Question WD smartware for my passport elite

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Froli101

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May 15, 2015
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ive had my external drive for a few yrs. and decided the other night to put a password on it through smartware, when reconnecting it on a different computer the password I created doesn't work and the hint was erased, I've got an extreme amount of man-hours in all the data on it (465GB). somebody please help me get this unlocked without erasing all the data?
 
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McHenryB

McHenryB

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Jan 31, 2015
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According to Western Digital there is no way to recover data from a drive encrypted this way if you have forgotten the password. Otherwise it would be ineffective as a security measure.

Unfortunately, encryption causes more real problems than the imaginary ones it solves.
 
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Froli101

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May 15, 2015
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I didn't forget the password it was only two days ago I put it on, plus I reconnected to the original comp, it does the same thing I can see that it shows my Seagate in advance properties but cant access it, I also tried uninstalling the smartware but it doesn't work when I restart the comp, so is there a way to reformat and use a data recovery software or change from windows to Ubuntu to bypass the password itself?
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hey there, Froli101!

I'm truly sorry to hear about your issues with the WD SmartWare and My Passport Elite! :(
Take a look at this link from our KB that explains how to unlock your drive in such unfortunate situations: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=mfzXTf
In case you don't have the virtual CD, I'd suggest you to install the newest WD SmartWare version and set up your My Passport password using it. Afterwards, when you put it on another computer where the SmartWare is not yet installed, the WD external will show up as a virtual CD drive that will help you Unlock the external HDD and the data on it.

Keep me posted! Hope this works though! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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Froli101

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May 15, 2015
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That's why I asked if I reformat it which will completely erase tha drive including tha encryption, can I recover tha data?
 
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McHenryB

McHenryB

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The data is encrypted. If you wipe it and then use recovery software to recover it then it is still encrypted. The whole point of encryption is that it is meant to be a very secure way of protecting data. If there was an easy way to bypass it then it wouldn't do the job, would it?

The bottom line is that if you have encrypted a disk and have lost the recovery key then the data on it is lost. The only way round that would be to dedicate a supercomputer for several years to crack the encryption. Encryption is a two-edged sword.

You can erase the drive and then reformat it and use it as a blank disk, but forget about the current data on it.
 
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