This is how Wikipedia defines a rootkit, “A rootkit is a type of software that is designed to gain administrative-level control over a computer system without being detected. In virtually all cases, the purpose and motive is to perform malicious operations on a target host computing system at a later date without the knowledge of the administrators or users of that system. Rootkits can be installed in hardware or software targeting the BIOS, hypervisor, boot loader, kernel or less commonly, libraries or applications.”
Never mind what you call it. Just give us the tools to get rid of it.
No one wants Smartware. WD don’t advertise that their disks come with this firmware hack and it is completely useless. We also found it to be unstable and provide constant errors. Which is why we returned one drive to the shop. The other already had important data on it, before we realised the implications of the Smartware partition, so we are stuck with it for the moment.
On a more general level, what kind of company thinks it is good pratice to force a firmware locked product onto unsuspecting customers? What exactly was the logic when WD came up with this? No really, what is the logic?
I had planned to buy two Mybook Studio (for me and my father), but since there is no way to remove this SmartWare, I will turn to Iomega. It’s a shame, they’re losing sales. And I’m not the only one in this case.
Last month, I returned an HP disk that had the same nasty firmware.
I DO NOT THINK I AM READING IT INCORRECTLY. IF THE ONLY WAY I CAN KEEP IT FROM RUNNING IN BACKGROUND IS TO DINSTALL IT THEN I WILL NOT HAVE IT AVAILABLE TO MANUALLY RUN BACKUP AND THEN RETRIEVE.
THANKS AGAIN FOR THE COMMENTS ON THE PROBLEMS I AM HAVING WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE. TODAY I GOT MY 4TH EMAIL TELLING ME THAT I DO NOT HAVE SMARTWARE. HOW CAN WE GET THEM TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACT THAT MY PASSPORT ESSENTIAL LEGALLY HA THE SOFTWARE? AS I SAID I CAN NOT GET IT TO WORK AT ALL AND NEED HELP.
A SOFTWARE USER GUIDE IS DESPERATELY NEEDED FOR THIS PRODUCT. IS THERE SOME AVAILABLE I DO NOT KNOW ABOUT? IF NOT WHAT IS A PERSON SUPPOSED TO DO?
This is how Wikipedia defines a rootkit, “A rootkit is a type of software that is designed to gain administrative-level control over a computer system without being detected. In virtually all cases, the purpose and motive is to perform malicious operations on a target host computing system at a later date without the knowledge of the administrators or users of that system. Rootkits can be installed in hardware or software targeting the BIOS, hypervisor, boot loader, kernel or less commonly, libraries or applications.”
SmartWare is not a rootkit.
There is a reason why Wikipedia isn’t accepted at educational institutions, and that is because Wikipedia is not a credible source of information as it is public domain. Meaning, anyone can change/alter the information Wikipedia has at any time. Given that you are not part of the developers who conceived Smartware, I don’t expect you to necessarily understand, nor believe.
Your Wikipedia definition is the preconceived public perception of what a rootkit is, which is unfortunately flawed. There are several sides to what a rootkit is. Some are used for purely malicious intent, while others are used to simply invade privacy/collect information remotely, etc etc - the possibilities are endless really. However, I clearly defined what a rootkit is in my second reply to this topic. I think its cute that WD provides a tool AFTER the fact of public discovery, to hide/unhide the VCD, yet still deny a tool to remove it. Remind you of another company? *cough* Sony *cough*. At least Sony was smart enough to keep their ‘child’ software based so when the lawsuits started raining down upon them, they were able to quickly rememdy the situation. Unfortuantely, other companies have not been so fortunate. The evidence suggesting that Smartware is a rootkit is blatantly obvious to an IT security specialist. I wish I had more time to dedicate to this issue right now, but as soon as I get a semester off from my position at the university, I can assure you, Smartware will be investigated by a team of forensic security specialists. For the case of WD, I sure hope they have provided a removal tool by then. I already know what I am going to find. This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with firmware(hardware) rootkits. It is only a matter of time in determining when, unless someone beats me to it
There are no other intentions, nor will there be any intended gain from this, other than proving what WD is doing.
Okay, I’m sorry that I sited Wikipedia. I actually feel the same as you do about it. I just thought the 27 references at the bottom of the page, plus the fact that I wasn’t finding much more as far as explanation, made my understanding of a rootkit clear enough.
