Firmware update killed my 3 days old WD My Book Essential 1TB External drive

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for macOS
1

Bought this drive: WD My Book Essential 1TB Eternal three day ago. Performed a firmware update by downloading the update package from wdc website. The update has killed my drive and no computer recognizes it anymore.

Figured that the issue is common amongst WD users. I am going to return this stupid drive for a Seagate.

2

Did you update the firmware with a Mac? If so: Have you tried to repeat the firmware upgrade from a Windows machine? That helped me. The MacOS updater seems to be flawed.

3

Not on Mac but Windows. Was updating on Windows XP when the drive dropped dead. Tried to update the firmware again on Vista which fixed the drive. The reason I was attempting an update was that the drive was not recognized in XP. After the firmware update, the drive didn’t come up even in Vista. So I performed a second firmware update in Vista with an unknown device. Did the trick though and now its working in both the OS. Hope it stays like that.

4

I bought mine a week ago, worked fine then just updated the firmware and it doesnt read on my mac either!

5

My drive dead after the firmware update too.

On the firmware download page there is a huge list of instructions, were they there a week or 2 ago?

6

The firmware is really corrupted.

That is why the drive could not be initialize or recognize.

Have you try update the firmware from a windows PC computer?

If not, I would suggest you try that. 

Re-run the firmware update will usually fix that problem.

Download the firmware from this link, It is for windows user

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdsm​artware

1 Like
7

I too have the same problem.  The drive powers on but not recognized by my Mac.  I tried it on a PC and it is not recognized by that machine as well.  Being that the drive is not accessible, what more can I do?

8

What sorted out the issue for me was an update of the firmware again on Vista which fixed the drive. The reason I was attempting an update was that the drive was not recognized in XP. After the firmware update, the drive didn’t come up even in Vista. So I performed a second firmware update in Vista with an unknown device. Did the trick though and now its working in both the OS. Hope it stays like that.