Sorry folks, been M-I-A for a long time. I was working on a custom firmware image that would write a log to the SD card but my laptop died and I didn’t have it backed up! Since then, life AFK took over and I didn’t feel like working on it. Now with this COVID19 thing and the shelter in place order, I’m starting to find I have more time on my hands. Hopefully I get this done since it will be nice to see a log on why it failed/etc. If time/will allows, I will try digging into why it won’t detect some SSDs.
Followed your initial instructions (with notes below):
Step 0 - Format the new drive with exFAT, while leaving more than 4GB unformatted.
Note: Windows disk manager works fine
Step 1 - Download the firmware from WD https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?g=235&lang=en
NOTE: VERSION 1.04.17 is the version I used.
Step 2 - Format an SD card with the FAT-32 Filesystem
Step 3 - Create a folder on the SD card with the name ‘update’ (without the ‘’)
Step 4 - Copy the firmware file into the update folder
Step 5 - If you’re switching hard drives, this is the time to do it. I will warn you once again, make a note of the last 8 characters of the hard drive’s serial number. This will be your WiFi password.
NOTE: For me this was different, the password was 8 characters of the new drives serial number after the first four e.g. 13a4-xxxxxxxx-23 the x chars, I noticed my new drive’s serial number was 2 chars longer than the OG drive
Step 6 - Insert the SD card into your MPWP
Step 7 - Turn on your MPWP and quickly hold the SD/copy button for about 5 seconds. This will trigger the bootloader to restore the firmware that’s on the sd card.
Step 8 - Have your favorite beverage while the hard drive led flashes, that means it’s doing its thing…
NOTE: Took about 5 minutes
Step 9 - The device will reboot once it’s done and then you’re good to setup 
Worked like a charm with an older 1TB Samsung HDD I had lying around.
Thank you for this topic. Very useful info for me.
I lost my HDD of MWPW (dropped device) and tried to change hdd.
Tried another WD HDD 80Gb - it’s ok working.
But ssd Kingston 240Gb is not working.
Any solutions or MWPW will work only with WD SSD?
Hello community. I’ve been reading the whole thread to find answers to my problem. Which is a common one. Im trying to replace the WD 2TB HDD with an Intel SSD 256GB. It does the process of all the LEDs blinking Fast Fast Slow ans then it does the blinking with the HDD and Wifi LED. Then goes off!
Made 1 partition (MBR) exfat leaving 4.3GB free
Does the firmware has to be the SSD version or the HDD version ? What am I doing wrong
Thank you all! ! I went MPWP alive ⚠️ How to INSTALL speed SSD DRIVE INTO WD My Passport Wireless PRO. Replace hdd with ssd WD Blue. - YouTube
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Thank you for your help and taking time to write instructions on how to replace hard disk for ‘My Passport Wireless Pro’. My 4TB unit went bad on 3rd day of usage. I am now trying to replace HDD with Samsung EVO 850 SSD. (1TB)
I tried steps you have listed here twice so far, here is what is seen,
- After Step 7, HDD light flashes for 12 minutes.
- Unit is manually powered on, after a minute, all lights turn flashing blue.
- When 1TB SSD is taken out and examined using Windows Disk Manager, it still shows, has 2 partitions. a) unallocated 4.57 GB and b) exFat partition
Please help.
Geez. . . 3 days old?? Why didn’t you just return it? Or do warranty replacement with WD??
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Drive is bad, it does contain 3tb of my personal information. I am reluctant to return it. I am afraid if some one can extract information out of it. I called WD support to give me sensitive data return, they refused my request.
Hi all!
Any news about MPWP + SSD Samsung EVO? Can this work?
Hello,
just swapped the internal 3TB HDD for a 2TB SSD. The small antenna on the on / off switch has loosened. now i’m thinking about swapping this antenna for a stronger model. could be gladly placed on the outside.
it looks like easy to solder off and on. only problem, most antennas are dual band. but 2.4 and 5 GHz are separated on the board.
Does anyone have an idea?
I imagine that the connection problems could disappear as a result
best regards
Matt
an example for antenna: Amazon.com
I just KNEW this was going to work. And it did - to restore operation to the OEM 3TB HDD. But the vintage Sandisk SSD almost worked, until I hit the serial number wall. Turns out what I thought was the serial number was actually the VOLUME serial number, and is not the same thing. I obliterated the original labels and now can’t for the llife of me figure out how to extract the drive’s physical serial number. When I run: wmic diskdrive get Name SerialNumber the serial number field for that field returns a blank.