Okay, I’m sorry that I sited Wikipedia. I actually feel the same as you do about it. I just thought the 27 references at the bottom of the page, plus the fact that I wasn’t finding much more as far as explanation, made my understanding of a rootkit clear enough.
This doesn’t mean that you have to agree with me, nor disagree. What it does mean is that you, and anyone else, are empowered by the information you receive, and are therefore entitled to feel any way about the situation that your mind perceives.
I agree on the aspect pertaining to those 27 references, because it does attempt to provide validity by having some credible sources (which they are in fact credible sources). However, the information manifested through Wikipedia is more of a generalized summary, which is only accurate to certain specific attributes, and not necessarily the details of those attributes. There is some good information to be absorbed (from those references) if one takes the time to read, understand, and visualize the multi-dimensional perspective of what a rootkit fundamentally is, and in the myriad of ways one of these components can be utliized (from the information provided).
Rootkits were not so scary when they were just files on a hard drive, because they were easier to detect and mitigate/counteract. When the rootkit evolved into embedded devices such as firmware, and virtual components, that is when they started to really become an interest of serious concern. Now the notion that any device you plug into your computer can include a component of this nature is more of a reality than ever.
The fact that these hidden components are becoming increasingly more difficult to detect, gives the companies utilizing them a fine layer of plausible deniability. What the consumer doesn’t know, thus doesn’t exist, and therefore wont hurt them - right?
When I started doing more research on it. I started seeing a lot of what you’re talking about. So, you are right about your concern. But, with the VCD being in everyone’s face, we’d be pretty stupid to include anything that could be truly construed as a rootkit on it. It would be like a thief nailing a sign on your front door publicizing that he’s going to break into your house and steal your valuables. Just a thought.
What you’re describing has happened to my drive (My Book “essential” - that’s rich). The USB port was soldered on improperly and fell off. I foolishly thought a new enclosure would solve the problem, but the drive will not mount, appears unpartitioned, and can only be formatted - not repaired or verified. 500 Gs of data completely gone. I’ve spent hours and hours trying data recovery apps to no avail. I called Western Digital and made another foolish error in telling them I’d tried a new enclosure. I was notified that my warranty was voided since I opened the drive but not to worry! I could get 10% off in their online store. Thank you, Smartware and Western Digital. The worst product I’ve ever purchased, along with the worst customer service. Between the cost of the drive (is a 2T) and data recovery apps, I’ve thrown away $500 and don’t even have my data back. I will tell anyone who will listen at school, on Facebook and Twitter what a rip-off their crappy products are. For shame, Western Digital.
I have bought this drive so I could go to datacentre and use is a “quick” back up tool.
The software it runs is just waste of resources, not every one runs Windows or Mac.
I am actually affraid to plug this drive into windows machine (that I will have to borrow, since I normally don’t have access to windows machines), who knows what it will “autoplay”.
It is awfully slow. My home internet connection is faster than this drive. I could have literally download the files in half of the time than it takes for this drive to copy. The purchase of this drive is pointless waste of money. Get this: on a server (idle) the transfer rate from disk to this drive is 1Mbyte/s*. This is pathetic!
I demand the following:
A way to completely remove smartware from any OS (including linux)
A way to completely remove encryption form any OS (including linux)
To be sure, I formatted the partition as XFS. NTFS is no use to me. At least that part of the operation permitted.
Unfortunately I have bought it on behalf of my employer, otherwise I could return it on basis of breach of something that we call Consumer Guarantee Act in NZ.
Being sysadmin I will make sure everysingle person that asks for my advise will stay away from WD products (and I will stop pruchasing WD products for my company), unless this issue is resolved (both of my demands are satisfied).
Here what I am going to do if WD does not budge: I am going to cannibalize the disk: I will buy some elcheapo 2.5 inch enclosure pull the disk out and use it in there. And never-ever going to buy or recommend WD disks to anyone. There is seagate and likes after all.
*I assume WD encryption engine cannot sustain higher throught put on the XFS partition because it is not designed for it, hence I want to disable it.
Unfortunately, Linux is not supported on Passport 1 TB drive. The link below is the product page overview of the Passport, and in the compatility list, at the bottom of the page, it only shows that the drive is compatible for Windows or Mac computers. It says the same thing on the packaging. I’m sorry if it wasn’t clear to you that SmartWare is a part of what makes it incompatible with Linux computers.
