Hello there community,
I’m hoping someone can help me access my data.
I have a snazzy pink My Passport Ultra that for the last few years I’ve stored data on and always connected it to my work laptop (windows) then needed to enter a password each time I connected. All fine until now…
Fast forward 6 months - I’ve left the job and handed back the laptop.
Now when I try and connect it to my new laptop - a Google pixelbook I get the message that ‘this device cannot be opened because it’s file system cannot be recognised’ along with option to ‘format device and erase data’ eak! I don’t want to do that.
So any ideas how I can access my data and remove password/encryption?
I have no way of accessing my old work laptop.
Many many thanks,
Naomi newbie
The pixelbook runs ChromeOS rather than a “normal” operating system (Windows, Linux, MacOS etc).
It sounds like whatever format your drive is in isn’t one that the OS can cope with. You may be able to install something on it to help with that (I have no idea what’s possible on ChromeOS as I’ve never used it), or just plug your drive into a PC or laptop running Windows or suchlike and you should be able to access the data via that.
Fantastic I’ll give that a go on my neighbours linux machine!
The problem may be one of drivers and encryption - given you say you’re entering a password then the drive is encrypted and the Pixelbook doesn’t have the suitable WD drivers/software to do the decryption and let you access the drive.
I don’t think WD supports Linux in that respect - if you can access a Windows machine and install the proper software there (it’s on the virtual CD that is part of the drive) you may have a better chance. You can then unlock (decrypt) it and your Pixelbook should be able to access it then.
On linux the page below might be useful, although I’ve never tried it myself
https://blog.bestcoding.net/en/unlock-wd-passport-drive-linux/
