I have a WD My passport which I have been using since about 4 years now. Today, I am unable to login to the drive using the unlocker using the same password I have been using since the last 4 years . For context, the system it is attached to has not been changed so there is no change in keyboard,. The same password was working until last week and suddenly stopped working.
This is not a case where I have forgot the password but the software not accepting the correct one. Please help.
Formatting the drive is not an option since there is critical data on it.
The WD security protection is a 256-bit AES encryption, and there is no “forgot password” option to reset the password.
We regret to inform you that if you have forgotten the password, the information stored on the hard drive cannot be retrieved due to the encryption. And WD technical support wouldn’t be able to provide a new password or alternative method to access the encrypted data. If you enter the wrong password 5 times, you will receive an error stating too many attempts.
In order to try your password 5 more times, you will need to safely eject the drive and unplug both the power and data cable from the unit. Then plug it back in. You will now be given 5 more tries. If you can’t remember your password, then you will not be able to access the drive.
Reformatting the drive will erase all the data on the unit, as well as remove the password from the drive.
Note: - Formatting the drive will erase all data on the drive and is not recoverable.
Note: Western Digital does neither cover Data Recovery under its warranty policy nor has any in-house data recovery service. But, it does provide approval for the data recovery from any alternate 3rd party options.
For a detailed list for which WD external drives support encryption, and if data recovery is possible, please check the below link.
I realized my Kaspersky Antivirus quarantined 2 files from the drive. These are named as Main and are javascript executable files(snaps attached). Does this have anything to do with the HD not accepting the password?
If yes, why were they quarantined in the first place and how to get them in again to gain access to the drive?
it has happened to me many times, now the data is gone as wd has no way of forgot password recovery. i mean they should have it . my wd drive stops recognizing same password after sometime and only way out is reformat and lose our data. there is problem with these locked drives they seems to be getting corrupted after some time. only way to have it safe is using it without password because i tried once bitlocker encryption too on this drive but after some time bitlocker software started saying wrong password on wrong passwords but on correct password it will do nothing just loading…
It happened to me as well. I KNOW my password I didn’t forget it. I have two WD Password one older 1TB and the other 2TB the 1TB accepted my password but from some reason my WD 2TB with my pictures of many years that I saved on it and many files that I shredded the documents now I can’t access. I am extremely disappointed that even though nothing is wrong with my WD 2TB all the sudden won’t accept my correct password, that I have been using for a long time. I didn’t know I have only 10 times to access, now I get “Invalid password” and could not do anything to access. I don’t wish to erase all the data.
Ok i got replacement for my drive and it happened again but this time i tried to unlock by uninstalling wd unlock from pc and just tried with the software from drive. It unlocked. I guess it might be software version issue or something else. I don’t want to take risk leaving it locked with wd software so i use it unlocked only with data encrypted by third party software.
