Comments on: Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB Portable USB Hard Drive Review

By: Jong

Jong — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:26:29 +0000

I lost all files I have yesterday when my passport drive suddenly asked for a password w/c I didn’t put.so mad about this!

By: Ca

Ca — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:26:42 +0000

Password problem just happened to me, no password no hint what is that about?!?! Feel sick with how much stuff i have just lost. I used it to back up my laptop as I had to clear it, now I have lost everything! Horrendous device that was suppose to be my backup, absolute crap will not be trusting WD products in future.

By: Emre KASA

Emre KASA — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:20:32 +0000

same password problem i have too,
they can not solve this problem.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Passport-for-PC/WD-smartware-thinks-my-password-is-wrong/td-p/223788

By: mick-c

mick-c — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:36:58 +0000

same as above asking for a password i never set

By: Akinyi Adongo

Akinyi Adongo — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:17:40 +0000

Same problem. My WD is asking for a password despite the fact that I have never set one up. I cannot access my movies!

By: KAMABU A. JOHNSON

KAMABU A. JOHNSON — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:52:22 +0000

my western digital portable drive is asking for a password I never set. what is remedy. I have my childrens photos n videos thereon.

By: JJ

JJ — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:23:22 +0000

Just like everyone else, i too have been having a problem with my passport. Ive had mine for almost a year, and yesterday i was in the middle of moving files from the passport to my computer. When it finished its task it password protected itself. it also no long lists itself as a disk drive but as a cdrom drive. It went from 300gb to 614mb. I like many people had a lot of important memories on that drive (pictures of my childs first 3 years of life) we use those drives to “back up” our stuff just to lose it anyway. I called WD up and explained what happened. i was then put on hold for 5 mins cuz the guy wanted to “ask” someone else. then came back on the line and said i’m very sorry about you problem we have never heard of this before, this is the first time. The guy i spoke with asked me if i had any important documents on it. (well duh!) i said yes, he said you have two options you can erase the drive or you can go to someone to do data recovery. and i said well i guess im doing data recovery and he said great there is a list of companies on our page. after checking them (data recovery people) there atlest $300 and you may still lose your stuff and in if you do they will give you a refund of $150. 1st of all from what im reading this isnt the first time, 2nd of all i think its a way for them to make more money (“great heres a list of companies you can drop $300 in”) I feel if soo many people are having the same issue then WD should be paying the fee to have your data recovered.

By: kunle

kunle — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 08:30:00 +0000

its rlly unfortunate dat the our passport will just lock and ask for password when we didnt out any one. Wd should be aware of this very terrible thing. how come nobody has found a solution to it. pls tell everybody to run from that useless passport ext. harddrive.

By: Eze sunday

Eze sunday — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:51:23 +0000

I can’t remember my, wd password wat do I do?

By: Carolyn Logan

Carolyn Logan — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:34:28 +0000

I have a 500 GB WD passport essential, and I am fed up. First the loose usb cord, and now it won’t let me access the drive. It shows something is there, scans says it’s ok, but it does not see it as the WE PE anymore. WD says on the phone to me that it could of been caused by a malware or virus on my computer, PHOOEY! I have none of that. I am so disappointed. Going to purchase a Samsung today to try and get my data ghosted over to.

By: Sofia

Sofia — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 05:32:07 +0000

I just bought a “My Passport Elite” i would like to put a password on one of the folders i saved on the drive. Can someone please explain to me how can i do that?

By: Surbhi

Surbhi — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:31:43 +0000

I have a WD My passport (500 GB) and i was working with it till halfan hour back. It got disconnected and when i replugged it is asking me for a password. Never set a password in the first place…. please can anybody help…

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 09:00:25 +0000

I have a WD “My Passport” bought from Staples, used it twice then came to plug it in today and found it wants a password which I did not set, and no hints shown. I tried using WD Quick Formatter.exe but it failed, so I suppose that my new drive is faulty and needs throwing in the bin. I agree with the previous comment – expensive rubbish

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:56:28 +0000

hi there .. i have the same prb as u guys a 500 gb wd . i’ve never set up a pass in my life and now i’ve got it blocked .it even shows me a hint . but nothing familiar cause i’ve never set up any passoward…. i’ve searched on google on every from and nothing .. i’ve lost hope .. i think i should throw it away..

