It might Work! , Who Knows , But i Have not tested that one , But however you Could try 
I just tried using VMWare with a windows 7 VM.
The firmware update worked!!!
Some notes:
in VMWare settings, share USB. You will need to enable the device to share. In my machine, it was as follows:
USB Device 13fd:1617
it may be different on your machine. It will likely be the one that is not easily identifiable as a particular device.
Wait a few moments, windows seems slow to mount it.
Run the windows firmware updater for your particular drive. On my system it took significantly longer than on the Mac OS. (Of course the Mac OS was not successful)
Once that was done, I unplugged the usb cable, shut down the VM, then plugged the cable back in. The Mac mounted the drive!!!
YIPEEE!!!
I hope this helps some of you!!
Ray
Worked for me. see my post in this thread.
After upgrading firmware I lost my access to the drive. Thanks to the screwedCustomer for the nice help and instruction on how to get it to work. I upgraded the firmware from my XP, and then it worked.
I found the firmware for windows xp here: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/utilitiesstep1.asp?id=wdfMP_forMac&os=win
Hi!
I cant get Windows to recognize the disk. It seems to be the USB, as Windows tells me that its a unknown device. Im not a computer-expert, but it seems like Windows doesnt know its a harddisk…
When I start the Win firmware update it tells me that it can`t find the disk…
Anyone have a solution?
Dumb as I was, I copied the iPhoto library to the disk, and my backup only contains about 50%;(
Hey just browsing through web and found out your post, i had the same problem that the hard drive stopped appearing and became Inaccessible through any mode, i’ve fixed the dive, it has 100% data and i’ve got the drive usable as well. Great success.
Mail me mjunaidsadiq ‘at’ yahoo ‘dot’ com for any help required.
Chears.
I first got a message failure when I first installed this external hard drive. I followed the instructions to update the firmware and it still is not working. What am I doing wrong? Is this compatible with Mac OS 10.6.4? I keep getting failure messages.
Hi,
I have an My Book Essential and I had the same problem as well. When I noticed that my macbook don’t recognize the drive, I tried it with Windows 7 and It didn’t recognize it too. I’ve tried lots of things but the situation didn’t change. Then I sent an e-mail to the costumer service and they told me to do firmware update on Windows. I had already tried that; but when I connected it to windows again, it recognized it eventually. Thus, I updated it. It is working now and non of my data is missing.
I hope that helps. Thank you.
Thank you very much! It worked for me as well.
I spent upwards of 2 hours on tech support to no avail and then I come here and find my answer in less than 10 minutes! Unbelievable.
exactly the same issue! i can’t believe WD left the faulty updater on their website for more people to download and brick their drives. I have no m$ windows at hand for the workaround. WD do something, quick! at least remove the firmware updater from your download section!
I have a my book studio 2tb which was bricked after the firmware update. Had nearly 2tb on it …extremely worried, drive is only a month only…being on to wd but they were unaware of any firmware issues… their advice…google software recovery software and download a program to try get my data…thanks.
Tried the windows fix, while the windows update software recognized it, as soon as i attempted to update the firmware the program crashed. Tried it with winodws 7 and xp.
Anyone found any other work arounds.
Tech support was absolutely USELESS.
I told then my problem was “insufficient Permissions” and the kept saying you need t o unlock the drive by using th PC firmware.
I protested and was told " we have done ths al lthe time .Dont worry it works"
Wel it didnt and I could see nothing on my drive at all.
I had to spend the best part of $1800 to have data recovery .
Totally unacceptable. If the drive ( or whatever ) is smart enough to say you need to update your firmware then its ought to be able to say in freaking big letters BACK UP FIRST OR YOU MAY LOSE YOUR DATA.
In my case I did because tech suport addressed the wrong issue now everything is being restored from Hard Copy and thats costing 2 weeks work ( pay ) to have it done …
Am I unimpressed you betcha backside I am
