Hello, I recently got a WD usb drive that had the virtual cdrom showing in Explorer, and wanted to install SES software every time the USB drive was connected. For my own particular needs, encryption is not wanted, so I decided to avoid installing the related drivers. I did not want the cdrom remaining permanently in my drives collection. I found solutions to both issues. The drive is fully capable of plug-and-play because it meets the USB standard, so SES is not really needed unless you want to use the encryption feature, where both the VCD and SES is then needed. My system is XP and this worked for me: The VCD I found in: Control Panel, System Properties (named System in XP), Hardware Tab, Device Manager Button, then goto the DVD/CD-ROM drives section, Right-Click on the WD Virtual CD 070A USB device (yours may be named a little different), choose Disable from the Popup-Menu, you will see a Red X to show it disabled, Close the Device Manager Window, then press the OK button to Exit the System Properties Window. The virctual cdrom is now disabled. For the SES Device, to stop the Install Driver nag: In your System Tray (where the Icons are), Right-Click on the Safely-Remove-Hardware Icon, A Window will Popup, Left-Click on the WD SES Device USB Device, then Click the Properties Button, another Window will Popup, on the General Tab, at the Bottom, where it says Device Usage:, Click the Drop-Down and Select : Do no use this device (disable), Then Click the OK Button, and the SES Device will now be disabled, and no more prompts to install a driver will be seen. I think (in theory) that you can manage both devices directly from the Safely Remove Hardware Traybar Icon, because I can see them both in there. I also have a sense that the virtual cdrom is not a partition on the hard-drive because I did not see it when viewing the drive with a partitioning tool, and because when I copied the contents of the virtual cdrom for backup, the copy process was much slower than a hard-drive to hard-drive copy process. I think that the virtual cdrom is a ROM chip built into the drive controller (way cool), but this is just a guess at the moment. I also think the SES Device is another ROM chip (also cool, hardware, not software encryption, for reliability). I like the concept of the encryption feature, and its nice that I can switch it on if wanted (before loading the drive with files of course). If I was using the drive for secure work then it would definitely want encryption. I am glad to have found these solutions because WD is my fav drive, the most reliable I have used of many different brands. Hope this helps, Matt
You might want to edit this and put it in step format, so it’s easier to follow.
