How do you remove the WD Smartware virtual CD drive from your system?

[Arledge]

I bought the WB My Book Essential external 1.5 Tb HD months ago. It installed a pointless virtual CD drive on my system. I went to the WD Knowledge Base site to find out how to get rid of the thing and read that WD did not know how to get rid of it, but was " . . . working on an update to the Virtual CD Manager to allow the image to be removed from the disk entirely." I just revisited the Knowledge Base, apparently after working on this problems for months, WD has not been able to find a solution to it. This is not an organization I want messing around with my system.

[Bill_S]

The VCD is not designed to be removed.  If you want to hide it, you can.  Check out the link below for help on doing that.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdsmartware

[Arledge]

Bill, thank you for your response to my question. If I uninstall WD Smartware from my system and reformat the external drive, will that remove the virtual drive?

[Bill_S]

You can uninstall SmartWare, and you can reformat the drive, but it won't remove the VCD.  We made it so that the firmware will hide the VCD if you use the VCD Manager.  There was a link on the page that I sent you for how to do that.  It's below.  Read through it before you download and Install the VCD Manager.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdsmartwareutilities

[fpmeirelles]

and mac users?? when is back??

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdsmartwareutilitiesmac

* sorry my english is not good

[Bill_S]

I'm sorry.  I don't have a time frame for that to be fixed. 

[DBelton]

I managed to fix my problem with the VCD and smartware on the 2 Mybook Essential 2TB drives I just purchased.  I no longer have the VCD or Smartware at all.

Solution:

Returned the drives to place of purchase for full refund and purchased 2 Hitachi 2TB drive instead.

[Arledge]

How did returning the drives remove the VCD. My impression is that once your system is infected with the VCD there is no way to remove it short of reloading your operating system. I will certainly never buy another Western Digital external hard drive. The arrogance of a company putting an unremovable device on one's computer without permission or warning is pretty scarey.

[Bill_S]

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Arledge wrote:

How did returning the drives remove the VCD. My impression is that once your system is infected with the VCD there is no way to remove it short of reloading your operating system. I will certainly never buy another Western Digital external hard drive. The arrogance of a company putting an unremovable device on one's computer without permission or warning is pretty scarey.

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Just so you know, the VCD is not on your computer.  It's on the drive connected to your computer.  It's a small, locked partition on your external drive used to provide password protection, etc.  It just shows up on your computer because it's a partition designed to look like a virtual CD.   You'll notice that if you disconnect the drive from the computer, the VCD disappears.  Nothing has been infected on your computer.  The only software that loads onto your computer is SmartWare, and that can be uninstalled. 

[Arledge]

Thank you Bill; I was laboring under a misapprehension. That makes a big difference in my attitude toward the VCD. I will follow your instructions to hide it. My apologies to WD.