WD support told me to erase my only backup

I want to share my WD support experiance, here you go:

History: I bought a My book essentials, I backed up my files, a few month later my computer crashed.
I bought a new one, installed newest firmware and software to “My book”. When i should retrieve I could not find my backup in the retrieve list.
In my backup I have about 20 000 photos, I was really afraid to loose them and angry about the backup solution that did not work, that is why I may be a little unpolite sometimes.

Here is my conversation with Support:

ME:

I backed up a win vista computer completly. It crashed and I now have a new computer win 7.

It says to choose a volume to the right in the list but the list is empty.
I can see that the backup is in the WD drive.
I have the latest firmware and software.

Please help!

SUPPORT:

Dear Mr. Karlsson,

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is [deleted]
If the smartware is not the same Version of that used on the vista then it is normal that it would not see it

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further. 

Sincerely,
[deleted]
Western Digital Service and Support
http://support.wdc.com

ME:

That did not help very much?
 Please tell me what to do to fix it, I do not know what version I used.

 Help me to fix it and do not give me some unintresting fact that I do not
 need, please!

SUPPORT:

Dear Mr. Karlsson,

Thank you for your reply.
Here you go , It seems that you are suing different software version (smartware ) , of that was originally 
which mean that you can no make it work .
Is this clear enough? in other word you will not be able to see the content of your HDD on win7 or any others if it is not the same Software Version than that used to backup.

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further. 

Sincerely,
[deleted]
Western Digital Service and Support
http://support.wdc.com

ME:

 I DONT WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS, I DO KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS!!!

PLEASE HELP ME TO FIX THE PROBLEM.

I WANT TO BACKUP MY FILES!!’

PLEASE SEND MY PROBLEM TO SOMEONE ELSE AT WD SUPPORT, SOMEONE THAT CAN HELP
ME.

SUPPORT:

Dear Mr Karlsson,

Thank you for your reply.
You Can not fix this , you will need to reformat the drive and use /create a new backup plan:
First of all Uninstall all smartware from your computer (s)
then format the HDD ( all data will be lost Unfortunately 
( for the The Data recovery concerns please go to:)
http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.asp?wdc_lang=en

To Format the HDD:
Right click "My Computer " (XP) or “Computer” (Vista) and then selecting “manage”

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further. 

Sincerely,
[deleted]
Western Digital Service and Support
http://support.wdc.com

I can not believe he told me to delete all my files, that must be the worst support ever.

The solution: Use the software in the virtual cd in “my book” 

Maby you wonder why I did this when I had the solution my self?! It does not matter…

2 Likes

Thanks for sharing your solution you’re not the first to encounter this problem. I only tried one backup with Smartware and uninstalled it.

Joe

1 Like