WD Smartware not recognized My Essential WD Ext HDD

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

hi,

my friend brought me WD My Book Essential Edition 1 TB External HDD. i am not aware of the fact that the WD Smartware came installed in  it or not, but when i used that software it is not able to recognize my external HDD. i downloaded the software from WDD Site itself.

When i run the software on the left hand side i see all my PC drives (C:, D:) along with my WD drive (F: let us say). I should rather see F: drive of my external HDD on right side of my software.

I have also downloaded the firmware update and VCD, but they are not able to run, throwing some message of not being able to detect my harddrive.

My Question

  1. Why smartware is not able to recognize my HDD?

  2. Is firmware and/or VCD needed to be run for installation along with WD Smartware?

This happens in Windows XP SP2 (32 bit) and Win 7 Home Premium (64 bit)

is there any other software for 64 bit by WDD?

please help. I want to make maximum use of smartware software

thanks

2
  1. Why smartware is not able to recognize my HDD?

Is your drive supported for WD SmartWare?

See supported drives (with +WD SmartWare below models)

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=1&lang=en

  1. Is firmware and/or VCD needed to be run for installation along with WD Smartware?

Yes, for most of situation except if you are using supported drive from #1 above, you can download latest WD Smatware without using VCD.