Old wd my book not accessible after install wd smartware

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I’ hoping someone can help me. I just bought a new 2tb my book essental to replace an older wd5000c032 that was working fine. It took me awhile to get the new one set up, it said I needed to update the firrmware then download an update to the software. (Which I did after some difficulty). I then set up category backups for both my pcs. SO far so good.

Then I connected the old hd so I could copy files to the new but neither pc will see the files on the old hdd. The xp pc sees the drive and assigns a drive letter but says there are no files. The windows 7 pc sees it but won’t assign a drive letter until I scan with my antivirus software. Then I get a popup that says I need to format the drive before I can use it. But the files are most certainly still there because after this my husband connected it to his vista laptop and all 400gb show as still there and are accessible. He does not have the wd smartware installed on his computer.

Can someone tell me how to get access back? Do I have to uninstall the software or will that even help?

2

Something happened during the firmware update that rendered the files corrupted

you can use a recovery software to recover the files and then reformat the unit

one of the reasons why you were advice to backup the files prior to the firmware update is that if something happens, you can endup loosing the files

3

Apparently you misunderstood or I didn’t make myself clear (probably the later). The drive that I updated the firmware on was the brand new 2tb my book essential and it’s working fine. My older wd drive (many years old) was not attached at the time (and I never used any software with it, I doubt it’s even compatible, I was going to continue to use it simply to copy things to and from). Why would a firmware update on the new hdd have any affect on the old one that hadn’t been even turned on or connected for over a week before (unless it has to do with the WDSMARTWARE on my computers since my husband doesn’t have it installed on his?) It’s only MY computers that say it is empty, as the old drive works fine on my husband’s computer and all the data is there and accessible to him. Why would I have to use a recovery program to recover the data as it works fine on the computer that doesn’t have the WDSMARTWARE installed. The whole idea I got the new drive was to back up the old, before getting the new one I had nowhere to back up the old but now I can’t access the files to copy them.

4

The drive should work fine even when smartware is installed

the drive is not even compatible with smartware so it will not by seen by the software

you can go to computer and copy and paste the files to the new drive

first post was not clear about the issue

if it works with one computer and not the other, then transfer the files on the one that works

5

Thanks, but you don’t know my husband; while he was willing to see if he could see the files, he doesn’t trust me to use his computer and I doubt he’ll be willing to take his own time to copy 423Gb from one hard drive to another thru usb 2.0; besides he’s always playing WOW and he thinks I’m stupid where computers are concerned; he uses this failure as proof. He says he never would have done any type of firmware update to the new one or installed the software (but the software wouldn’t install without the firmware update–catch 22).

The sad part is the old drive worked fine on both my computers before I got the new external and installed the software. Methinks there has to be a connection somewhere…

I reread all my posts and nowhere did I say that I updated the firmware on the old hd nor did I say I expected to see the old hdd on the new software. In fact I said just the opposite. Thanks for your input anyway.