I never heard anything back from support…is anyone from WD monitoring these questions? It seems that alot of people are having the same problem, which suggests a bug to me.
Support will get back to you. And, no, nobody from WD support monitors these questions for the specific reason to answer questions. WD Staff do post on occasion, but this is a user-to-user forum.
I’m wondering if anyone here has been able to successfully resolve the problem, and if so…how?
I worked with a WD support technician, but he was not able to resolve this problem. It was escalated to a developer. I am wondering if any of the folks that have had this problem been able to successfully resolve it.
The sound of crickets here…
In case anyone is looking at this thread, the support person was unable to resolve the problem (I suspected if there was an easy fix, it would have already been posted here). My issue was to be accelerated and I was supposed to hear back from someone in development in two days. It is a week later and I have not heard anything.
Since several different systems are prone to having this issue, perhaps only certain WD models are plagued with this problem. Mine is the WD 1 TB version. I wasn’t able to remedy this production error, but I was able to download my documents, pictures, and videos using the non specific select menu. Then I did the following…
With the unit still plugged into my computer, I then opened up My Computer window from the start menu. I then opened the WD component, where I could see all the files that had just been downloaded onto it. A complete pain in the keister, but I then went through the files, deleting and moving them to my satisfaction…then disconnected the unit (via the tray icon - as per instructions). Whether the restore will work when required is another question??
Even though I purchased the unit several months ago, I may try to return or exchange it at BestBuy…though I’ve read that there are also some troubling issues with the Seagate hard drives as well.
I have no issue with the functionality of the hardware, and having had two Seagate drives fail on me, I will stick with WD. The problem appears to be the software. Whoever designed the most recent WD backup took the software backwards and as far as I can tell, they have yet to rectify this problem that a number of people have had. In the end, the WD support suggested that I use their WD Acronis software, but that program has limited functionality…guess what one of the functions it lacks…backing up individual files and folders, the very problem that people are having here with WD backup! So, no solution.
You are probably right…someone at WD dropped the ball when creating the updated software. A real shame, since they’ve probably sold a billion of these units. Screw 'em !! I’m just going to exchange it for a couple of memory sticks, which come with as much as 256GB.
I had the same problem as I bought a WD HD Passport and guess what Smartware was not able to read the backup folder.
However I manage to get around it by registering the HD online and then updating the firmware but most important I downloaded this software called “WD Backup” - it is a strip down version of Smartware (without all the bells and whistles) and it works perfectly.
SO SIMPLICITY BEATS COMPLEXITY AGAIN!
Here is the link Software and Firmware Downloads | WD Support
If this is still a problem, maybe this will help:
I had the same problem. WD SmartWare would not let me select any folders for backup. I checked the “Retrieve” field in the software, and I had the same drive as the retrieve drive. Once I routed the retrieve destination to a different drive, I could go back and select the folders I wanted to back up. The problem was resolved.
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This week I bought a 1TB Passport, and similar to one or two others, when selecting which folders I want included in my Backup, I cannot select the C:\Windows\ folder…it is not visible to select. Very frustrating. Probably a Windows10 permissions issue, which seems intentionally complex to change even as an ‘Administrator’ of my PC. Even if a Windows10 issue, it seems the WD team should’ve anticipated permissions issues such that all folders would be selectable, even if the WD backup UI had to prompt the user a folder’s permissions must be changed in order to select it (ideally with instruction on ‘how’ to change the folder permissions)
