What has happened to 'My Book' Drive

[Helen_Bachari]

Hi

Apologies for asking what is maybe a dumb question.

I’ve had my ‘My Book’ External hard drive for a couple of years but for the last year or so I haven’t plugged it in as it was interfering with Lightroom. It bought it as a back up for my main hard drive, but I also used it for storing over flow photographs

When I last used it I was using it as an alternative to the hard drive on my pc to save photographs. 12 months ago I bought a new pc. My old pc used Windows XP. My new pc runs on Windows 7.

I decided to do some backing up of photos on my pc harddrive tonight. I plugged in ‘My Book’ and it automatically backed up files. It also asked me to update software and I did that as well.

I then went looking for the drive that contained the photographs I had saved direct to My Book. I recall I had to open the drive (and use a password to access the drive). I can’t for the life of me find it and I was hoping that someone on here can point me in the right direction.

Many thanks

Helen

[Trancer]

Was the update related to the backup software, or was it the hard drive’s firmware? Are you able to see the unit within Windows Explorer? Can WD SmartWare detect your unit within the interface?

[mike27oct]

Bad news, you are not going to like this (from My Book manual)

CAUTION! The WD Security software uses your password to electronically lock and
unlock your drive. If you forget your password, you will not be able to access the data
that is on your drive or write new data to it. You will have to erase the drive before you can use it again.

So, before doing this, try and remember all passwords you have frequently used, it could be one of them.

It is reasons like this one why I keep all my username and passwords and other personal info in a password-protected Win WORD file. I only have to remember one password to get into the file to see all the others, and since I get in it often, it is embedded into my brain.

[Helen_Bachari]

I’m not sure . When I switched on the unit I got a message saying that updates were available - so I stupidly let it do its thing. My downloads folder shows that WD Smartware Installer is what was downloade. I took the unit to my local computer shop this morning. I’m yet to hear from them

[Helen_Bachari]

Hi.

Thank you for your response to my query. I haven’t been asked for a password at all. I used to be asked for a password to unlock the drive but I no longer have the icon.

I took the unit to my local computer repair shop this morning. I’m hoping they can discover what’s gone wrong

Thanks

Helen

[mike27oct]

OK, I thought you could not get because you didn’t have the password. Well, the icon can be recovered by the 'puter shop. You still will need the password to get into the drive, though, so hope you have it or find it.
Good luck with it.

[Helen_Bachari]

Not good news at all. The computer shop couldn’t get the hard drive to show ANY information at all. Yet when I plug it in to my pc it shows the docs it has backed up

[mike27oct]

@Helen_Bachari

Yet when I plug it in to my pc it shows the docs it has backed up

Did you see this before you took drive to shop or only afterward?

Or, are you saying all the docs that were backed up are still on your computer, like the photos and all, and can you see the photos and the other docs? Or, are they in some sort of backup folder on the PC and encrypted so you can’t view them; just can see file names?

[Helen_Bachari]

Sorry … what I am trying to say is that I used to use the ‘My Book’ to back up files on my computer and I used to use it as a separate drive where I saved photos. I could access those photos after I had entered a password that unlocked what seemed to be a separate drive.

Now when I switch on the ‘My Book’ I can see a summary of the docs that have been backed up from my pc, but there is no reference whatsoever to the ‘drive’ where I was saving photos.

If I go to My Computer, all I can see is the C drive - whereas before there was an E or G drive showing.

[mike27oct]

OK, I am starting to understand. It appears you had another section on your My Book that was a partition that divided the My Book up into sections of “two” different parts; one part for the backup activities of the main PC drive portion, and a likely smaller part (E or G) you could store you pictures in. I am presuming someone in the past set this up for you and told you how to access the partition from your PC.

From what you say, it appears the My Book backup partition is still intact, but the photo partition is gone, and that indicates to me that the photo partition got removed so that there is no more partition present now for where the photos are. It is possible the photo files are still there, but the “address” of the partition is gone, so basically they appear gone. I do not know if a partition that was “blasted away” in a sense, can be recovered. A data recovery service (not the local PC repair) is best equipped to do that, but it costs a good bit of money for that kind of service.

Confirm for me what you can of what I’ve written here, please. Thanks.

[Joerg_A]

Hi All

i was told to jump into here but honestly, I cannot see how I can help. If the drive was encrypted, then it is locked by an AES-encryption done via a crytochip. Therefore any partition on the drive is locked by the cryptochip unless you type in the correct password. I believe that there is no other chance to type in passwords until the cryptochip opens the drive again.

And, of course, there is no backdoor existing, not even for WD technicians. Enabled encryption is without any backdoor or rollback option.

[Helen_Bachari]

Hi again

The 2 functions or partitions were part of the set up when I first started using the external hard drive . If I wanted to access the G or E drive I was prompted to ente s password snd away I went.

When I signed up for Creative Cloud i found that I couldn’t use Lightroom if the external hard drive waa switched on. So I stopped using it. .

I decided to switch it on again the other day and that’s where I discovered I couldn’t access the photos that were stored on the hard drive and there was no icon for me to click on to open the G or E drive.

The hard drive is still automatically backing up files but it doesn’t show in the ‘safely remove’ function.

The hard drive is also referring me to Dropbox. I’m not sure if this is something new or not.

Thanks again for your help

Helen

[Helen_Bachari]

Hi

Thank you for hopping in to this thread. I guess one of the issues is that I am no longer being presented with the option of entering a password to open/access the drive where I was saving some of my photographs. It as if half of the functions of the external hard drive have simply disappeared.

[Amon]

Hi

I wanted to update firmware on my “My Book Elite” device, but the procedure has broken, the updating has stopped, since that my notebook can not recognize my external drive. I know that there’s no problem with the USB ports of my notebook, so I tried to do manual update with the help of “WD SES Driver Setup”, but as a result of this the notebook couldn’t recognize it as an external driver. Instead of this I got Error Code 43 (unknown device). The light is on the device constantly, but it doens’t work and doesn’t answer anything. Before firmware update the device was working perfectly.
Please, if it is possible, tell me what is the exact problem and how could I solve it at home?
In advance thank you for your answer.

[mike27oct]

This reply is to all three of you:

@Joerg_A thanks for accepting my request you come to this thread to try and help. It appears this is a lost cause to try and find Helen’s photos.

@Amon: Sorry to hear the firmware upgrade broke your My Book as well. A suggestion in a moment for you and Helen

@Helen_Bachari; We have done all we can here to help, therefore, I want say to you and Amon:

WD firmware upgrades should be a catastrophic event
that damages your drive, and which appears to be the case.

I suggest each of you contact WD Support via a phone call and explain to the person who answers you do not have a basic question, because you have reason to believe the WD firmware upgrade damaged your drive. Ask the person in Level 1 support to transfer you to Level 2 support as soon as they can. They will want to screen you call to be sure it is something you should be talking to Level 2 about (and it is!). So be sure you will be transferred to Level 2 eventually where you can explain your issue to them. There likely are other people by now who have reported problems after the firmware upgrade as well, and WD Support most likely has a solution for you, so be sure to contact them directly. And, good luck with getting this resolved.
– Mike