Something I have read about this....
Beware of WD's SmartWare software.....
"BUYER BEWARE....This is a great hard drive, except for one fatal issue. Western Digital includes their backup software, "SmartWare" on this drive. That's normally not an issue, you reformat and partition the drive and it's gone. However, WD included a special virtual CD (VCD) partition as part of the enclosure or firmware, which is NOT accessible to the user. I've tried all the utilities in OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu Linux to destroy this VCD, but no luck. I contacted Western Digital inquiring about a removal utility or firmware flash, and they gave me a run around answer and basically said no, we have no plans to do that. The VCD automatically mounts on your machine when the drive is inserted, which gets annoying very quickly. I found a workaround in OS X and Windows, to keep the VCD partition from mounting, but it shouldn't have to be this way. If you've ever had to deal with the horrid U3 software on a SanDisk flash drive, then you'll know what I'm talking about. At least SanDisk provides a utility to remove their software, and gain back the full capacity of the drive. This SmartWare VCD uses almost 1GB of the drive. A drop in the bucket, yes, but I don't like being told how to use my storage space by Western Digital. Aside from that, it functions and is built quite well. My only other complaint is that the barrel plug for the power adapter, and the USB cable sit pretty loosely in the back of the drive when they're connected and are prone to falling out if you move the drive around too much. Otherwise, a good hard drive."
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