I purchased a My Passport a few years ago. I don’t remember exactly when. It was either 2009 or 2010. Loaded it with data and used it for a year or two, with no problems. In 2012 I put it in a nice, safe place, climate-controlled, and left it there until today. I memorized the password. Today, I took it out of storage and attempted to access the data. Plugged it into a new laptop and immediately started having problems. I had expected to plug it in and be prompted for the password. But that didn’t happen. Instead, everything I clicked on in File Manager gave me the “The application has encountered an unexpected error and is now exiting” message which I then discovered is a common problem because frustrated users have been asking why this is happening for years, just google it. So I tried some of the ‘solutions’ out there. None of them work.
I tried this one: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/wdsmartware.asp?id=wdfGeneric&os=win
this one: http://www.wd.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/firmware.asp?id=wdfGeneric&os=win
and this one: http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-Portable-Drives/quot-The-application-has-encountered-an-unexpected-error-and-is/td-p/18680
The OS is Win 8. I disabled the antivirus. I booted the computer. I did everything suggested.
So how do I get access to my data? I need a solution. Even if the solution is buying a new drive and somehow transferring the (inaccessible) data onto that. The drive says it is 100% full, but I obviously can’t access the data or see what’s on it because the drive is protected by WD Smartware.