External HD not working after firmware update

I was able to fix this using the method wduser666 mentions above. Your drive is probably not as broken as it seems!!

Steps to fix:

Connect your drive to a Windows PC. You’ll get a thing wanting to install drivers, ignore it. Download and run the Windows version of the Firmware Update. Pull out the USB/power cord and wait a bit. Plug it back in and Windows will recognize your drive correctly (you won’t see your files if you had a password on the drive). Eject it properly and unplug. Plug it back into your Mac, and it’ll be back to normal – your old password still applies and all your files are there!

This outcome seems to point to a problem in the mac installer. Shame on you Western Digital for not fixing this and forcing people to pay for ‘data recovery’ or buying a new drive.

I have a MyBook Essential (500GB) and i’m on OS X 10.6.4

The firmware update killed mine as well. I updated via Windows, plugged MyBook back into my iMac and it booted right back up. Took a few minutes for my data to show up again, but it’s all there and working. WD really needs to fix their OS X software and apologize for all the ■■■■ we had to deal with to fix our drives!

I can also vouch for the above method.  The PC firmware updater worked!! I can’t believe this issue has been going on for this long without being addressed by WD!  Does anyone for WD read these posts???

Glad I came and checked these forums.

I got a new Passport to use with time machine, ran the firmware update as directed and lost the drive.

I used the solution discussed of running the Firmware update on a PC, and the drive was back in business.

I also hope that WD reads these forums, and fixes that Mac Firmware update that causes this problem!

I wasted my saturday morning with this passport harddrive by WD. Working excellent last night, and after i installed updates… no dice. Like all you guys. Finally got it working… was very very angry at the whole process, i wont update ever again from WD. There should have been some sort of diclaimer, or just get rid of the link and not let mac users update their firmware, i mean if there are obvious flaws in the software, why even have it as a live link… for so so long? Very disappointed with them. But im glad that you guys helped me. Cheers

Trying to remove smartware, I followed the WD instructions. Step 1 was installing the latest firmware. After this, my drive was not mounted by my MacBook Pro. Following the thread here, I plugged the drive, passport essential se 1 tb, into my W7 pc, downloaded the firmware updater for Windows, and it found the drive and ran fine. Now the drive mounts on my MacBook. The Apple formatting, partitions, files and such were not affected. I am back to where I want to be, but still would like to banish the smartware.

deecypher wrote:

Does anyone for WD read these posts???

Not usually.  I’m a moderator, so I don’t count.  However, I do escalate posts to the product people, if a new issue shows up.  In this case, we originally devised this work around for the failed Mac updater.  We are definitely working on a fix for this, and it should be out, soon. 

same issue here…i am amazed and disgusted at wd for the disappearing act when trouble arises.

i’ll go buy the mac product and dump this pos drive and it’s makers in the garbage!

What was the Windows version? And what firmware updater version? I tried this method with XP Home Edition SP3 and Studio Firmware Updater v1.012 (1.0.8.0) but got a fatal error at beginning of upgrading firmware.

Thank you!

I’ve same issue with mybook for mac after firmware uprage the hdd is stacked. 

WDBAAG0010HCH EESN

since this very active post this has to be an hot issue for WD, tha have to provide a solution, I have data stored there before FW update,

this is unaccetable

Anyone has solved this issue please let me know

thanks

Marco

I don’t have a PC so I have no place to fix this, when is WD going to put out a fix on the mac itself?

This is really bothering me.

We’re working on it, and it’s probably being tested now.

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WARNING – DO NOT BUY WD MY BOOK DRIVES if you plan to store anything of value. I and a friend started buying My Books to build music and video libraries to work with iTunes and AppleTV. He has had all 4 of his drives fail and I’ve had 4 of five fail. I work in the software industry and deal with a large amount of hardware and the WD My Book has the highest failure rate of any drive I’ve ever used or seen. In my personal use, it is the only drive I’ve ever had fail. Ask your local Costco about the number they get returned due to failures. Costco no longer sells the My Book drives.

The only WD external drives I own that haven’t failed are the Passports. They seem to work endlessly. Just avoid the My Books.

Same problem here. I also tried on a W7 machine but it says windows stopped installing firmware or something like that.

My device is MyBook Studio 1TB (with the fancy screen)

Yeah… ditto…haven’t tried the “windows fix” yet, but this kind of thing is very unproffesional and shotty business practices. We pay our money to support your product and this is how you show your appreciation… tsk tsk… Just wanted to express this to the “higher ups” and to let you know my money is going to a more trustworthy source.

Hi

I have recently joined the growing comminity that have rendered their WD hard drives unusable by updating the firmware.
From reading this site I find out that that the firmware update was released long ago (May 20) and the problems with it were first starting to be reported on this site by May 22.  Would it not be better to take the link to the update off the web site back then and then focus solving the problem?
Saying that the “We’re working on it, and it’s probably being tested now”, in October, doesn’t help build any good will for the product or the company.
That link is a known problem that is coursing the destruction of peoples data on a daily basis since May. I can only assume that the company has known about it since then and chosen to ignore it.

My MyBook Elite 1TB wouldn’t spin up after I did the firmware update on my MacBook Pro. I was sure that I was sunk. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found this forum. I learned here about the workaround of running the firmware updater on a Windows PC. After running the updater on Windows, it wasn’t recognized on that machine but when I plugged into my MacBook it mounted immediately and all my files were there.

That’s my story. I’ll be very cautious before I do any firmware updates in the future. I’ll check the forums first…that is if I decide to stay with the MyBook.

Thanks everyone for the help.

I’m having exactly the same problem. After I upgraded the firmware to my passport essential drive, the drive became unmountable. I can’t even find him in disk utility.

I don’t have a windows machine to try the firmware update from there! what can I do?? I NEED MY DATA AND I NEED THEM YESTERDAY!!! NOT NOW!

then you will need the windows computer To update the Drive’s Firmware on that one , actually thats the only solution in order to fix this issue right now :slight_smile:

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will it work if I install win xp on vmware fusion?? I guess not but I thought I could ask…