I have just bought a WD My Book Live 3TB.
I used WD smartware to backup 250gb to the drive which took over 2 days.
Everything seems OK with the drive but I have problems accessing the files.
The drive shows that 2.47 TB of 2.71 TB is free suggesting all the files have been transferred. When I access the public My Book live drive in My Computer ALL of the public folders are empty. This applies to 3 other computers in the house.
On the “Home” Page of the WD smartware the My Book Live section is showing that 244.2 has been added. On The “Backup” page of WD smartware the “Boot” drive and the “My Book Live” sections are both showing 0 (zero). The option to start backup is also available but nothing happens when I click on it.
So on the face of it WD smartware has transferred the files to My Book Live. This is showing up on My Computer On all other PC’s BUT all of the folders on the drive are empty! Interestingly, I can drag files to the folders which are instantly viewable on all of the computers.
Stuzzer, the files copied to the Western Digital My Book Live using WD SmartWare are stored in a hidden share for security, not on the Public folders. This is to decrease the possibility of data corruption due to physical file handling and is also the reason as to why you can see and manipulate any file copied manually.
A Backup Copy needs to be kept safe. If you would like an accessible automatic copy, then synchronizing files rather than creating Backup Copies is best for you. This would need a dedicated Synchronization Software since WD SmartWare is a dedicated Backup Software.
Thanks for the solution. I feel a bit stupid but to be fair to me I previously used a program called Oops back up which synchronised my files and they were easily accesible on a back up drive.
