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Western Digital Corp today announced that its WD Passport(TM) Portable and WD Passport Pocket USB Drives are now shipping with software that simplifies the synchronization of essential personal files and Microsoft Outlook(R) data on a Macintosh(R) computer or PC with the portable storage devices.
WD Sync synchronization and encryption software secures owners’ data with 128-bit encryption plus password protection ensuring that personal files and Outlook data remain on the WD Passport Portable Drive or WD Passport Pocket Drive and are not copied to any computers that owners use other than their primary ones. Owners of WD Passport Portable and WD Passport Pocket models sold previously without the WD Sync software now can download the software for free from WD’s Web site: www.wdc.com/passportsoftware
WD Passport Portable and WD Passport Pocket USB Drives are powered by the USB bus with no need for a separate power supply (for most systems). Combined with the easy-to-set-up, customizable WD Sync software, the two devices are easy to use anywhere — simply plug in and store. WD Passport Portable USB Drives are offered in capacities of 60, 80 and 120 GB while the USB 2.0 WD Passport Pocket Drives, stores up to 6 GB of digital content.
I just purchased my passport essential 320Gb just store important files from work. The preset for the backup is documents, e-mail, pictures, etc but not the option to back up files I need to back up. Is there a way to designate what to back up rather then the pre-set folders?
Thanks
Hi there all of you. Today I made the mistake of bying this WD2500, big mistake. Its useless, literally useless, impossible to use. Fortunately I live in Denmark and the consumer laws here are strong and tomorrow the store will have to take it back and refund my money, haha. There is only one conclusion: I should never have bought this and Ill never ever buy WD procucts again in m life, its completely worthless crap!
Hi have sussed some of the problems with using the WD Passport. If you simply want to save files or photos its better to keep them as standard or exact copy files ie simply click start – computor- wd drive- right click and create a new folder on the new drive ie MY SUFF copy all into this subfolder or directly copy to the drive if you like but id rename them with CAPITALS so you will always know these are your copied files you have move or created ie all pre installed software and synced files ect the DO NOT TO TOUCH OR WIPE come or will be crated by the sync prog if used as Capital first letter then in lower case. Then simply copy and paste to these new files Then if disc space is a problem delete from your comp but if they r extra precious id keep another copy on a third external drive!!or burn cds . Note with music ect u can nominate the music files on your external drive to detect as add ins to your media player & simulaly with pics so you have acess to them with player,
Using sync is when you want to keep an up to date exact copy of settings files n folders and changes you make to your work you use and or delete made. Its probably a more useful tool to use when you have two comps like home n work then you can keep them to a identical setup n work sheets up to date by syncing between on and the other comp.Thing to remember here is if you delete files from you comp and sync them they will also be deleted or lost from your sync files ie its mirroring what youve done not keeping whats its has previously copied
Synced files are stored as encrypted and reduced form by the sync program. To Copy your Synced stuff from stored encryted form on the WD to your comp is done by selecting to copy to pc tab in the sync program this brings up a encripted copied files list that is the stored on wd you then tab all files or individually nominate by tabing the folders u want to copy back and then folling this thru to nominate where you want the files to be placed on a second comp or alternatly another drive.Its possible to format your comp and reinstall but i think thwart with danger ie if your sync is set to auto you will loose all the files that you want to copy back as well,think you need to have auto sync off and copy back as above but i would make third copies way before i even tried
Safer Backups of your files to restore in case of meltdown ect are better handled by specific windows backup or nortons ect and then you can nominate the WD drive as your backup location and retreive them from there using those or simular program Hope this helps someone it blew out and i got more speed up than i meant too lol
This thing is a real piece of garbage. I have the 160GB version and the software works only when it feels like it. (I’m using Vista.) I will check certain folders to be synched, it’ll say it was synched, and then when I open the files on the WD drive, they won’t be there. Then I re-open the file options dialog box, and the wrong (or none of) the folders will be checked. It’s really very frustrating. Now I can’t access the files on the drive, even though the drive is nearly full of data. The software is finicky.
Just plain junk.
i have bought a new transcend 250 gb sata USB harddisk..
when i tried to copy a iso file of size 4GB..it shows an error that “the file system is too large to copy”
please help me with this
Yeah ok, so apparently this WD sync external hard drive is a piece of crap. I have had the same problem most of you are having. I put a whole crap load of pictures on this thing one day. Then maybe a week later I tried adding some more stuff from my PC to the external hard drive, but instead of adding the new files to the hard drive with my pictures, it completely replaced my pictures with the new files… Years of pictures, gone just like that. Thanks you piece of shit product. All i wanted was something to store KB, MB, and GB not all this extra crap. WD YOU SUCK
Anyways how can I add new files to the hard drive from my PC? Anyone know?
Yes I had the same problem with this – how do you work it?
Well the complete info is at:
https://support.dmailer.com/client/FAQ/FAQproduct.jsp?idProduct=18#question65
BW
David
Soooo I was really considering purchasing the WD 500GB passport for photos and music to free some space on my laptop, but I’d like to choose what to put on the passport, which sounds kind of difficult…and now I’m a little nervous about trying to retrieve the info. Can anyone tell me if I should choose a different brand maybe or still try this and hope that all of the retrieving problems will be fixed..
Thanks!
Ok! I am about to lose my head … for some reason my WD Passport is not working anymore. When I plug it in… it will light up like it is supposed to but then nothing….. Like most of you I have all my pics in this thing not to mention all my music and important file that I have no back up for…. O God I need help!
YOU CAN GET YOUR SYNC’D FILES BACK!
After three hours of searching, I found that DMAILER has really got their act together. They have a program that will allow you to extract the files back to your computer. The only problem is that none of the names are retained. Personally, I’m OKAY with that, considering the 26gb of data I would have lost when my computer died.
https://support.dmailer.com/client/FAQ/FAQ.jsp
It seems that many people had had many serious issues! The quewstion is, “What does WD have to say about it”. Does anyone have any feed back & timing from WD Tech Support?
The best kept secret in the world is the WM User Manual. I am very sorry that I bought the damn WM passport. Probably it can only function as a “copy and paste” backup device, the rest of the advertised functions are all bullshit and the company wants to keep this a secret.
I have a wd3200 (320gb) WD PASSPORT ESSENTIAL external hard drive and the lack of any type of user guide is infuriating!!! I can back up to the passport fine, but how on earth do I then access the encrypted files on it? I have wasted hours trawling through this website (and the net) for this basic but essential information without any luck and am totally fed up. If WD valued its customers it would provide some sort of user manual either with the product or at least make its website more user friendly so non techy people (probably the majority of us) can find such information without having to take a day off work to do so. Buck up your ideas WD or I, for one, will be shopping elsewhere in future!
I’m having a hard time figuring out the damn program as well. Here’s some leads from the WD website.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_sid=6-lDFxnj&p_lva=1434&p_li=&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_page=1&p_cv=&p_pv=&p_prods=0&p_cats=0&p_hidden_prods=&prod_lvl1=0&cat_lvl1=0&p_search_text=WD+Sync+synchronization+software&srch_btn_submit=%C2%A0%C2%A0%C2%A0Search%C2%A0%C2%A0%C2%A0&p_new_search=1&p_search_type=answers.search_nl
Eey guys,
I have a problem with my wd passport. it is full for about 60 gb and i have 160 gb left but when i try to copy a 10 gb game from my pc it says that it is full. I have no idea what the problem might be, so does anyone have any idea please send my an email: timobac@hotmail.com
Thanks,
Timo
I have a WD passport elite and I used WD Sync to copy all ‘my pictures’ folder to my passport. Now I’m not able to retrieve my pictures from my passport. Has anyone been able to do that?
I don’t understand the WD Passport at all. I thought I’d backed up all of my photos over 10 years on it, so when my local moronic PC repairers lost all of my data I was unfazed – until I couldn’t find it on the WD. All I want is a bleedin’ user manual!
Ok well i used the WD diagnostics to clear my passport but for some reason it deleted everything including the syncing software. I have redownloaded the syncing software but i cant seem to see the drive if i go to Computer.. i can only see it on the device manager..
im sure its probably something simple i have to do but it escapes me at the moment.
Help?
@ Lost Techie – you will need to format the external drive as NTFS. FAT32, which is the default file system type under Windows, does not support files larger then 4GB.
@damsel in distress, you have a similar problem – the WD Passport Studio edition comes preformatted for Macs using the HFS+ file system which Windows does not recognise.
You should format the drive as NTFS if you are planning to use it on Windows. I think Macs read this format as well.
Needless to say, you should backup your data somewhere else before reformatting your drive, as formatting erases ALL the data.
I’m trying to copy a 6GB zip file over to my new 360GB WD USB drive, and it says the file is too large to copy to the destination… even though the USB drive is empty…
whats going on?