Hi, sorry for the long post. I have WD My Passport 1TB (WX71AA1W4645) external hard drive that I bought in 2012. I had locked my hard drive with password and everything was good until recently, I tried to remove the password so that I could connect it to my smart tv USB and watch some home videos. After connecting it to my laptop, I unlocked the hard drive. When attempting to remove the password with the utility that I downloaded from WD website, it didn’t work as it should despite using the correct password that I had just entered to unlock the drive. All I remember is there was a pop up message saying something but I don’t remember exactly. That pop up message made me think that the attempt to remove the password didn’t go well so I kept trying. Then I thought I may be in the wrong tab so I went in another tab and tried from there thinking maybe I am in the wrong tab so I kept trying to remove until I got error that the password is wrong. Thats when I tried to freak out thinking something may have been messed up already so it doesn’t accept the password anymore. I thought there may be a glitch or bug so I restarted my laptop to see it may go away but bam thats when I am locked out of my password because it wouldn’t accept the password anymore even though I had just unlocked few minutes ago. I then realized that everything is messed up now. I freaked out and sweat thinking I am locked out of my drive already. I regret not backing up my files before restarting the laptop as it was already unlocked before restarting. Since I thought the password would still be the same because I was typing the same password when attempting to remove the password, I restarted the laptop. I tried many passwords that I remember that I usually use but none worked. I even used slightly different variation of the password that I had just used but all in vain.
My question is why would it happen just like that despite I had typed exactly the same password that I had just used it to unlock the drive before attempting to remove the password for my smart tv? The password shouldn’t have been changed no matter what so the password should stay the same as before. I was very careful at removing the password. I am very tech savvy and a computer engineer myself so I know what I am doing. How on earth it would not accept the password anymore that I kept typing the same password as before? I suspect the utility software had some bugs to which now I am locked out of my password. I really can’t understand this. It should have never happened as I typed exactly the same password as before.
If it can’t remove the password, at least it shouldn’t be changed as well. WD utility software have messed up everything now. I have all my files inside and I don’t have backup for some of my files. I blame the utility software as it wasn’t working as expected. I understand the logic behind many software but this utility software is a mess up. The popups that I was getting shouldn’t have happened thus confused the hell out of me. Either the password should’ve been removed or not removed at all if typing the wrong password so why one earth the password is changed? I guess there are many similar cases like me too because I know I did the right thing so there may be other people too who have similar experience and got locked out of their hard drive. What the hell just happened? Why? I know what I was doing but why is it changed now?! That same password is not working anymore. I am thinking this is a deliberate attempt to change to password by your utility software so that we are locked out of our hard drive and we take the last resort to contact the data recovery companies to fleece out more money from us. This can get WD sued otherwise if it is true. My question is what the hell just happened? Sorry for the language.
Also I have suggestion for these companies who make hard drives. Hard drives should be like real life world where if you are locked out of your house or car, you can still access it. This could be achieved by for example in case when you forget your password, it should ask you security question and if answered correctly, it should let you change or reset the password. This need not be toooooooooo strict. If someone gets his file stolen then he/she is to blame as he/she used easy security question for someone else to answer it correctly so put the blame to the end users who didn’t use tough security question. When it comes to companies losing their important files, its them to blame. It’s not end of the world if someone lose his files for not securing it properly but the way companies have designed hard drives is not what it is suppose to be. There should be a work around at least for example security question or using your usb flash drive as a key to open it. There are many ways one can think to open it in case one forgets his password. At least we are not robot, we are human and prone to errors and forgetting.
WD My Passport user
