My Bad Experience installing WD VCD Manager for My Passport Essential 500GB

Hamada · October 12, 2010, 6:36pm

Hi guys,

Can anyone please help, telling me the problem with My Passport Essential?

I bought it since 10 days in Malaysia, it is a fresh product (drive was manufactured after June 15, 2010)

I have upgraded to WD Smartware 1.4.1.1, and it works OK, except it can not analyze file types for the WD external drive as it does for my internal HDD, see the below photo:

I am trying to install “WD SmartWare Virtual CD Manager for Windows Web Release-v1.0.8.3”, but installation can not continue as the setup as it asks to press Rescan, as setup is unable to find the WD SmartWare Drive, while in the same drive is already shown on “My Computer”, and I can browse files on it…!

Although I disconnected the drive and reconnected it after 10 seconds as prescribed but I still get the same stupid response, see image :

I did send my problem to WD support more than 3 times, but they are helpless, and some of them is unable to reply in proper English, and unfortunately I can not speak Malay.

See one of the replies I got, and may be you can understand my suffering:

“Dear Hamada,
Thank you for your reply.
Open your smartware -> setting -> drive setting -> then choose to enable your virtual CD.
I hope that we have met your expectations today and that you are satisfied with our service. If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.”

I followed their advise, but I can not find the option they speak about, see the below image:

Can anyone help … please?

Gabthemonster · October 12, 2010, 7:25pm

You ‘‘CANNOT’’ Remove the VCD , You Can Disable it , Since The VCD Manager Is Unable to find your Drive i Will Suggest you to Try in another Computer … Have you?

Hamada · October 13, 2010, 2:32pm

Sorry, please consider:

I can not find the option to enable or disable VCD niether in the WD SmartWare version 1.4.1.1 nor in the previous version. I have 1 Dell PC and 1 Dell Laptop, both with Windows7 Home Premium 64-bit, I tried on the drive both of them. Still the same problem.
I can not install the WD SmartWare VCD Manager utility , as during setup it stops to rescan as the smart drive not found. Although it is connected and I can browse files from it…!
I did the advise specified on the WD Support site (to disconnect for 10 seconds and reconnect again during setup), but still the drive can not be detected by the setup of " WD SmartWare VCD Manager utility".

I wish my problem is clear now…Can you please help?

Joe_S · October 13, 2010, 3:00pm

I didn’t update firmware or run the software to hide it. I did it manually. Go into control panel then device manager and find the virtual CD drive right click on it and disable.

Joe

WDJeremy · October 13, 2010, 9:23pm

WD has made a manufacturing change such that the virtual CD on your drive is always disabled until you password protect the drive. The new VCD only has the unlock tools as opposed to earlier drives that had the full SmartWare installation files along with the unlock application.

Please note that SmartWare will only categorize data that SmartWare itself stores on your drive.

Hamada · October 14, 2010, 4:27pm

Joe_S wrote:

I didn’t update firmware or run the software to hide it. I did it manually. Go into control panel then device manager and find the virtual CD drive right click on it and disable.

Joe

*Thanks Joe, but apparently your clever solution does not apply to Windows7 64-bit. Thanks again for trying to help.

Hamada · October 14, 2010, 4:38pm

WDJeremy wrote:

WD has made a manufacturing change such that the virtual CD on your drive is always disabled until you password protect the drive. The new VCD only has the unlock tools as opposed to earlier drives that had the full SmartWare installation files along with the unlock application.

Please note that SmartWare will only categorize data that SmartWare itself stores on your drive.

Thanks Jeremy (for the 2 advices)…but,

Enabling security did not help to show the VCD option, however if you have a link for an older SmartWare version that can show the option by default, please let me know. For your info I use Windows7 64-bit.
If the SmartWare will only categorize data that was only stored by the SmartWare, why then it does so for data already stored on the computer?..please check the image I posted in my original post. If your words are right, then this must be the programmer’s failure.

However, thanks for help.

WDJeremy · October 19, 2010, 9:59pm

Enabling security will show the VCD but SmartWare will not let you disable it. SmartWare will index data on your computer but it does not do the same for the WD drive since it will only show the data that SmartWare itself stored.

John_e707 · November 3, 2010, 10:11pm

HI

Got the same problem trying to disable virtual CD on 1To My Passport Essentials hard drive.

Have you found any solution ?

John.

WDJeremy · November 4, 2010, 8:06pm

John-e707, what firmware version does your drive have on it?

Bouha · December 28, 2010, 8:59pm

WDJeremy wrote:

John-e707, what firmware version does your drive have on it?

I got the same problem, my drive got the latest firmware version (i got WD my passport esential SE)

Bill_S · December 29, 2010, 12:14am

This thread is too old to be pulling up. Please start a new thread, and give more information as to what the drive is doing or not doing, rather than just saying I have the same problem. That way someone will have a better chance of helping you.