Hi. I just purchased a WD My Book Essential 3TB and updated firmware + software before trying to back up specific folders on my machine.
This is my first time using an external device from WD, or any of its software. First impression of Smartware was that the interface looked good and was simple to use. However, I didn’t even have time to get up from my chair after starting the backup before I noticed that 14 files failed to back up. Only a few seconds in and already I’m missing 14 files? I stopped the process, opened the file list and saw that all these files had one thing in common : they’re large files (~1GB+)
My first thought was… doesn’t FAT32 have size limitations? Maybe this thing needs to be formated NTFS.
I then came to these forums and saw that a lot of other people have the same problem. So it’s likely a software issue. A lot of people are abandoning ship and turning toward 3rd party software.
Any official word from WD on this? Part of me wants to return the hardware and get a Seagate Expansion instead.
Most large files will eventually back up (except for Outlook files, which may never backup). Some files will not back up due to ownership/permission issues (and it will tell you that access was denied).
I have to agree that tech support for Smartware is very poor, and that they rarely respond to any posts in this thread. They do respond to direct messages, but their responses are rarely useful.
The concept of this program (i.e., continuous backup, with the ability to remember multiple versions) is great in my opinion, and that’s why I keep coming back to it. The implementation, on the other hand, is terrible. Each new version takes 1.1 steps forward and 1.0 back.
The concept of this program (i.e., continuous backup, with the ability to remember multiple versions) is great in my opinion, and that’s why I keep coming back to it. The implementation, on the other hand, is terrible. Each new version takes 1.1 steps forward and 1.0 back.
What happens when you delete a file in the original folder, then back up a second time… is the “copy” of this file also deleted, so the file count of the original and the copies stays the same?
Here’s my story. Bought a new HP G6 Pavillion with Windows 7 Premium 64 bit and a WD Passport drive to back up files on - never backed up files to a hard drive before. After doing all updates and installing additional programs including for WD Passport I found that I could not get sleep function to work on laptop if left idle - tried all ways and several reset to default settings to make sure I missed nothing. Got onto HP support and after spending over an hour trying different things was told to do system recovery - only had laptop a few weeks, not how I had planned to spend my time.
Did recovery which seemed to fix problem, downloaded all updates and additional programs and problem came back! Worked back through each system restore point until problem elimanated - seemed to be caused by a system update or WD software installed. Did another system recovery for clean start after all the system restores and tested sleep function after downloading each update and installing each additional program - very time consuming . The WD software was the last to be installed and this caused the problem, solved by uninstalling. I guessed the sleep function of the passport may have deactivated sleep function on laptop - as there is no visible change to power settings in OS,
As there are 3 parts to software (smartware, security, utilities) I reloaded one at a time to see if I could identify which was the problem - but no problem!!! I knew there had been a software upgrade from previous installations so installed it… BINGO, found the culprit. I wonder if the problem with laptop sleep function is related to sleep function on WD passport?? My laptop will not automatically go into sleep mode regardless if passport is connected.
This has wasted so much of my time…days!!! I will now uninstall the update as many others have now done.
It does not seem to do auto backup of files each time connected as it should, only manual back ups. Not sure if the update is the problem and unisntslling to previous version will get it working - I do windows backups anyway plus save document files etc individually …to be sure to be sure!!!
Not very professional of WD to not have fixed the problems by now!!!
This issue was reported by me long ago. Windows 64 bit will not run in sleep mode unless you manually do it. You can’t schedule sleep mode any more. You are correct it is the WD Smartware sofware preventing windows from going into sleep mode.
I’m having the same problems with everyone else with version 1.6.4 on Windows7 Pro x64. Can someone send me a link to download version 1.6.2.5? Thanks!
1.6.4 is the only version I have used. I have an HP all-in-one computer that was purchased with windows 8. The WD drive keeps disappearing. When you open file explorer sometimes it is there. But it usually disappears after a few days. Sometimes you can get it back just by removing the usb 3 and reinserting it. Sometimes you have to push the button on the back of the WD drive itself. Sometimes you know it is not there because the WD software seems to be running continuously looking for it. However at the end of the day the Backup and Retreive tabs are constantly greyed out, meaning you could never access the backed information even if it was needed. This defeats the purpose of backing up.
So in my case, I have a problem with the hardware and the software. I just wish I had looked at this community before I purchased.
I’m running a Lenovo with Windows 8. A couple of thoughts on your queries.
I have a WD My Passport Drive which does not have a ‘button on the back’ which I guess is a power switch. I have not found my drive disappears spontaneously but have found that if I ‘Safely remove’ my drive using WD Quick View I do need to physically disconnect and reconnect the WD drive for it to become active again. It will also become active again if I switch the power off to the WD drive (it is attached to a powered USB Hub).
Regarding the greyed out Back up and Retrieve tabs in the SmartWare screen, have you tried clicking on the icon of your WD drive on Home tab? This should make them active. For some reason WD do not mention this important matter on the Home tab.
I now have a new Core i5 laptop with Windows 8 and have updated My Passport Essential to firmware 1.019. I used the drive with MS Easy Transfer to copy my files across to the new computer. This worked extremely well with a couple of exceptions (see below).
I installed SmartWare 1.6.4 on the new computer which seems to work although it still has the problems identified on earlier 1.6.x versions.
As Slash and other users have noted, SmartWare stops Windows timing out to Sleep mode, although it does go to Sleep mode if I close the lid. I presume SmartWare disables Sleep mode to ensure that backup is not interrupted. I had a problem with timer controlled Sleep mode interrupting the installation/updating of another program so I’m not unhappy with this feature but it should be mentioned in the Release Notes.
I’ve found two issues that I hadn’t encountered before:
First: my main Outlook PST file was renamed automatically to “Outlook (1).pst” by Windows when I copied the files over. I set SmartWare to keep 2 versions of the back up files instead of the default 5 versions but found that it kept adding more new versions of the backup and reached 12 versions (and was still increasing). My Archive PST file only had 2 backup versions, so the type of file does not seem to have been the issue. I renamed the file to “Outlook.pst” and it now saves correctly. It appears the “ (1)” in the filename that caused the problem which I found also existed with 1.6.2.
Second: when I reconnected the My Passport drive to my old XP computer it started categorising all my files again. These were virtually fully backed up before I transferred to the new computer and none of the existing backups have been replaced or replicated – it simply seems to be checking them all which will take many hours. Perhaps this is because I updated the firmware on the WD drive.
WD SmartWare to version 1.6.4 on the Home page, My Book Live is locked and when I click on the image to unlock the drive, I receive a message stating: Authentication Failed - Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0X80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED)). T
OS XP.
I’m little bit worried about some future release by WD, the things going worst.
Next hd will be all unless the WD I was thinking to buy
Bought a new 2T WD My Book Live, downloaded WD Smartware…and I can’t even use my BRAND NEW Hard Drive. Says Authentication Failed. Drive Locked. Nice work WD…Nice Work.
