Problems using WD My Passport Essential 500GB

Hi,

This is my first time on this site and I hope you can help me.  I have the WD Passport Essential.

I managed to set it up ok.  My computer OS is Vista.  But I’ve found it doesn’t work as I thought it would or I’d like it to.

It’s my first time using an External Hard Drive and I thought you’d plug it in and it would behave like a memory card or a USB stick.   You could set up some Folders: Music, Photos, etc and just copy and paste the files into the folders.  Instead it backed up everything automatically really suddenly just me pressing a button to see what it did. 

It left me feeling a bit out of control and frustrated because I found it all a bit too technical and I’d like to choose what I store.

I don’t need the CD’s I’ve copied into Windows Media Players in it and I’m not sure if its copied my emails in as well which I don’t want.

I managed to clear all the data from it.  But I read on a review on Amazon that you can drag and drop your data, but I can’t figure out how.

It would be lovely if someone could help me out as I don’t want to be beaten by a small black box :crying_cat_face:

Thank you.

The first time that you connect the passport to your computer, it will work just as you described, like normal USB memory, to use a backup program you need to manually select that option. Check the links below for the steps to uninstall smartware (if that is the backup program that you used) and for the steps to copy and paste your files manually. 

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5373/session/L3RpbWUvMTM1MTk3NTY2MS9zaWQvOCprWTNuYWw%3D

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1717/session/L3RpbWUvMTM1MTk3NTY2MS9zaWQvOCprWTNuYWw%3D#top2

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Thanks. I’ll give it a try this week