Linux Mint does not read WD Book Essential external hard drive

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MEL
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Linux Mint does not read WD Book Essential external hard drive

Post by MEL »

Hello everyone,
Here's a Linux newbie saying hello to you. I would like to ask for help with my 1TB Western Digital My Book Essential external hard drive that will not open or is not recognized by this operating system. It turns out that this disk comes with an executable software (smartware.exe) that is launched automatically in windows when connecting the usb to enter the security key and thus access the disk, but Linux Mint does not recognize it so I do not know if someone in the forum know how to fix this problem to help me. Thank you very much in advance. Greetings!
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Termy
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Re: Linux Mint does not read WD Book Essential external hard drive

Post by Termy »

You might want to return it, if you still have the receipt and it's new. It's best practice to see if things are supported in Linux prior to purchasing them.

That said, if returning it isn't possible, I imagine the drive itself doesn't have any special encryption or locking mechanism, rather the enclose itself does. Worst-case scenario, you could probably remove the drive and put it inside a different, less Windows-y enclosure; they're not expensive and some of them are incredibly easy to use. I have a screwless USB 3 enclosure which I often use for different drives. It might be a real pain to dismantle, BTW.

Welcome to the board, BTW. :)
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t42
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Re: Linux Mint does not read WD Book Essential external hard drive

Post by t42 »

MEL wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 9:14 pm My 1TB Western Digital My Book Essential external hard drive that will not open or is not recognized by this operating system. It turns out that this disk comes with an executable software (smartware.exe) that is launched automatically in windows when connecting the usb to enter the security key and thus access the disk, but Linux Mint does not recognize it
WD SmartWare is a Windows application only. If you password-protected your drive in Windows there is little chance to unlock the Drive in LInux. To use the drive in another OS, at first you need to remove password protection in Windows. Probably, to do that you need WD Security installed in Windows - please search for instructions if you need them: "how to remove password protection My Book Essential".

By the way, support for WD SmartWare has ended and WD recommends to use Acronis True Image for Western Digital for back purposes, see WD Support

I never activated smartware.exe on my WD drives and always deleted it. If you need to encrypt your data, you can install VeraCrypt both in Windows and LInux and then create VeraCrypt container to open it from any OS.
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Re: Linux Mint does not read WD Book Essential external hard drive

Post by Portreve »

t42 wrote: Fri Mar 05, 2021 3:23 am I never activated smartware.exe on my WD drives and always deleted it. If you need to encrypt your data, you can install VeraCrypt both in Windows and LInux and then create VeraCrypt container to open it from any OS.
I would second everything which t42 has said.

I own two Western Digital easystore drives (4 TB and 8 TB) and they have always worked 100% perfectly in LM and any other distro I've played around with on my systems here at home.

I backed up the software they shipped with (just in case I might ever need it for some reason in the future) and then I nuke-n-paved them, giving them GPT partition tables and each then has a single, 100% use EXT4 partition on it.

As I said, I've never had a single bit of trouble with them.
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Re: Linux Mint does not read WD Book Essential external hard drive

Post by easyt50 »

Well Mel,
I can not hardly believe the advise you got from your question. All the answers seem to be opinions and not support.
I have been using WD encrypted external drives under Linux Mint since 18.3 and I am still using the same drives under Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.0
I am not an expert in Linux but I got the following procedure to work with help from another forum.
Here the link that got me started;

https://blog.bestcoding.net/en/unlock-w ... ive-linux/

and here is the forum that help me out. There are a couple of guys on it that seem to Linux inside and out.
The link for them is;

https://itsfoss.community/

Good Luck,
Howard
Linux Mint 20.3, Desktop & Laptop.
t42
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Re: Linux Mint does not read WD Book Essential external hard drive

Post by t42 »

easyt50 wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 5:18 pm Well Mel,
I can not hardly believe the advise you got from your question. All the answers seem to be opinions and not support.
User Mel Last active: 05 Mar 2021 17:30
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