My Passport wireless Pro does not charge (stays at 5%)

@Mark1268, pls contact the WD Support team directly about this issue for resolution. Thx.

Ok, guys I got this one down, I was frustrated that I had a new drive and this happened to me also, I also noted the same problem on one of there first gen models and just tossed it.

Please dont take this as WD bashing, it is not.

These guys have just not found the glitch in the firmware as to why this happens.

Maybe this post will make them take a closer look.

This is the deal and the fix.

Most electrical components have a failsafe built in logic code that stops a defective battery or a used up lithium battery from charging, this is not specific to WD itself, its just so a bad battery doesnā€™t blow up in your face.

Now, my drive being fairly new, I knew it wasnā€™t battery condition.

I tried all the fixes reset to factory, downgrade firmware, everything that has been posted.

In most cases you will find this condition occurring in drives that have been sitting around for a log time, and have fallen below 5%

It is my theory, there is something in the firmware that is coded improperly.

Now the fix.

Takes about 3 days but it works, and I challenge anyone that does this and say it doesnt.

Your situation is your at 5% one blinking blue light for about 30 seconds, then it goes to two or thre long blinks and over and over.

Power up your drive plugged into a power source and power it down.

Blue light sale continues after you remove it from the charger.

No you have to have patient, because it takes a hell of a long time for one blinking led light to deplete 5% battery juice.

After about 3 days, the light stops blinking and the drive is totally dead (remember of the charger)

When all lights are dormant no activity at all, plug the unit in to charge DO NOT TURN IT ON, just plug it into a charger, and 4 hours later your at 100% charge.

Thatā€™s the deal, WD engineers need to fix the firmware on the fail safe.

I signed up just to post this because well its not right, they should fix it.

My drive is fully functional again.

3 Likes

I had a similar problem, the drive became unplugged, I only realised when it shutdown due to the battery being low.

The right hand battery level led would flash rapidly for about 5s, repeating every 10s. It would power up when the charger was connected and claim to be charging but was stuck at 5% (according to the web UI). If I disconnect the drive from the charger it would shutdown immediately.

I tried the original WD charger/USB cable and separate charger/lead combination to no effect, after 24 hours charging the battery level was stuck at an indicated 5%.

I didnā€™t want to wait for three days without the drive and the battery support was important to me as the mains is unreliable where I am.

I disassembled the drive, unplugged the battery from the motherboard for about 10s then reassembled.

When the drive booted up it indicated 100% charge.

It seems to me that the battery was being charged all along but the communication between the battery charging IC (Texas Instruments BQ24295) and the main processor had broken down.

This worked for me.

Nice trouble shooting farrider!

Iā€™m glad it helped, Iā€™m guessing at this point it is not firmware addressable.

Being as it was a problem in the 1st Gen drive also, maybe this got their attention and its easier to RMA the drives as the cost per unit is low.

But I imagine someone in R&D or engineering probably got a memo LOL.

The answer to all these things is usually contact customer support, you waste your time, and RMA the unit anyways.

As I said this is not endemic to WD but also to most large manufacturers.

Hope this helps those out or warranty, it really does work.

1 Like

I have been stuck with this same problem for the past few months. I have a 3TB MyPassport Wireless Pro (bought it 25 months ago), using the charging cable that came with it, and had been using Plex Media Server. I canā€™t restore the disk because I am stuck at 5% and need at least 25. I have tried farriderā€™s solution twice over the past week, following the instructions exactly, but to no avail (probably because my issue is slightly different - as soon as i remove it from the charger all the lights go out so thereā€™s no battery to drain). I would be willing to take apart the unit but I donā€™t know how. At this point Iā€™m willing to try anything including getting another (non-Western Digital) wireless drive. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

This worked for me! Thanks for the steps. This is a very frustrating situation.

bgabbatt

Sorry it didnt work for you, but as you pointed out the condition of your drive is a bit different then those it is working for.

If it is still in warranty id copy your plex data off the drive and RMA it.

Sorry couldnt be of more help

jreuer,

Your welcome :slight_smile:

Created an account just to say this worked for me! Immediately went to 100% after re-assembling and loading the admin page. Rarely are the fixes in a discussion board so simple and immediate.

Background: I bought this 3TB WDMPWP off Amazon a couple days ago. Looks like it had been sitting around for a couple years. I used this Youtube video to disassemble the drive. Disassemble Western Digital My Passport wireless pro 2TB USB 3.0 External Hard drive - YouTube.

Unplugged it for about a minute and plugged it back in. Before re-assembling I powered the unit up and connected wireless to it and the battery shows 100%. Re-assembly was simpleā€¦the port side needs to slide in first.

1 Like

I had exactly the same problem. A 3TB MyPassport Pro stays stucked at 5% charge.
I didnĀ“t disassembly it yet. Should I ?

I couldnā€™t find any instructions to tell me how. If you do decide to do that Iā€™d love it if you shared how you did it. I gave up on getting a solution and so hesitantly bought a new one.

On the same exact boat! Also created an account to verify UniqueUserName1ā€™s as well as e-ricā€™s solution definitely works! Although I put some battle scars disassembling the drive, after unplugging the battery and waiting 10 seconds, plugged it back in, assembled the drive, when I charged and check mypassport.local, it reflects it actually has almost full charge!

Posting here for people who may encounter the same problem!

I am having the same issue as well. The battery is not charging more than 5 %.

I tried to reach WD, but since my warranty now expired 2 months ago, they are not helping at all. There are no service centres and they donā€™t provide any repairs. All they suggest is to buy another one.

Looks like their products lasts only the lifetime of their warranty , thats why perhaps its better to switch to Clouds (google, amazon, apple ) rather than using such products which are not durable.

Have you read the previous comments in this post for solution suggestion?

yes i have opened my drive and unplugged the battery, but on reconnecting it , the hard drive still shows 5% charge?

Does anyone know where we can buy the replacement battery?

this is an issue that occured to my device in the past few days.
have tried the suggestion nothing has worked yet.
need a fix fast please!.

HI. I had the same problem yesterday. I solved it by disconnecting the battery from the motherboard. After plugging it back in, the battery status lights showed 100% charge and the drive works again. This was probably due to the disk overheating during a long copy operation, as a notification in disk management alerts you to this event.