Wow…just, wow. I picked up a 500GB passport last night, and came across this thread while searching for a SMARTware removal tool, I just assumed it was like Sandisk’s little utility on their thumb drives…annoying, eats space adn automounts, hwoever, there’s a tool to stop that…moreso remove it. I’m in complete agreement with this thread. Had there been a backup plan such as a removal tool ready to go upon launch of the product, no big deal, but since there isn’t, and not even so much as a hint of one in the making, I’m just falbbergasted. I like my drive, I hate the smartware, part of me wants to wait it out a little bit and see if a removal tool comes along, but if it doesn’t, I’m stuck. Sure, VCD is disabled. but the loss of space is killing me. 668MB??? Thats an .iso. In my line of work, I RELY on my little drives and the ability to use/manipulate EVERY LAST BIT OF THE DRIVE. So, now, as if my day isn’t busy enough, I have to find time to return a drive and battle with customer service as to “why” I’m returning it. “It has proprietary software that Iw asn’t aware of” is hardly a bargaining chip. they didn’t make it, why should they care? In their eyes, as the consumer, its my job to research the products I choose to buy. AND SADLY ENOUGH, they’re right. I just assumed WD would be fine. I have bought drives from them for years…wether its be personal use, for my company or suggested for clients. Tisk tisk WD. not very nice at all. WD=Withholding DATAspace.
At any rate. Another drive returned…if I i will be able to. then its back to the drawing board researching external drives before purchasing, cause i surely do not want the same headache and frustration from another manufacturer. My day went from ok to ■■■■ by the end of this post.
I don’t want to use these product. I want to use all the space available on the drive, on Linux, without loosing space for soft that I won’t use and that I CAN’T use !
I don’t think that WD could fix the problem. This whole fiasco demonstrates a very inept company which doesn’t make me feel that they can remedy the problem.
I certainly won’t trust WD again. Who knows what these flawed drives will perform like down the road. The signs aren’t good and definitely don’t merit trust.
We could vent our anger at being ripped off, but it’s like calling a deaf dog.
WD has lost the ball and this former die hard customer.
I echo the comments of jasinviso. I have 5 WD external drives which have worked well for me. But the WD SmartWare has shaken my respect for and confidence in WD. I am waiting for WD to acknowledge the problems and provide a workable and timely fix. If it fails to do so its market share will be seriously eroded.
As an IS guy with a state highway agency, I am baffled by WD’s ambivalence toward the many posts on this subject and do not understand the lack of response by WD engineering to a very serious breech in consumer trust and confidence in WD products. What gain (visible or hidden) does WD have by placing such a rootkit on their external storage device? Which, by the way, could probably have been easily hidden from the average user, who would never know that personal/private information was being collected and passed. I would favor a class action suit, as was mentioned in an earlier post, if WD ignores it’s customers justifiable demands and fails to correct an obivous violation of privacy. WD give us our right to remove this injurious, unpredictable, uncontrollable smartware and do it today.
Wow… Count me in. I am another fool caught in this unbelievable episode.
I bought my drive and after one hour of fighting with it and already being very pissed of went to google to look for answers… only to find this shamefull scene that WD is pulling on consumers.
This made me decide to return the drive which I tried to do the next morning but the wonderfull reseller that is Carrefour in Dubai, United Arab Emirates decided they wouldn’t refund me. Per them it is my fault, I saw the picture, I saw the Demo Unit, a non-working plastic one BTW :-), and based on that I decided to buy it. So now I have to keep it as per them.
I won’t keep it because this is rubbish, worst case I will give it as a gift to Mr. Alain Enjalbert, the Carrefour GM.
I hate the WD Smartware too in my 1,5 TB My Book Studio. Please WD let me remove the smartware completely! I wish I could return my drive but I can’t so now I have to live with that annoying software.
I too am very unhappy with Western Digital and their decision to put this Smartware on my drive.
What I have found out is that WD is actually using a different partitioning for the drive to accomplish this. I founf this out when the controller in my My Book Essentials 2TB drive died on me, and I pulled the drive to recover my data. The partitions are unknown, and the drive is unreadable with another controller card until the drive is wiped and reformatted.
Just to make sure that the controller card didn’t mess the drive up somehow, I pulled the drive out another working unit and the same thing. Plug it into a standard SATA controller and you get ‘Unknown Partition’ and the drive is unreadable.
so ***FAIR WARNING*** if you put ANY data on these drives, then it will be UNREADABLE by ANY standard controller in the event your enclosure has any problems.
to me, this is ***UNACCEPTABLE***.
Western Digital’s SmartWare backup is in reality a SmartWare Data Deleter, since there is no way to recover your data.
So… I wonder if I could remove the hard drive from the enclosure and reformat it using a different enclosure/other means of connecting it to my computer? Although then it might not work with the original enclosure any more but I would at least have a functioning hard drive, right?
