My passport is in brand new condition rarely even moved off of the desktop it sits on. I do not leave it plugged into my computer and probably only plug it in about once a month when I have a substantial enough amount of data accumulated to dump onto it… so it has sat unused and unabused for well over 99% of the time that it has been owned.
Therefore, this seems to be to be far beyond the lightest possible use of this product by a user that should have been anticipated in the design of this thing (esp. with a name suggesting portability like “the passport”). I have read through a bunch of threads enough to see the same troubleshooting tips popping up… all of which I have tried (i.e. unplug and plug back in; plugged into all 3 usb ports on my laptop; using a wire under 18in. long… Still using the original cord that came with the product).
I was discuraged to see the responses from WD support in the majority of the messages that I have read through. I was beginning to get the feeling that the standard policy was to blame wear and tear and improper usage as the reason for every device malfunction. However, I saw a user response a few days ago that mentioned WD sending a replacement if the device is faulty and am curious how one goes about making such a request if it really exists?
I am not interested in hearing a textbook response about backing things up on multiple devices… I actually do this already, even though it is completely bogus for a company to design a device (that serves no other purpose than to back up data) with this strategy in mind. If WD was to make this policy clear to the customer on their packaging, I doubt too many people would have enough faith in the product to buy it. My problem is that I spent around $100 on a product that has been outlived by my laptop that I transport every day. So why buy this product and not just a pack of CD’s to burn the absolutely vital stuff onto? I have seen a ton of ancient external hard drives that are still completely functional because that is what you would expect from a basic device that you spend a consierable amount of money on.
