AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Thanks so much for your support. Really useful information. Perhaps you don't understand what exactly the "My Passport" is supposed to do?

Yes. I can use it as an external drive. No, it will not function as a wireless device or as an SD card reader without installing the original software onto it. Yes, I may have been premature in deleting everything from the drive, but it was what my tech guys at work advised if the software had been corrupted. They said (obviously not having ever dealt with WD Tech Support) that it should be easy to restore the original operating system. Yes the Backup and Access software installs on my laptop just fine, but it won't read the drive, either direct connected or wireless, to work with the drive.

Since you obviously know what to do and how to fix this, I'll be happy to defer to your ideas and instructions. Please write in simple words as I'm obviously an idiot.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Wow! You're pretty smart! Why couldn't I figure this out.... I guess I didn't delete the software after all!

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Thanks for the well meaning idea. It is a Windows 10 laptop, as I've posted about a half dozen times over a half dozen pages.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Try this link.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrgEZ5rmJJbuf0AXJ0PxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=on+a+pc%2C+how+do+you+get+the+computer+to+see+a+hard+drive+that+is+blank&fr=yhs-pty-pty_maps&hspart=pty&hsimp=yhs-pty_maps#id=20&vid=fce610cfc6e22d368f5a333d4a6554ee&action=view

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

In case anyone actually interested in the problem is still reading this, I'll summarize:

1) I purchased a used My Passport drive, and set it up on my old laptop according to instructions.

2) I attempted to use it to backup my old files, prior to transferring my stuff to a newly purchased laptop.

3) When I did so, it seemed to be taking an agonizingly, suspiciously long time - projected as over 12 hours for about 130 Gigs of data. I initially attributed this to the slow speed of my old 32bit machine, and just gave up. I backed up the old machine to another Seagate drive, which took less than an hour.

4) After successfully setting up my new 64 bit laptop, I plugged in the My Passport, to set up backup. I downloaded and launched the "WD Access" and "WD Backup" software packages. They appeared to install correctly, but when each package came to the point of asking what drive I wanted to use for backup, it could not "see" the My Passport. I tried this both hard wired and wirelessly, and re scanned, per the software manual, several times. Nada.

5) When I connected the drive via cable, I was surprised to see that it was 100% full. I scanned it using Malwarebytes, Norton, and AVG - AVG found the "Murdered/Sarcophagi" virus, a particularly malevolent one that infects host software and multiplies files until the drive is full. None of my anti-malware packages could remove it, so I called the tech support guys my company uses. I don't know whether this was on the My Passport, or my old laptop. It certainly was not on my new one, as I hadn't been anywhere I could have possibly contracted the virus or otherwise become infected. (When I had cleaned all of the stuff off my old laptop, I did a clean Win 10 install, keeping my files, and it is functioning well right now - although still not fast enough to be used as my primary).

6) The tech guys said that the only way to remove this particular nasty was to either format the drive or delete all files from it. They said (obviously never having tried it...), that downloading new software and firmware from WD should be simple. I deleted all the files.

7) I uninstalled, then reinstalled the WD Access and WD Backup software from the website. The results were as described under #4 above. The software did not install on my new computer because it couldn't find a backup device (The My Passport).

8) I contacted WD support, and spent two separate hours on hold on their "support line" waiting to talk to someone.

9) I have received five emails in broken English from "Tacie" in the department they laughingly describe as support. I had clearly outlined all of the above steps, just as I did above, in my first email. The first suggestion was to go to the link where I originally downloaded "WD Access" and "WD Backup" and do it again. I obediently did so, and obtained the same result.

10) After two more emails with the same suggestion, I received this helpful missive:

The link took me to a page where I was able to download support for automatically backing up games of Microsoft Solitaire. (!!!!) Nothing else on the page except those same Access and Backup download links. I have not yet received a response to my email to "Tacie" describing the results of clicking his or her link, but somehow, I don't anticipate it to be helpful.

I seem to have two choices (three if you count the big hammer):

1) Just consider this a hard-wired only SSD for backup and use it for that purpose only, making use of either Win 10 or another backup program.

2) Attempt to use disc recovery software to restore the hard drive to its state as of a couple weeks ago, then re-scan for the virus and attempt to kill it with fire. If unsuccessful, go back to Solution #1.


Perhaps some of you familiar with this particular hardware device and more techy than I may have a suggestion. Or perhaps a few more can suggest how stupid I am and recommend "Go to the website and download the software" as a solution?