I have left a post on a couple of threads about this. I purchased a new WD 750gig drive a few days ago. Plugged it into my PC and I had not 1 but 2 drives now showing, very similar to the promotional USB sticks given away by companies. These are hardware protected and you cannot delete the promotional content.
Well I tried to get rid of Smartware and tried to use the drive like every other one I have, but no I could not. So I took it back to the store and will never buy another WD drive until this ■■■■ is removed. Why don’t they make it an optional download, or something you can format over. The person in charge of this decision needs to seriously look at themselves. I have 4 other WD drives and fear that they may well be my last, the competitors drives look decent enough.
I don’t even understand why you are trying to disapprove another person’s definition of a rootkit or explain that a product is unsupported for a certain operating system.
What matters is that these hard drives come with a built-in firmware that is causing major issues to end-users, even to those who don’t want to use those certain aspects of the product. Hardware manufactures are notorious for creating awful software that seem to do more damage than actually help. It seems that Western Digital has joined the club. Unfortunately in this situation. We can’t even remove the software ourselves. On top of that, you have said that Western Digital does not intend to issue a fix that would allow users to remove the software completely. Pathetic. At least I could remove the U3 system from Sandisk, the constantly-crashing HP Wireless Assistant from Windows, and all bundled demoware that came bundled with my Laptop purchase via a reformat.
But not WD Smartware. Disabling it? Please. It seems that only just obfuscates the issue instead of solving it. People are still reporting issues about how this firmware is causing issues with other programs. Why can’'t these hard drives have an option to work like every other bland plug and play device?
I recently decided to buy a My Book Essential 1TB hard drive from best buy. Just in case I found a better deal, I decided not to open it immediately. I decided to check other review sites and I found out quickly how bad this software is. It was essentially universal: the software itself is programmed terribly. People were saying that backups consumed every resource available. The program does not allow scheduled backups. The hard drive was adding 45 seconds to a computer boot. The program was causing issues with optical drives and would not work with other backup or security services. The hard drive would not recognize correctly or will show up as two devices.
I will be returning this purchase tomorrow. Its unfortunate that I have to make sure my next HDD purchase doesn’t have forced, defective firmware.
I bought a 2TB Mybook Studio last month as a replacement for a 4 x 500Gig external disk array that I use with my 2 Macbook pro’s. The old array had 10 partitions on it , 3 of which were bootable - I copied all the contents over using CC cloner , all went well until I tried to boot off the myBook . The 3 partitions are seen by the mac Startup Disk utility as bootable , but the boot process hangs . Does so whether I am in single user mode or standard GUI.
Figured out that the problem seems to be the 275 MB partition that contains the VCD . The MyBook is accessed via that partition first making all other partitions on the disk non bootable - because the boot process is prevented from accessing them . OK - tried using the terminal - logging in as root , using chmod to give root RWX permissions to the partition then erasing it or repartitonining it figuring that would effectively erase the contents . Nothing works not rmdir , rm -r, fdisk etc etc , you either get resource busy or permission denied (13).
So I call WD and I am told a) yes there is no way to remove the partition b) yes it means the drive isn’t bootable c) WD "don’t support " using the drive as a bootable volume(s) . d) the Smartware provide a useful backup solution.
So WD have taken a basic piece of kit and crippled it by installing uneraseable software on it . Why ?
Its particularly irritating when Apple have with recent OS upgrades produced Time Machine - a far better backup utility than Smartware and have emabled booting from USB 2.0 drives. Finally the notion that a HD manufacturer can tell customers that one of their products does not support booting any OS is quite extraordinary. Rather like making a car with no reverse gear and and then teiing customers " we only support forward motion in our vehicles"
There are some very legitimate concerns raised in this thread, WD you best heed your customers’ input.
I purchased a 2TB WD My Book Essential on behalf of a customer only to find it has some severe limitations
The drive cannot be recovered if taken out of the specific enclosure it is in
The drive is not bootable
The product cannot be used in embedded devices such as PVR’s
Every time you connect the drive it demands to install an unnessesary driver, even if you have used the WD util to “hide” SmartWare. This is confusing for end users.
You advertise the drive as 2TB, but you fail to specifiy that 700MB’s of this is taken up by your smartware partition
I feel that you WD should have advertised these things in your product description you give to your suppliers.
Dissapointed WD. How can I buy WD again if you lie about your products’ (severe!) limitations through the withold of information?