By: Kate78

Kate78 — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 22:00:32 +0000

Hi.

The same problem with WD essential 320 gb. I’m 100% sure that nobody has set any password (SmartWare – pretty smart :/). Just turned off my laptop (win 7) and next time I put the WD to ma desktop (WinXP) it requested password. I lost many documents and photos which I’m not able to recover in any way. Does the WD take any responsibility for their defected products???

By: Jason Belzer

Jason Belzer — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:08:10 +0000

Hi Guys,
I have read many people having the same issues with it requiring passwords that none of us installed. I am devasted. There has to be some way to get around this. Mine seemed to start when i installed norton 360 but can be sure. of course the “password hint” says ‘none’. I have emailed wd and got nothing back. If anyone can walk me through this i will pay cash. please help

By: Eugene Nichols

Eugene Nichols — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:25:08 +0000

For Mac users at least, this is an absolutely demonic drive. Why was it necessary to install proprietary driver software to use this drive? Why does so much drive space have to be wasted on a separate virtual (virtually, stupidly wasteful) partition that cannot be erased. The HD Smartware drivers for Mac have absolutely gummed up my new MacBook Pro running 10.6.4. The smartware demons running in the background (even when the drive is not plugged in!) eat up tons of memory, plus hog as much as 98% of the CPU, making other programs like Safari stand stock-still for minutes at a time. Force-quitting the demons using Activity Monitor doesn’t help, because they simply re-start and, while they’re running, slows every other process down to a crawl or not working at all. Plus, I’d mention that the proprietary mini-USB cable failed after just two months and was hard to replace. Overall, this is one of the worst pocket drives I’ve ever owned. Oh, did I mention it was very, very expensive compared to the competition? Why pay less when you can get ten times the aggravation?

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 03:20:50 +0000

I disconnected my drive and plugged it back in and it password protected itself! i didnt have it password protected before! what do i do!!??

By: Candice

Candice — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:41:27 +0000

I tried that…it doesn’t show up under utilities at all (or anywhere else that I can find!) It just seems to have completely disappeared.

By: Anuj

Anuj — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:26:26 +0000

Hi candice

what you should do is open disk utility which you will find under applications/utilities. there click on the device that is you western digital hdd and click the erase tab and erase the drive. once this is done it should work

By: Candice

Candice — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 17:49:07 +0000

OK…so maybe I am just really dumb, but I just got a 320 GB one of these and hooked it up to my iMac and got a box that asked me if I wanted to use My Passport for Time Machine. I figured that it would be a good idea, so I said to use it, assuming that I would still be able to use it as a normal hard drive as well. It said that a reformat was required and I googled that and got the impression that was normal for a new one no matter what, so then I continued and it said that it would have to erase anything on it to use it, which I figured was fine because it was brand new and so it had nothing on it. After realizing how much space Time Machine was going to take up, I canceled it (it had just started) and now, the My Passport icon is gone and I cannot find it anywhere on my computer. What do I do?

By: K

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:05:22 +0000

Similar thing, i have never set up a password, now it is locked……help !

By: May

May — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 19:01:36 +0000

I forgot my WD password what shall i do, i don’t want to lose the data on it, can anyone help?

By: del

del — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:59:29 +0000

WD SmartWare Drive Unlock:i cannot unlock it because its asking for a password…cant crack it..need some help

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:22:10 +0000

I folks,
I’m worried by the mini usb plug…it seems to be very fragile. I’m actualy shocked that WD would use such a small connector when a traditional firewire connector would have been fine. Anyone have problems with breaking pin connectors on the HD?