In either event, I'm never buying another WD product.
Andy

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Please read my last post. I have summarized the past seven pages for those unable to read through them but still willing to offer advice.

Old Coot

I'll take it
How much postage cost
send me a private pm

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

You're a little late to the party, but thank you for your response.

Andy

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Andy, I have actually read the entire thread with great interest, but i may have missed something. Have you actually completely reformatted the Passport. If you have, and it still won't work, Id try to take it to a real live person who actually knows about computers(nothing like a "geek squad" or similar zombies). Good luck. Bill.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Thank you!

My personal geek guys will help me out at $50 per hour. I can buy a 2tb non wireless drive for $79. My billing rate is more than double the geek rate - I must have billed out $1,000 or more so far.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

OK, this is my 3rd (and last) attempt to reply to this, my dang cat keeps stepping on my keyboard somehow deleting all my typing. Anyhow, to sum up 2 lengthy replies, I can't help you. I have a my passport drive doing one of my backups daily. It does not do wifi nor does it have an SD card reader.
You are not having problems with the HD if Windows can read/write/delete files to the drive. Also, Windows has drivers for all SD cards and if Win can't see your SD cards in your reader, then, the reader is defective, the card is defective or the cards are not formatted correctly. Last, if there is a problem with your wifi connecting to your drive, you need to get someone (not me) to give you a hand, I have no clue how they (or you) are trying to connect to the drive via wifi.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Whatever for?

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

The last word... I hope.

Well, this was apparently not as easy as some people thought. When I finally got through to a human being that the reinstall protocols did not work, I got a telephone call. I had to schedule an eight hour window with tech support, and they called about halfway through it. Fortunately, I was at my desk and had the computer in front of me. After an hour and a half of talking to Alan T (who had a very thick South Asian accent, making him very difficult to understand), he informed me that they would "escalate" my case, and that I would need to be prepared for another call the following day.

I received a call about ten the following morning, and allowed "Alan T" to take over my computer remotely. He proceeded to spend another three hours on the problem of reinstalling software on the My Passport, including changing registry keys, uninstalling, reinstalling, disabling virus protection, and messing around with command prompts that I did not follow. Fortunately, minimal interaction was required on my part, but he did take up my computer for most of that time. Finally, he left programs to reinstall (another hour plus...) and told me he would call me back when he needed me at the keyboard. True to his word, about an hour and a half later, he did. I rebooted the computer with all of his updates and installs in place, and the drive software would not install. After explaining that he was "puzzled" by this, he told me that they would have to escalate my case again (Anyone remember the "nuclear escalation ladder"?), to still another level.

Some 48 hours later I received an email containing this information:

In other words, Western Digital is telling me that I have to perform a complete Win10 reinstall to get their crappy software to work properly. And, oh, it might not work either.

I have already wasted far too much time and money on this. (including a $50 download of "Recoverit" which, although I will have a use for it in the future did not "Recover It") I will do a clean reformat and use it as a card downloader and manual backup drive for my photos. Needless to say, I am very displeased with the product and tech support (how does disk operating software get infected with a virus anyway?) and will be picking up a new Seagate external drive. My old Seagate works fine as a backup for my old laptop, even though it's nearly ten years old.

Thanks to all who offered to help or offered advice.

Andy

PS: I am NOT going to do a Windows 10 reinstall except under much more dire circumstances than a crappy backup drive with minimal chance of working. It took me nearly a week to transfer and/or reinstall all of my software to the new machine, and a reinstall will require me to do it all over again. No thanks. Seagate portable drives with 2TB capacity are less than a hundred bucks at the moment.

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

Wow - what a misadventure Andy!!! As for the Seagate, I put a 1TB on my machine, HP - Win 10 and it has worked just fine for almost 2 yrs. I think it was $45 or so on sale back then. Are you going to film the demise of the Passport?

om

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Ha!

No, I decided not to kill it. I'm going to keep it as a second backup at the office, rather than carry it around with me. I think I'll be able to quickly download SD cards into the port, then access it as a remote drive with my laptop or networked desktop. I guess you can't have too many backup devices, and it's good practice to keep one of them off site. It's pretty unlikely that both my office building and home would go up in smoke or down under water simultaneously - they're 65 miles apart!

Like you, I'm a recycle, repair, reuse kinda guy, and the satisfaction of killing the old drive would really be contrary to my nature. Time to accept failure and move on.....

Andy