Lost Data - Help Please We have just purchased a WD 160Gb Passport which we downloaded all of our precious digital photographs onto. We then plugged the drive into our laptop and saw the photographs. Some time later we again went to access the photographs but the drive asked us to set up a profile again - the photos cannot be found anywhere when clicking the drive in My Computer all we see is the install files for a new profile. The properties for the disk say that there are 148Gb of 149Gb free (the HDD is 160Gb so there is a discrepancy here). can anyone shed any light on where I might find the photos? Lost Data - Help Please We have just purchased a WD 160Gb Passport which we downloaded all of our precious digital photographs onto. We then plugged the drive into our laptop and saw the... » Read More Lost Data - Help Please We have just purchased a WD 160Gb Passport which we downloaded all of our precious digital photographs onto. We then plugged the drive into our laptop and saw the photographs. Some time later we again went to access the photographs but the drive asked us to set up a profile again - the photos cannot be found anywhere when clicking the drive in My Computer all we see is the install files for a new profile. The properties for the disk say that there are 148Gb of 149Gb free (the HDD is 160Gb so there is a discrepancy here). can anyone shed any light on where I might find the photos? « Show Less
1674444
Not sure about the pictures part, but most hard drives do advertise more storage than is available to the consumer. Hope you get the files!
1611174
My drive failed data transfers and was unusabe. It showed 256G but even 4G could be stored and retrieved before it was loosing files and crashing. Would not recomend unless you were interested in saying you have a 256G drive that you can show. Just dont use for anything you want to keep.
795408
It comes with a cloning software that allows you to transfer your data with ease of use. 1TB a lot of space but it's slow at accessing the data. The SSD is so fast that you'll be willing to sacrifice space for speed. An external HDD should do the trick. I have one for 2TB My Passport by Western Digital. It's supper small and it's USB 3 so it's fast! Pre-installed components on computers are not always the best. Oh, by the way: Yes, you can replace it and probably you should. You won't regret it.
2275022
I am not quite sure since this was for my son and he used it. I said Used it because just last week when he turned it on he was asked to format it. We took it to a computer store to get it looked at and they said it was no data on the drive to recover. It had a bad sector and won't work. So we are in the process to see what we should do now. Soooo upset since we had just bought this November 26, 2011. Sorry that I could not help you.
402921
At this moment I am pulling data off an external USB drive that appeared to be totally dead. Clack, click, whiirrrrrrrr and never came online. I froze it. Not kidding: http://www.emergingtechs.com/posts/put-your-hard-drive-in-the-freezer-to-recover-data/ Mine works for about 1/2hr until the drive warms up again, then back into the freezer. Given this scenario it makes sense to know what is critical, get it first, and get the non-essential stuff later. All my important stuff is already recovered and now I'm copying over 40GB of "nice to have" stuff. As soon as this process is over I'm going to improve my backup scenario!
1619512
I agree with what A.Karantze said and make sure before you do this that you backup all of your important documents, pictures and music before wiping your system because once you wipe your system you can't get anything back. I hope this helps you with your decision
38197
I drag and drop my doc, picture and video files. Every fortnight I empty my camera's SD card; create a new folder (date as the folder name) on WD My Passport and transfer the stuff from the camera/mobile to that folder via the USB cable. I do not back up.
956891
Plug it into a USB port and use it much like a thumb drive. I can give a better explanation if you tell me which operating system you use. On my wife's Windows 8 PC the system recognizes the drive and gives three options for what to do with it. I don't know if it will give the same options the first time you use it. I first used it with Windows XP. There I used "My Computer" to find the drive. Then I used "drag and drop" to move files to the WD drive. You can also use the backup and restore software to make back-ups from your main hard drive to the WD. I've also used it with Linux. If you need more help please tell me your operating system and what it says when you plug into the USB port.
62528
I think my drive was formatted with ntfs but I can't remember for sure. I have received drives both formatted and blank. Drives I have received with back up software already installed have, for the most part, been formatted with ntfs.
2043015
Thanks for the comeback, I accidently found the recordings in the "Record State" page this morning and was able to view them. my next task is how to save them for later viewing since it has erased them???? The FORMAT box is not checked and overwrite is disabled in the HDD page.
1789788
You have two internal hard drives? Not many computers have that. It wouldn't be possible to say which is the quickest without knowing the transfer speeds of both drives. It may not be a significant difference anyways. The edge the external drive would have is that you can easily and quickly remove it and connect it to another computer if something catastrophic happened to your computer. Another thing- as far as I can tell there was no backup software included for the Passport so you'll need to rely on your computer's backup software. That's probably not a factor. In the end it's probably apples and oranges whether you go with an internal or external drive. Personally, I prefer the portability of an external drive. Good luck with your purchase.
896161
You need to format the drive before use. So if you have some files on it, you will lose that. Beware!!!!!
1592511
It is a WD Scorpio Blue (SATA 3 Gb/s): http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=506 But newer revisions of the WD Passport seem to be unsuitable for use without the enclosure. See: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=307430
308963
Frankly I have found NO external drive either desktop or portable that have been particularly easy to work with and customer service of all (WD, Seagate, or Toshiba) either don't reply period or if they do it's gooble-de-gook. Seems as though that the hardware is perfectly capable of storing data but retrieving it is another question. The software is totally, absurdly complex. (Ditto thumb drives with password protected sectors. Impossible!) IT folks decry the fact that no one bothers to back up anything. Guess why?
213009
You know i had that same doubt when i installed for the first time, i thought i'd actually see the SDD partition. But thats now how the SHDD works, you don't see the SDD partition, the hard drive chooses by itself what data is going to be recorded on the SDD part, and you don't actually have access to it.
1339936
I am looking for an external hard drive to back up my entire lap top hard drive, in case of failure. Is the Passport Essential the unit I am looking for?
2164496
These drives work fine on Vista. I'm using two on my Vista machine at home. Out of curiosity did the Passport click and turn on and off? I have had that issue with my Passports (80gb and 250gb) on a few computers and it's usually fixed by using a powered hub, a shorter/different USB cable or unplugging all other USB devices connected to the same USB controller. The Passports seem to want the full 5v from the USB port and they will wig out if they don't get it.