could that be causing the issue?

Still haven’t sorted this one out.  :( 

 There is no Mybook or Passport icon to the right to click on to select those drives - thus the backup tab remains greyed out.

Win7 sees those drives just fine.  Drive Manager says they are online and healthy.  However,  Smartware doesn’t show them. 

I tried just plugging in 1 drive only, vs daisy-chaining the two (individually powered) - same issue.

Ideas?

Me too have this problem after the software update. I have a solution for this.

After update restart your computer, then start WD SmartWare. On home page of smartware click on the drive icon and then everything will be fine. Backup and Retrieve option will be available now.

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hey,

 did you find a solution?

I’m having the same problem, I have no mybook icon and backup is greyed out…

thanks  :slight_smile:

Hi

I am also having same issue after upgrading to latest version of software.  I didn’t update the last couple of versions as many updates seem to cause ne issues.

Looks like this one is complicated as no solution for over 6 months since problem started.

Sorry Nitheesh it didn’t work for me.

I know it used to work like this on older versions that worked.

We’ll it didn’t fix other members issues

Wizer wrote:

Hi all, 

 

Click on the My Book on the home tab, after the drive is selected you will have access to backup and retrieve

What MyBook icon?  Can’t find it on Home tab

My screen looks exactly like yours except my Settings tab is also greyed out.  This product costs too much to be so much troulble!

I eventually go mine to work but I tried so many things.  I think clicking on the logo on top left of the WD window fixed it but it took 30 secs or so to activate.

I have just purched a Bilkin router with 2 USB ports for external hard disks and am doing my backups on that.  It is also accessable to the whole network which is a bonus.

Only problem is it takes quite a while to backup (initially) with wireless devices, depending on your connection speed.  Devices connected by cable are fine,

It seems a better solution that the WD backup which has had issues from inception.  Just as it settles WD release a new version and you start all over again.

Well, you have no choice but to format it.