Annoyed.com I have exactly the same problem - just bought a new WD passport 1TB with USB3 and it randomly powers down / unmounts. Could be 5 seconds, could be 10 minutes. I also have this problem with my internal iSight camera, and occasionally with my USB keyboard. Pretty certain that this is a hardware error, but it's annoyingly intermittent.
Taken it to the shop a few times and each time the problem magically goes away so the technician can't really see whats going on. What's weird is that I also have a WD 360GB passport (older one) which I've been using for a year with no problems whatsoever. Have tried creating a new user account and the problem persists - lost my startup disk so can't do the reinstall. Thinking of buying Lion but heard it sucks. Otherwise it has to be a repair of USB hardware. What should I do??? Doing my head in!
I am trying to connect my WD Passport to my MAC. The light is flashing but the mac isn't reading it, i have had - Answered by a verified Mac Support Specialist. I am trying to connect my WD Passport to my MAC. The light is flashing but the mac isn't reading it.
- Whoops forgot to mention, I have an iMac 24' running 10.5.8. Read all posts and this worked After reading all the posts concerning this issue with the WD Passport Essential 1TB external drive, which I had the same issues with, as stated above, I simply removed the SmartWare application that I downloaded and everything is working fine now. I went through a huge process of calling up Western Digital and having them first send me a new USB cable that was supposed to give me more power at the USB ports. Then, when that didn't fix the problem, a Mac Genius told me to uninstall any security applications that might make the HD quite unexpectedly.
They said it could possibly be an OS X problem. Well, after uninstalling my security app and still having the same problem, I went ahead and did the one thing I initially wanted to do from the beginning, but didn't because it seemed like a good accessory, I uninstalled and trashed the SmartWare app for the drive, and whala, everything is fine. No random ejections. Happy trails. Click to expand.Hi! How do you uninstall the WD Smartware app from the backup Drive?
I never downloaded or installed the WD Smartware app onto my Mac but it always loads the WD Smartware Virtual Disk Image (is that the correct word?) on my desktop when I attach my Passport. When I try to eject the Passport drive I still have the WD software on my desktop that keeps the drive running. I click eject for the WD software and after about 20 minutes it finally 'ejects' the software. It's driving me nuts. I'd love to uninstall the WD software from the drive completely.without. losing the backups I already have. Is that possible?
If so, how did you uninstall it? For what it's worth I called Western Digital and they sent me a faster cable too. I'm a total newbie and afraid to mess with my backup drive without knowing exactly what it is that I'm doing. Found a solution! I am macbook user (OSX, El Capitan V.10.11.3.) I followed the troubleshooting webpage from WD and it actually worked. In the PDF user manual in page 38 they actually clarified how to create a partition for your External drive. Go to and refer to Knowledge Base Answer ID for information about reformatting the drive.Then choose instruction for El Capitan.
Step by step you'll see how you should go to Disk Utility and choose Mys Passport drive and the choose partition, if this option was not bold you should erase the drive. I tried erasing but it didn't work and showed an error in every attempt. So I followed this troubleshooting tip: I safe boot my mac (restart it and after you hear the famous voice, hold the shift key until you see the apple logo, then release it. When your safe boot desktop came up disconnect the wireless or ethernet and go through the same disk utility to find your external hard driver. At this time I could erase my driver and it was successful. So the partition option turned up bold and I started partitioning. In the partition box you need to choose the OS X Extended (Journaled) format.
Voila, its fixed! You can restart and go to your normal operation system and use your formatted WD drive.