My Book Essential USB 3.0 problem after upgrade to Win 8.1

[Kethvin]

Good evening,

I have a WD My Book Essential 2Tb USB 3.0, that after upgrading from Win 8 to Win 8.1, stopped working properly.

What happens is that about 10 minutes after the disk is not in use, it enters sleep mode and stops being recognized by Windows. The only way to get it back running is to unplug the USB connector, wait a few seconds and replug it (not always works) or shutdown the computer and power it back up (not a restart, simply restarting does not work). The disk worked fine under Win 8 and it still does until it powers down. If the disk remains in use (“manually”), it does not power down.

I’ve tried several solutions, none worked:

• Activated indexation to maintain disk use;

• Deactivated the Windows power option “shutdown disks after x minutes”;

• Deactivated Windows managing USB power, not letting it power down USB devices;

• Uninstalled and installed disk drivers and USB controllers drivers;

• Updated disk firmware;

It’s also worth mentioning that I also have a WD My Book Essential 1Tb USB 3.0 (bought before the disk with the issue) connected to the same computer and it works normally.

I’ve also posted this issue on a official Windows help forum, but couldn’t get a solution yet.

Can anyone here help? Thank you.

[Ichigo]

Hello Kethvin, did you verified if you have the latest USB 3.0 drivers? You can also try disabling the sleep timer form the Smartware interface. Check page 57 of the manual.

Manual

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/UM/ENG/4779-705057.pdf#page=61

Smartware

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/

[Kethvin]

Hello again,

I’ve tried to change the sleep timer on the Smartware software, it does not solve the problem.

I’ve updated the USB 3.0 drivers and firmware, it does not solve the problem.

Any other ideas that may help me?

Thank you.

[Kethvin]

Hello,

I’ve found a solution for this problem. It’s a Windows 8.1 related problem, and only some hard drives seem to be affected, so I’ll leave the link to the solution here, so that if anyone is having this issue can fix it.

It’s done by editing de registry. See here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/archive/2013/11/01/help-after-installing-windows-8-1-my-usb-drive-disappears-or-file-transfers-stop-unexpectedly-r-a-post-title.aspx

Worked for me.