WD My Passport Essential SE problem

[Melaka]

I've just bought a 1Tb USB3 drive to use as a backup, mainly for photos. It came with Smartware 1.4.5.2 on it and as soon as I started using it I was offered a firmware update then a software update to 1.5.1.6 The firmware update seems to have gone OK but I cannot get the sofware to update properly despite several attempts. Looking on the web I'm not alone in this but I wonder if any forum member has experience please. It's pretty irritating to buy a drive in December that wasn't supplied with software that came out in August.

[theMusicMan]

Re: WD My Passport Essential SE problem

David - I think Smartware is WD's own back up software, & when I've purchased WD drives have never used it - preferring to use the backup option in Windows/OSX.

Unless you specifically wish to use this proprietory software, I'd suggest ditching it and using the native OS backup software instead. Ditching it won't affect your drive, it's still perfectly usable.

[Melaka]

Re: WD My Passport Essential SE problem

Yes it works OK but I'm irritated about the backup software not updating. The 1.4 version has fewer options than the 1.5 The attraction is in being able to backup the hard drive that has my pix on it to a portable drive for use with my laptop. I don't think Windows backup lets you backup different drives to different places. At the moment I use it to backup the C: to another hard drive.