I bought my WD Essential in May 2010. I was using it for backups for 6 years with SyncToy rather than WD Smartware. Smartware used way too much CPU time so I uninstalled it.
Just recently I looked at using the MS Windows Backup Software so I also reinstalled the WD Smartware to compare. My Smartware and Firmware were way out of date.
So I unplugged my other USB drives and disabled my security apps in order to try updating the firmware. It ran for a bit but then gave me an ERROR. It gave me an opportunity to RESCAN but nothing happened.
I called Tech Support and let them try solving the problem by taking over my PC. The WD Essential Drive could not be recognized.
Basically, I had to do basic stuff like use a different USB cable and plug it into a different socket. It was suggested that I connect it to a friends computer but it is highly unlikely the drive will be recognized.
I am out of the warranty period and I expect Western Digital to just abandon me.
I did checking devices and printers afterwards and there appears to be something called “Initio Default Controller” on the “unspecified” list of devices. If I unplug the WDE unit the Initio Default Controller dissappears.
Looking at some similar cases, people seem to be able to buy a similar WD case and switch the hard disk to get it working again.
Tech Support may get back to me, but in the meantime can someone with this kind of failed firmware experience tell me what solutions are possible. Obviously, this is something Western Digital should provide but I didn’t get any suggestions from them. I even asked if there was a way to reset the WD unit, but I was told no.
Lots of people want to know what to do when they loose their WD drive. From what I have read you can try to find it under “Disk Manager” and re-initialize it.
Lots of YouTube videos on that. (Some good and some bad)
If it still doesn’t work then there appears to be a couple of options to try before calling it an expensive brick.
Get a used WD Drive of a similar model (that works) and switch the drives.
Take out the Hard Drive and install it in your PC.(YouTube videos on that too)
In my case, from the “Initio Default Controller” under “Unspecified” from the device and printer list, I right clicked on “Troubleshoot” and that gave me a Disk Drive called: WDC WD5000AAKX-75U6AA0 under “Device Manager”.
I am not going to run the firmware update just yet. Tech Support is calling me tomorrow. We’ll see what advice I get and I’ll post it here if I sucessfully get the WD Drive back on line. Lots of people have this problem it seems.
Update: The details are below, but for this case the problem was solved by emailing WD Tech Support. I did not have to break open my WD plastic case as I thought I might…
I must admit that I had to resist trying to do things which may have made my situation much worse. The outcome restored my WD Drive and my Data with fairly little effort. I hope this solution will work for others.
In detail, I received a phone call from Tech Support staff at 10:30am and we began a remote session at “Support | Western Digital”. I entered the 9 digit PIN number he gave me to take control of my machine using a Citrix Application.
He found the disk drive WDC WD5000AAKX-75U6AA0 which was not there the last time. This drive was still not showing as connected but it did show up under Disk Manager. He did things rather quickly so I didn’t see all the steps but he began to run an application called Appllo 1607E Firmware Updater v2.018-v. ?? Before he did this however, he ejected another USB stick I had connected to my PC to make sure the updater worked only on the WD Drive.
Once the updater finished, the WD Drive appeared as D: drive with the latest firmware version. A GOOD sign!
At some point I had to put in my WD Drive Password to get to the WD Smartware Application. This is where he uninstalled the old 1.2.0.8 version of the software and installed the new version by downloading WD Smartware 2.4.16 dated 21 June 2016. As it installed, I had to keep clicking the buttons as he could see the screen but could not click on the button in the new WD Smartware installation window.
While it was installing I told him that I had not used the WD Smartware because it was a CPU hog. He said the new version is better. I also asked if the data was encrypted when backed up by WD Smartware and he said it wasn’t.
I also asked him if these firmware failures happen a lot but he said not normally and they didn’t know when my firmware update failed.
Since I was out of warranty, I also asked if I will get invoiced for this and he said no, they are there to help if they can. Before he disconnected I went to the Task Manager to look at the CPU time being used. It was about 40% but he said it was categorizing my files. With my old version of WD Smartware it was around 70% and that is why I didn’t use it. The Tech support fellow signed off at 10:57 so the whole process was about 30 minutes of time including the downloads. It is now 11:30am and the WD Backup Engine is taking up 24-26% of the CPU time. We skipped doing the actual backup during the install, but I may give it a try and compare the background CPU % to the MS Windows Backup process.
Finally, when you get emails from Tech Support it says:
“WD strives to exceed customer’s expectations. If you feel that your expectations have not been met and would like to escalate your case to the next level of support, please click here or copy and paste the link below in your browser.”
I must admit, my expectations were exceeded! I have not had this kind of service from other service providers before. It was a new experience.
I figured I had a brick, but everything is now running normally. I did loose my wallpaper after the citrix session for some reason but that is a minor issue compared to loosing all your backup data.
