Multiple Software problems but mainly WD Smartware (new user)

Dell Inspiron computer, running Vista. Purchased a My Book Essential Ext HD 1 TB a while back, opened the box today, connected the plug and then USB wire, my computer said to insert the CD. There is none!

SO then the little icon down there showed that of the three items, two were fine but that “wd ses device usb device” had “failed”. So I googled it and some somebody with similar problems being told to o to a page for “WD SES driver download and instructions for recovering the WD SmartWare installer.” I did that, downloading and installing it for 32 bit driver. But then the little hard drive icon for WD had disappeared from the taskbar after that. I opened My Book (E:) by going to my computer and clicking on it, and then clicked on “WD Quick Formatter”. It wouldn’t work because it kept claiming that “WD external is in use” even after I closed everything. I googled it again and there was a solution for that, by going to computer and right click and then left click “manage” and partition from there. But when I went there, there was already a blue line which apparently means the drive is already partitioned.

So assuming that was true, I decided to do the next step: Click on WD Smartware. This then kept giving me “Setup application for WD Smartware has stopped working.” I disconnected the USB cable (after safely remove hardware process done) and reconnected. No change. I uninstalled the drive that I had downloaded from the net and reinstalled it. No change. I restored my computer to before when I had started using WD. I reconnected everything and again, the little WD hard drive icon was back down there. It seemed to be doing stuff and I was hopeful and then it said it’s installing and simulatneously of course I had an update for Adobe and I let both processes go on. When it was finished, the icon had disappeared again. And once again, when going to the E folder, I was faced with the same problem: quickformatter and smartware refusing to work. What to do?

RossD wrote:> . I opened My Book (E:) by going to my computer and clicking on it, and then clicked on “WD Quick Formatter”. It wouldn’t work because it kept claiming that “WD external is in use” even after I closed everything. I googled it again and there was a solution for that, by going to computer and right click and then left click “manage” and partition from there. But when I went there, there was already a blue line which apparently means the drive is already partitioned.

 

So assuming that was true, I decided to do the next step: Click on WD Smartware. This then kept giving me “Setup application for WD Smartware has stopped working.” I disconnected the USB cable (after safely remove hardware process done) and reconnected. No change. I uninstalled the drive that I had downloaded from the net and reinstalled it. No change. I restored my computer to before when I had started using WD. I reconnected everything and again, the little WD hard drive icon was back down there. It seemed to be doing stuff and I was hopeful and then it said it’s installing and simulatneously of course I had an update for Adobe and I let both processes go on. When it was finished, the icon had disappeared again. And once again, when going to the E folder, I was faced with the same problem: quickformatter and smartware refusing to work. What to do?

You can not run quick formatter of the drive and expect to format it, the software will not erase the partition that is running from…

There’s no need to format the drive to get Smartware working. Make sure the application is installed on the computer and run from programs

That did not help. I had restored my computer to two days before I ever used WD in the first place, so as to start fresh. Again, the little WD icon came up down there and as the picture shows, it went through the usual procedure, then asked it needs to search the system for the drive and I gave it permission to do that, and finally it was done, as number three indicates. Then I went to My Computer and clicked on My Book(E:) and as per your suggestion, did not attempt to reformat. I went straight to WD Smartware and double clicked. But as you can see in number four, I got the same response from the system. ](http://i46.tinypic.com/1iieqe.jpg[/IMG])