Western Digital SmartWare on HD, how to remove

[Ken]

I have an external 1TB Western Digital HD that has a UDF partition that I want to remove. It's called WD Smartware and shows up as a CD ROM when I look at it under Administrative Tools...Computer Management...Storage. I'm running Windows 7 home on my computer.

I have tried all the "normal" ways to get rid of it like format. But I cannot get "format" access to this "partition". I've tried google, but so far I haven't come up with anything that works. Anyone have experience with this?

Note: I do have Linux Mint as a partition on my laptop that I could use, but my knowledge of Linux is extremely limited.

Edited August 4, 2013 by Ken

[Ken]

Well, guess I solved the problem. I removed the hard drive from the enclosure and attached the drive to my computer with a USB Hard Drive Adapter. The WD Smartware was no longer there, which means that it was part of the Enclosure firmware. The hard drive in the enclosure was causing problems, such as lengthy time to recognize drive, to lengthy time to transfer files. Now, with the hard drive connected with the USB adapter, it is working properly.

Time to buy a new enclosure.

[MKAsok]

You could just disable the WD CD ROM (or whatever it's showing up as in device manager). That's always solved any issues with their 'Smartware' for me.

[Ken]

You could just disable the WD CD ROM (or whatever it's showing up as in device manager). That's always solved any issues with their 'Smartware' for me.

You are correct about disabling the Rom. However at the time, I just wanted to be rid of it once and for all and I wasn't sure that disabling it would solve the problem. And also, I wasn't sure that I would be disabling the enclosure ROM or something in the disk drive itself. So by removing the drive, I know the problem is solved and a new enclosure doesn't cost much.

[JakeBKK]

There are other issues with WD enclosures as well, like on the fly encryption. If you WD housing breaks and you put the drive in an alternative one, it is empty. Besides WD drives have a terrible lifetime. I had lots of them failing. And the average turn around time is 5 weeks. You get them back with a sticker: CERTIFIED REPAIRED What the <deleted>... A week later it fails again.

[Ken]

There are other issues with WD enclosures as well, like on the fly encryption. If you WD housing breaks and you put the drive in an alternative one, it is empty. Besides WD drives have a terrible lifetime. I had lots of them failing. And the average turn around time is 5 weeks. You get them back with a sticker: CERTIFIED REPAIRED What the <deleted>... A week later it fails again.

Well, with that I'm glad to say that the drive is not mine, but belongs to a neighbor that I was helping. At any rate, he's stuck with the drive and at the moment it does work fine. And the enclosure that I would look for would just be a generic enclosure and not WD specific.