Ever since i first bought it from curry’s last christmas i ahve been backing up one macbook, and one macbook pro… and using it for occasionally bog standard memory stick usage, the joining cable had been faulty from the start and has always needed downward pressure for and power/usage atall… Now when i plug it in, only the WD smartware icon comes up in the finder, not “MY passport” as it used to, with all of my memory on it ??? any help ???
Have you check it under Disk Utility to see if the drive is still recognize?
If not , then the drive is not getting any power.
Try a different USB cable?
Contact WD the support for further help.
I too am having this problem sporadically with the exact same model and I bought mine from Apple direct! I’ve tried it again today and it will now bring up the My Passport icon (although it didn’t straight away ad hasn’t done for the last 2months!) but I now can’t back-up any of the data saved on it which it apparently needs doing as a message came up and told me to re-format the disk!! Have you found any solution to this yet??
Thanks.
tomdenman93 wrote:
Ever since i first bought it from curry’s last christmas i ahve been backing up one macbook, and one macbook pro… and using it for occasionally bog standard memory stick usage, the joining cable had been faulty from the start and has always needed downward pressure for and power/usage atall… Now when i plug it in, only the WD smartware icon comes up in the finder, not “MY passport” as it used to, with all of my memory on it ??? any help ???
If it’s a power issue, you can contact WD Tech Support to purchase a power booster cable.
I have just emailed Western Digital customer services concerning what seems to be the same issue with my Passport drive. It worked perfectly for the first few months after I purchased it online from Amazon.
After a few months the drive stopped connecting properly and a quick toggle of the cable would make it spring into action. Now the darn thing won’t connect unless you press gently down on the cable where it connects to the drive. This is not acceptable. I’ve shown it to a computer guru. Although his initial suspicion was to blame the manufacture of the cable, he suspects the drive casing to be faulty. He advised me to contact the manufacturer concerning the fault.
bill_s wrote:
If it’s a power issue, you can contact WD Tech Support to purchase a power booster cable.
There doesn’t appear to be an issue with power. It just doesn’t connect properly. While failing to connect I have observed there is still power to the drive.
Respectfully, I don’t see why a customer should be advised to purchase anything to correct a faulty item. If there is a recognised fault with the manufacture of this item then I would expect Western Digital to be working on correcting the problem and providing functional replacement items or parts to their customers.
I look forward to receiving good customer service from WD.
Regards,
Stuart.
I came to this site because my Passport Essential simply dissappeared from my desktop and was not even recognzed by Apple’s disc utility. I had been using it as an external HD, not for B/u. I b/u it and the int HD to another HD using SuperDuper. After reading several posts about cables i decided to jiggle around with mine (I had of course previously tried the disconnecting everything and powering off) and then unplugged it w/o powering down. To my surprise i got the usual warning regarding the risks of ejecting a disk improperly. So I plugged it back in to the Mac and the icons appeared on the desk top !!!. So now I’m back in business. I offer this as one man’s experience. What does it mean? It seems the Mac was aware of the HD and registered it’s concerns when I unplugged it even though it didn’t display hte icons. However as I said, Disc Utility did not see the disk either. So I’m at a loss. Is it really a problem w faulty cables? That wouldn’t explain my experience.
Like others I think I’ll need more reassurance before buying another WD product.
johnpeds
I bought the drive after seeing my friend using one. Same as Johnpeds, to use as an external drive (to my laptop) and was at first impressed with the size/portability of the item, which has only left my home a couple of times.
I came to this web site for support and I’m sad to report that there has been no response to my email provided by WD. A faulty product coupled with no customer courtesy means I would avoid this company and their product lines.
Regards,
Stu.
Exactly same problem. Just bought a blackberry usb to microusb cable and now works perfectly.
WD needs to buy better cables