Last year I bought a 160GB My Passport Essential, the older model without this rootkit they call Smartware. I was, and I am, very happy with it, it’s a great little HD. So when I went to buy a new external HD, I didn’t really think I would have to think twice about which one to buy and ended up with a 500GB My Passport Essential with the Smartware bull**bleep**. Oh how I wish I had thought twice. I had even recommended the My Passport to others based on my experience with the old model. At least that will never happen again. WD must fix this issue. If they don’t, the whole Internet deserves to know not to buy this ■■■■. I will make it my personal business to let people know the facts.
I tried to return the HD to the store today with no luck. They kept telling me it’s a feature and they have no responsibility. Guess whether or not am I going to buy anything from Verkkokauppa.com again. It’s not like there are no better stores around. The box only gives misleading information about the product, nowhere does it say that the software malware until otherwise proved is impossible to remove. Also, the box clearly says 500GB so when I buy a 500GB HD, I think I am justified to expect that I get 500GB of storage space.
Seriously, how the hell is WD getting away with this? It’s like buying an mp3 player only to find out that the crappy demo tracks that come with it can’t be removed.
Yes, you can pull the drive out and connect it to a different controller. You will lose all data on the drive when you do so since it will be seen as an ‘unrecognizable partition’. Once you delete that partition, create a new partition, then format the drive, then it is just like using any other hard drive on the other controller.
However, if you wish ot move it back to the original enclosure in the future, you will once again lose everything on the drive because it would create the weird partitions for you again, and would not be able to read the STANDARD formatted drive until you do so.
The My Book and My Passport product lines have been designed with WD SmartWare backup software to appeal to a broad range of users. WD SmartWare is an automatic continuous backup software for users who want to easily backup their data. We also offer hardware-based encryption and password protection on these product lines to protect user data.
Here is more information for the data protection features in this product line:
1. Personal/Private Information
Western Digital does not collect personally identifiable or private information through the WD SmartWare software. Western Digital receives registration information only if the user chooses to complete the optional registration.
2. Cross-Platform Compatibility/SES Driver
My Passport and MyBook drives are designed to work with PC or Macintosh operating systems. To enable this functionality, Windows will ask to install a SCSI Enclosure Services (SES) driver when you connect your drive. The driver is not required for the drive to function but Windows will ask you to install the driver each time you connect the drive if it does not find the driver installed.
3. Virtual CD
The Virtual CD simplifies the WD SmartWare installation process by reducing the number of steps required to install the software. The VCD also allows the My Passport or My Book drive to be used across multiple computers and it enables the hardware encryption feature to protect user data. The VCD can be hidden; however, hiding the VCD will disable the hardware encryption feature. Directions to do so can be found here.
4. WD SmartWare Automatic Installer
The WD SmartWare software is an optional install and the drive can be used without installing or running WD SmartWare. The automatic installer simplifies the software experience for many customers.
5. Automatic Software Update
WD SmartWare does include an automatic software update feature that will check after startup to see if a software update is available at the Western Digital Web site. If the user elects to download the update, the WD SmartWare may provide the user’s operating system version to the Western Digital website in order to select the appropriate update. The automatic update feature can be easily disabled. Directions to do so can be found in the appropriate User Manual. Please go to the “Setting the Preference Options” section.
6. Continuous Backup
If the WD SmartWare is installed, it will operate locally on your system and continuously monitor in the background for new files that are created so they can be backed up on your drive. This is the nature of an automatic and continuous backup application.
If later you do not wish to have this program running in the background, uninstalling WD SmartWare will completely remove it from your computer system. Directions to do so can be found here.
For users who do not want an automatic backup solution or encryption, we currently offer WD Elements external drives that have similar capacities as the My Passport drives. Instead of being included on a Virtual CD, any software can be easily removed from the WD Elements drive.
If I am reading this correctly there is no way to keep the software from running in the background. It is a continuous backup software system. You can not elect to back up at times of your choice. This is of concern for the reasons expressed by this thread and for concerns of resource impact.
My major concerns on this software are expressed elsewhere on the Forum. I am having difficulty getting answers from the on line Customer Service Department because they insist my Passport Essential did not come with the software which it of course did.
This almost unbelievable response along with the almost complete lack of printed or online user documentation has left me with an unusable product.
why dont you use a program like “end it all” to constantly kill the smartware proccess or go and delete the partition that the virtual disk is saved on on your drive. or before you use your drive you format it
Actually, you are not reading it correctly. The next paragraph (after number 6) tells you that if you do NOT want to have SmartWare running in the background, you will have to UNINSTALL it from your computer.
Moreover, the older 3 generations of Passport Essentials do not come with SmartWare, but the newest Passport Essential does. So, our tech may have gotten them confused. I apologize for that.
Yes, I don’t know about the technical definition of a rootkit and if it applies, but the effect is the same : this sw renders the product useless and even harmful. Customers will think that they are backed up but, with “smartware” who knows?
WD get rid of this and supply something to remove and replace it. Meanwhile I am returning all the drives that are still allowed.
