Essential 1TB is dormant

Having seen no evidence of a backup happening in a while, I went checking and found my last was last fall.  When I try to open the WD Smartware, all I got was a tiny popup window saying “WDDM service not running”.  I unplugged the power, replugged it, now I don’t even get that.  Have I deleted something?  Must I re-install?

Hello

Please try uninstalling WD Smartware and installing the latest version.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/wdsmartware.asp?id=wdfMB_Essential&os=win