I purchased a 500 GB WD My Passport with SmartWare about a month ago, and SmartWare repeatedly crashed and locked by Dell XPS 720. I’m computer savvy and did several complete (deep dive) uninstall and reinstalls, and finally contacted WD Support.
Good news is that I received a fairly prompt response. Bad news is that I was told that SmartWare conflicts with Roxio software and I use 2009 Creator for video editing. I’m surprised by this considering how widespread Roxio software is, e.g., bundled with Blackberry Desktop Manager, etc.
I was told to look for alternatives and I did. Being a big fan of Ian “Gizmo” Richards Freeware website ( www.techsupportalert.com/ that was my first stop. PureSync (free version) is highly recommended so I downloaded and installed it. The free version will not encrypt files/folders nor backup / synchronize while a file is in use (paid version does) but it has been working nicely since installed about 3 days ago. “Pro” version is about $20 USD.
I also use Synchromagic and it too works nicely (not running both). Synchromagic is not free but is reasonable ( http://www.gelosoft.com/; $39.95).
Note: I’m running both of these on XP Pro so no data on VISTA / Win7.
