How to Reset a WD Passport Essential

H

hehahohee

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May 20, 2005
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I don't know, I'm asking you.

Fun story. My dad has a WD Passport Essential with it's fancy schmancy encryption. He set a password, locked the thing and forgot the password. So the drive is essentially useless. After scouring the internet for a way to recover the password, I learn that there is no way to recover the password or data on the drive, but the manual and other resources hint that there is a way to reset the drive and delete the data on it. WD apparently doesn't want people doing it though because I can't find any information on this process anywhere, and by anywhere I mean Google. So I'm here wondering if anyone figured out how to reset this damn thing. I've taken the thing apart and have a feeling that it might relate to jumping some pins. I've sent WD this question, but I doubt I'm going to get a useful response. If I do, I'll be sure to post it here.

My dad in his haste tried reformatting the drive. So I'm receiving it in possibly an odd configuration where the HD is not immediately visible in Windows, but its various utilities on it's "virtual CD" is. Disk manager says that the HD is write protected and apparently missing a partition table when I try to initialize the drive. Probably has to do with the encryption stuff. The various utilities won't let me do anything until I unlock the drive. I tried WD's Datalifegaurd to see if it could do anything, but it can't seem to find the drive.

It's a 750GB model. Model Number: WDBABM7500ABK-NESN
On the inside the drive carries the model number WD7500KMVV. It has an SATA label, but its PCB only has a USB port and unlabeled pins.

For those thinking about getting a passport: I don't know if it's been mentioned but there is a downside to the Passport's encryption. It's bricked if you forget the password unless WD's magic reset process is found.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3741&p_created=1254176590

Look at the last part under Failed Login

Gist of it is:
1. Run unlock.exe from the virtual Cd
2. Purposely fail at unlocking it 5 times.
3. Unplug/turn off the passport and plug it back in.
4. The auto-unlock autorun app will come.
5. Purposely fail at unlocking it 5 times again.
6. Check off "I understand that reformatting my drive will delete all of my data", that should un-grey "Format"
7. Format.

I'm not sure if you can skip steps 3/4/5. It seems to indicate you can't.

Good luck.
 
Well, my dad went ahead and called tech support himself. Turns out the process above didn't work for him. Dunno why.

I didn't witness what he did, but he tells me that he was instructed to update SmartWare, and while doing so a message popped up telling him he needs to reset the drive, and that was that.

Thanks for the help though.
 
Guys, there are 2 kinds of people looking for an answer on this forum: (1) the guy who wants to erase the data locked in the WD passport essential (2) the person who wants to recapture the data on the drive and has no idea how the damn thing got locked in the first place. I want to know how to recapture the original data. My essential got locked without my permission. It was an accident. I have no idea how it happened. I'm tired of the tics of the WD. Their new ones are cheaper, but they come pre-formatted for either PC or Macbook. I haven't bought one yet because I fear they're less versatile. I'm afraid they may not be readily changeable to a format Ms-Dos (FAT) , the interchangeable format I use to move common file ending files back and forth between PCs and Macs. The greyed out area on the disk utility says my WD Passport is
Mac OS Extended (journaled), whatever that means. I want to restore this disk for interchangeable use of common file ending files between PCs and Macs. Anyone have any answers for me with a view toward achieving this? Please post if you do?
 
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