So-o-o, when Windoze prompts for the network key, nothing I have is valid. Otherwise, I’m 99% certain this would work!
Any suggestions?
EDIT: Sandisk provides a program called Dashboard that did exactly what I needed. Now that I have the SSDs serial number, I’ll give this procedure another try…
SECOND EDIT: It works! Now I have permission problems. No big deal.
THIRD EDIT: Permissions. Bigger deal than I thought. Put the OEM HDD back in and it practically grabbed it out of my hand and set itself up. What’s the deal with that?
FOURTH AND FINAL EDIT: Got it! It’s necessary to leave a portion of the SSD unallocated. That’s all I did and it resolved my permission problems.
Well I spoke too soon. The SSD that I got working is an older Sandisk 128GB. Feeling the thrill of success, I ordered a 500GB Sandisk Ultra 3D SSD. It doesn’t work. How bizarre is that?!? I tried everything I could remember. No Joy. I even tried cloning the 128GB to the 500GB drive. No joy.
Tomorrow, I’ll try booting up with the 128GB and then hot swapping the drives.
I don’t know if this is helpful. Perhaps you already know this. 2.4GHz connections are (painfully) slower than 5GHz connections. In the inverse, 5GHz connections are wicked fast, but don’t have the same range as a 2.4GHz connection. By a long shot. I’m responding to you because I’m intrigued by the antennas you referenced. If I could verify the connectors on the MPWP board, I’d jump right on them. It’s a small matter to gently scrape off the solder mask and cut the trace that leads from the connector to the on-board antenna. It’s easily undone just by adding a fine solder bridge where you cut the trace. That’s the reason for scraping off the mask over the trace.
Success! I know have a My Passport Wireless Pro 500GB SSD. I followed Matt_Hayes procedure to the letter. Almost. Leaving 4GB+ unallocated is a must. Using KNOWN GOOD SD Cards, cables, power supplies, etc… is also a MUST. That was my problem. Either the SD Card or the micro to standard adapter is going bad or just plain flaky. I have now set up the MPW three times with the SSD each round went without a hitch. Snoopy dance!
Has anyone had the unit refuse to load from the SD card? Every time I turn on and hold the sd button for five seconds all I get is this:
- Solid SSD LED blinking WIFI LED
- All LEDS 1 long 3 short
- Turns off
- Turns on wifi blinking SSD looks like its reading or writing for a while
- Turns off
- Nothing has changed on the drive itself ( no extra partitions added ) and still no wifi access point popping up.
Anyone else experience this?
I have the My Passport Wireless SSD ( I bought the smallest one ) and am trying to convert it to a 2TB WD Blue I have installed in it.
WD Blue is formatted to eXFAT and there’s over 4gb space available in unallocated space on the drive. SD card ( 64 gb - I’ve also tried a 1gb card as well no difference ) is formatted in FAT32.
Also any attempt to turn on the drive normally leads to the fast blinking led cycle with no wifi network ever showing up.
EDIT: Would also add - It is completely accessible via usb, just cannot get the firmware to install.
Not sure what part I’m missing, but I’m assuming I’m making a misstep somewhere?
Sorry for reviving an old topic but would love to have this for travel photography backups.
Cross check, that the following two condtions are also met when pushing the sd card button:
- The unit is powered from the internal battery only
- The battery is charged to at least 50% (two blue leds lit). If less, the firmware upgrade does not start
Thanks @ragnarok those two conditions were definitely also both met.
It’s so weird because they’re basically the same units running the same firmware and one has SSDs in it already. I really wish I could figure out what’s wrong.
Hmm, strange. Connect a terminal to the ttl/uart serial port and it will tell, what is going on during boot
Did you ever get this working - I seem to have this issue as well.
Yeah I’m truly not sure what the issue is, ordered a uart usb on amazon. Hopefully that will give me enough info. if that doesn’t work I’m just gonna put it in another enclosure and call it a loss. Too much time wasted on something that should be pretty simple for anyone technically minded.
Appreciate all the work the people in this post have done though.
Can anyone who’s connected to the UART on this provide a few details? Specifically: there are two sets of pins, one marked J11/SOC and the other marked J13/MCU - which of the two should I connect to for observing boot messages? Also, can you confirm that 115200 baud is what works? Thanks!
