How has the Smartware NOT been fixed?

The number of complaints on here…WESTERN DIGITAL’S VERY OWN FORUM…are overwhelming. Then you Google it and find thousands of people trying to rid of it. You look at Best Buy and Amazon and the reason WD HDDs are rated so low is because people are frustrated with the Smartware…all these complaints. All these unhappy customers…all this and the best they can do is tell us to “HIDE IT!?”

I’m so ****** off that I took the time to register to complain as well as many other users. Does that not account for something? What a crock…

They need to [text deleted]  get this taken care of. If they don’t have a solution when it’s time for me to add another HDD to my collection, I’ll be taking my business elsewhere.

Also, since I’m already ranting, they need to do away with the (micro?) USBs. They are the second main reason for the portable hard drive complaints. I ended up super-gluing mine in. GO BACK TO THE “OLD” STYLE USB!

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR MISTAKES. MAKE IT RIGHT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS.

There is a way! I’m rembering this after the event so try it at your own risk. Let the my passport drive install wd smartware and then upgrade the firmware and smartware. Run smartware and select the option to hide the vcd. Restart your computer and plug in the my passoprt drive. If the vcd was originally H: and the hard drive I: ( as on my machine ) you’ll find that the vcd is now missing and the hard drive is still I: Use the windows uninstaller to uninstall wd smartware. It’ll leave a couple of inconsequential registry entries wil you can leave or delete. I deleted them. Now use the disk management tools in control panel to change the name of the I: drive to H: Use the safely remove hardware button to remove the my passport drive. Restart your computer and plug in the drive. If the new hardware wizard appears just cancell it and there you have your naked I:   !!!

It seems only the ELITE hard drives let the smartware be deleted, but i’m not sure about the VCD.

I think your getting the SmartWare software and the VCD mixed up.

The SmartWare software is the free backup software they provide with the drive. You don’t need to keep it installed. If you have an Elite or a Studio model you can install it briefly to change the label on the drive, and than uninstall it.

Once you remove the SmartWare software, the My Book/Passport works just like a normal drive.

The VCD on the other hand cannot be totally removed, but can be hidden to the point where it might as well not exist. I think WD did this so we can’t lose our disc. I actually think this is a great idea - I hope companies include these with printers, graphics cards, and other devices going forward. If you don’t want it to appear under Computer (or finder on a mac) you can disable it either through smartware or by using a seperate downloadable application called the VCD Manager which you can find on the Downloads page for your drive.

I just picked up a 2T My book essential, and it’s the same deal, the hardware wizard for the software keep popping up. This just adds to the complexity of the system when you need to move the drive to other systems and/ or run certain kinds of security software. Company’s should NEVER install software into the circuitry unless this box clearly explains this. I would have never bought this. I bought this today and am returning it today. I have always loved WD drives. But what more sad is that the support guy told me that if I wanted one of their drives without the Smartware, that I need to get the essential. That “IS” what I have. I’m so sick of this automated dummy proof junk.

To WD, stop integrating, automating and forcing people to use software they don’t want or need. I WILL NOT BUY YOUR DRIVES FOR MYSELF, OR FOR MY CUSTOMERS IF THIS CONTINUES.

I 100% agree with the other forum users,… I use Linux,… and for me, the VCD device keeps auto-loading every time I connect the drive… They should never put a virtual partition in on the machine… I purchased an external drive for a specific and intedented purpose, & not some hardware/software solution for the M$ and Mac OS X masses…

 too am wishing I bought a Segate…

Some models have the ability to update the firmware to ‘hide’ the virtual disk (which is a kludge and not a solution anyway), but the Studio model is still unable to even dismount the partition, which causes all sorts of errors on our machines. It is impossible to even hide the unwanted partition, let-alone delete it and reclaim disk space (which is the only real solution). Of course we wouldn’t touch the Smartware. Tried it a couple of times and found it to be problematic.

WD have had months to deal with this mess and have apparently done little. It’s insulting to customers and makes me wonder if they even have the technical know-how to do this? Surely no company would let this PR disaster carry on intentionally? And anyway, what kind of control freak company would go out of their way build in a firmware hack to reduce the usability of their products?

We use Macs and Windows in our company and our buying policy has changed directly as a result of this issue. We buy thousands of pounds worth of hard drives every year. Last year we moved back to WD after a break. We have since reversed this policy. Our hard drive buying policy now is “anything except Western Digital”.

Thank you all for answering my question about quality of WD hd. I think I’ll buy Toshiba or Seagate instead this time. I’'ll wait a year or two to see if WD improve.

I certainly hope we won’t have to wait one year or two until WD gives us a way of getting rid of software features we don’t intend to use! :angry: