Where is the best place to send technical feedback to Western Digital?

[kbellis]

The failure of the MyBook Essential external hard drives to be recognized by the OS and that has been widely and increasingly reported on these community forums for the past few months is good to know about. Not all of these reports are necessarily technically detailed enough and there seems to be so many to read every day.

Like so many others, my WD MyBook Essentials external hard drive has demonstrated the symptoms of failure to be recognized by the OS. I have been taking careful notations of when and under which conditions this occurs and does not occur and I wonder: Where is the best place to send technical feedback to Western Digital? And firstly, what explicit information should be included with each report?

Kind regards,

Kelly Bellis

kellybellis at gwi dot net

[Wizer]

You can contact them by email or phone here:

http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?wdc_lang=en

[kbellis]

Hi Wiz,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, but that didn't really answer the question. Spending 20 minutes on the phone only got me a case number and the response to just email technical feedback to support@wdc.com

Kind regards,

Kelly

[Wizer]

Well sorry to hear that, the email was already on the link I provided you , so it was a matter or choice to call or email.

[Joe_S]

Try sendiung one of the moderators a PM discussing this.

Joe

[kbellis]

WD's Keikhosrow has kindly replied as a result of my phone call earlier today. We'll see where that takes us.

[Bill_S]

---

kbellis wrote:

Hi Wiz,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, but that didn't really answer the question. Spending 20 minutes on the phone only got me a case number and the response to just email technical feedback to support@wdc.com

Kind regards,

Kelly

---

Normally, it is our process to have users either call or email in to report a consistent issue with their drives.  However, it seems that what you are doing is consolidating posts that are reporting these issues in a logical grouping in order to verify to us that these are certainly problems.  If that's the case, and you've already done the work, then send that information to me, so I can pass it along.  And, if you can, include the links to each of the threads you've pulled your information from.

We do attempt to utilize some of the larger threads as confirmations of ongoing issues.  However, I know there are other smaller threads that go unnoticed.  Moreover, some of the technical details do get lost in the discussions of larger threads. 

[kbellis]

Tuesday, June 07, 2011, 12:44 PM, VKB

Recap (to date) of issue
The WD MyBook external hard drive fails to be consitently seen by the Operating System subsequent to and once it has been power managed into a sleep state, but observance of this repeatable behavior has thus far been limited to only when the WD MyBook external drive has been connected via a USB 3.0 port. Other external drives (USB 2.0 variety) connected to this same USB 3.0 port do not demonstrate this behavior.


WD MyBook Essentials 2 TB (USB 3.0)
P/N: WDBACW0020HNK-00 3611D
Purchased through Amazom.com 4.28.2011
Delivered first week of May 2011 along with USB 3.0 interface card
Installed card and drive May 23, 2011. Did not install SmartWare until later - see below.
Drive connected through USB 3.0 port


May 23, 2011 - Installed 2 Port PCI Express SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller
StarTech.com part number PEXUSB3S2 in Dell Studio XPS 8100 as per Dell's recommendations
http://www.startech.com/product/PEXUSB3S2-2-Port-PCI-Express-SuperSpeed-USB-3-Card-Adapter

Comprehensive Specifications on Dell Studio XPS:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/studio8100/en/cs/cs_en.zip

Processor: Intel Core i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80 GHz
Installed Memory: 8 GB
OS: Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit, Service Pack 1
(2) 1 TB WD internal hard drives presently configured RAID0


May 23 through May 28
Backed up critical data onto external WD MyBook Essentials
Noted drive was not always being seen by operating system and would be recognized after unplugging and then replugging USB and power cables in back of the external drive.


May 29, 2011
Reformatted and reconfigured system
Going from a 1TB RAID1 array to a 2TB RAID0

Installed OS, Broadcom NetXtreme NIC driver, and then all of Windows' (83) updates (up through SP1), MS Security Essentials, and then updated system drivers including Renesas Electronics most recent driver; 2.0.3.34.0 dated 2.10.2011; Intel chipset, etc.

Windows scheduled backup began at 7:00 PM
Machine idled through night


May 30, 2011
System awakened 5:30 AM
Backup completed, but WD external drive not seen.
Restarted machine - drive still not recognized
Restarted machine again - drive still not recognized
Shut down machine, powered off MyBook using switch on back
Powered on machine, waited for Windows to load before powering on MyBook
Drive still not recognized.
Powered off MyBook, disconnected cables from back of unit, reconnected, repowered and then slowly - about 20 seconds - system recognizes external hard drive.
Continued setting up machine including upgrade to Win 7 Pro and its updates.


May 31, 2011
Continued setting up machine - made no notes.


June 1, 2011
Installed SmartWare
Updated WD Universal Firmware Updated v3.0.1.1
Updated Drive Firmware 1.015 dated 4.12.2011
Updated WD Smartware Software Updater dated 3.22.2011
Updated Smartware v1.4.5.2 dated 3.22.2011
Continued setting up machine
Machine idled through night


June 2, 2011
System awakened 8:00 AM
WD external drive not seen
Restarted machine - drive still not recognized
Shut down machine (did not touch MyBook), powered on machine - drive still not recognized
Disconnected cables from back of unit, reconnected, and then slowly - about 20 seconds - system recognizes external hard drive.
Continued setting up machine
Machine powered off for night


June 3, 2011
Continued setting up machine
Machine powered off for night


June 4, 2011
Continued setting up machine

System idled and then system awakened
WD external drive not seen
Restarted machine - drive still not recognized
Shut down machine (did not touch MyBook), powered on machine - drive still not recognized
Disconnected cables from back of unit, reconnected, and then slowly - about 20 seconds - system recognizes external hard drive.

Installed WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows

Powered off MyBook (using switch on rear of unit)
Powered on MyBook and then slowly - about 20 seconds - system recognizes external hard drive.

Ran diagnostics
DLGDIAG - QUICK TEST
Run Quick SMART Test...
Test completed successfully
Next ran EXTENDED TEST
6.25 hours later, test completed successfully
Machine powered off for night


June 5, 2011
Researched more on issue;
ref: FAQ & Answer ID 1164 in KB - "External hard drive no longer shows up in My Computer and data can no longer be accessed"
http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-for-PC/FAQ-External-hard-drive-no-longer-shows-up-in-My-Computer...

Shutdown machine
Unplugged cable from USB 3.0 port and plugged into a USB 2.0 port
Powered up system, MyBook seen.
Allowed system to idle
System awakened, drive seen.

Began limited experiments using Windows System Power Management settings
Modified default "Ballanced" power management plan:
Put the computer to sleep: Never
Issue never presented (still hooked up to USB 2.0 port)

Restored defaults for "Ballanced" power management plan:
Put the computer to sleep: 30 minutes
System did go into sleep state, noting bright white light on face of unit was blinking
System awakened (white light solid)
Issue never presented - drive seen.

Modified settings to defaults for "Power Saver" power management plan:
Put the computer to sleep: 15 minutes
System did go into sleep state, noting bright white light on face of unit was blinking
System awakened (white light solid)
Issue never presented - drive seen.

Shutdown machine
MyBook light off

Switched cable back to USB 3.0 port
Powered up machine (still in "Power Saver" power management plan)
Drive seen
System idled, system awakened, drive seen.

Reset: Put the computer to sleep: Never

Allowed scheduled Windows backup to take place and finish

Restored default power settings for "Power Saver" power management plan, then returned to the default "Ballanced" power management plan
Machine idled through night

June 6, 2011
5:44 AM System awakened
WD external drive not seen; however, MyBook light was on
Powered off MyBook with switch on back, then powered up unit and then slowly - about 20 seconds - system recognizes external hard drive.

Continued setting up machine

Allowed system to idle
System awakened (white light solid and very minot vibrations felt when touching unit)
WD external drive not seen
Powered off MyBook with switch on back, then powered up unit and then slowly - about 20 seconds - system recognizes external hard drive.

Continued setting up machine

Powered off MyBook (system still running)
Plugged MyBook back into USB 2.0 port; noting MyBook immediately powered up on its own
Plugged Seagate 400 GB (USB 2.0) external hard drive into the USB 3.0 port and powered it up
Seagate drive much more quickly recognized by OS than MyBook
Machine idled through night


June 7, 2011
5:50 AM System awakened
All drives seen

System idled, system awakened, all drives seen.

Continued setting up machine
Continued research on WD MyBook failure to properly awaken

Windows Sleep States
S0 - On / Working
The computer is powered up. If supported, power conservation is handled by each device.

S1 - Sleep
CPU is stopped. RAM maintains power. Everything else is off, or in low power mode.

S2 - Sleep
CPU has no power. RAM maintains power. Everything else is off, or in low power mode.

S3 - Standby
CPU has no power. RAM maintains power, refreshes slowly. Power supply reduces power. This level might be referred to as “Save to RAM.” Windows enters this level when in standby.

S4 - Hibernate
Power to most hardware is shut off. Any files in memory are saved to the hard disk in a temporary file. If configured, the NIC will remain on for WOL, or AoL. This level is also known as “Save to disk.”

S5 - Off
Everything is off. No files are saved. If configured, the NIC will maintain power to listen for WOL (Magic) packets. This is known as a shutdown.

===============

Am considering these utilities for possible further tests:

http://www.passmark.com/products/sleeper.htm

http://nosleephd.codeplex.com/


Typed up notes

Tuesday, June 07, 2011, 4:56 PM, VKB


[kbellis]

Any solution on the horizon yet?

Windows keeps telling me that I can get better performance if I used the USB 3.0 port instead of my make-shift solution to the above described problem; namely, plugging the MyBook into the USB 2.0 port, but at least the problem is stopped.

[kbellis]

At this point it seems still worth keeping an eye on; however, it appears the recent firmware update (v1.0.6) has remedied the matter as I've had the WD external hard drive hooked back up to the USB 3.0 port for nearly 44 hours since running the updater utility and aside from the 20-second delay observed and reported on earlier in this thread, the drive is waking when the system is awakened from a sleep state. Thank you WD!