MyBook Essential (Lock Light Flashing Help)

First off, the newly (and completely pointless) re-designed MyBook drives are a terrible idea and have ruined what was once a smoothly operating and reliable drive.  I have 5 1TB drives of the previous generation (single blue vertical light) model drives and they work beautifully with no consistent problems.

So I gambled on the new version and have been pissed off and disappointed with it since day one.

  1. WD TV Live (the same company as we all know) will not read password encoded drives, like every single model they now re-designed and released.  A stupid, short-sighted an awful lack of QC.  Also a terrible way to sell what should be a much stronger product in the WD TV Live.  I work for an A/V company and have since stopped selling and recommending the WD TV Live and external drives for home entertainment installations because of this problem.

  2. The drive isn’t recognized by the X-Box 360 (which sees the other older WD drives no problem) and thus every file on there is rendered useless with my media system that was so smooth beforehand.  I cannot see or use any file on the drive so it sits there idle, only able to be used by the computer its directly attached to.

  3. After a lot of hassle I finally got rid of the (hilariously named ) SmartWare fake CD Drive mount that is not stated anywhere on the exterior of the drive before you buy it.  There are instructions to simply “turn off the password prtoection”, however, there is no tab button or option to do so within the “smart” ware application.

  4. I now have a constantly flashing lock light at the bottom of the lightouse bright vertical white light stripe that I cannot turn off.

I need to know what this flashing lock (and the adjacent white dot light right below it) flashing means and how to either get it on all the time or kill this flashing.

My e-mails to WD have been met with standard answers and useless “solutions” that have seriously had me questioning whether Western Digital has any idea how to cater products to customers rather than their bored, careless, “fix it if it ain’t broken” and obviously over-thinking brain trust.

So hopefully  I can find an answer to this lock light flash problem.

And as an even better soltuion I would appreciate seeing a representative from WD come on here or e-mail me and let me knwo where I can purchase their previous generation of far better drives (again the ones with the smaller, less abrasive and subtle blue vertical light).  Hopefully if I can get an odler generation drive I can transfer the files from this annoying abomination and return it a.s.a.p. or find some way to exchange it for a storage accessory that doesn’t cause a mountain of frustration (from what looks like several users judging by the posts here).

Please Western Digital or someone around here help me with the flashing lock light problem.

I have the same problem as your 4 myself !! This light is driving me crazy !!

i have tried blocking it with duct tape, but huge amounts of light still come out of the ventilation slides which is very annoying when i want to sleep in a dark room.

The last product i owned that had annoying lights was a $10 fan for the laptop so i just broke it’s LEDs with a Leatherman. I hope i won’t have to do the same with this $110 drive. I can’t believe no one thought that a strong blinking white light that couldn’t be turned off won’t annoy some users !!!

I just bought mybook elite, and please, dont tell me that I cant turn off this flashing light. I need only e-label, nothing more, maybe light but without flashing syndrome.

@crucifido  My local WalMart stocks the older one with the verticle blue light. They also stock the passport 320GB without Smartware already installed. Try looking at your local store. About your problem, you need to email WD tech support directly. They may be able to help you, but I wouldn’t count on this board for timely answers!

If you haven’t been able to get help here, maybe you should try contacting WD’s Technical Support about this. You can do so either by phone or email.

To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

I purchased WD MY Book Essentials 1TB two months ago.  Worked well  for two months  now started lock light flashing.  I did not have any passwords on the drive at all.    Frustrated with drive performance.  

I purchased WD MY Book Essentials 1TB two months ago.  Worked well  for two months  now started lock light flashing.  I did not have any passwords on the drive at all.    Very poor quality