Hacking Western Digital MyPassport Essential

[yatesl]

I wasn't sure if this belongs in this section, the hardware, or general. It's to do with USB Loaders, though, so I took a chance.

Anyway, at the moment I have an ugly docking station for my hard drive, and a standard internal 500GB drive sticking out of it. Gets the job done, fantastically, but it's a serious eye sore next to everything, and makes moving the Wii (and items) from one house to another a delicate (and potentially devastating) process. Having a look round, I've noticed there's a WD hard drive that's enough space (500GB, about 160 games ... I'd say that's enough) for general needs, and you can get it in white to match the Wii. However, the separate partition on it (the 'back up' side) has me slightly worried.

Apparently, you can't remove this part, as it's somehow classed as a DVD drive or whatever. I'm guessing this drive is commonly known (or used), so I was wondering if anyone had any advice on it - Does CFG Loader throw a fit over it, not finding the HDD partition, or am I good to go?

Another link.

 

[XFlak]

this drive works great, it takes a little bit longer for the Wii and PCs to sense a hard drive is plugged in, but otherwise its great.

FYI, these drives are notorious for having sleep timers preset to 10 minutes or something, to change this, install the WD software included on the virtual CD partition, then turn the sleep timer to off.

Also, don't forget, u probably want to format the drive to FAT32 if its going to be used primarily for the Wii

 

[yatesl]

Yeah, I know - I'm in the process of putting my back ups back on to my current one, as I've had to format it to combine the two partitions I had (I had it split 50/50, turns out I eventually got more Wii games that I thought). Eight hours, not fun.

Now I just need to justify to myself spending £70 on something that's mostly cosmetic. Then again, I think this answers it for me;

 

[Pakatus]

i have one of those...and what XFlak told you is true.
They tend to get "slower" than the previous model.

As for your question...yes you can remove smartware. There are instructions at the WD site to upgrade firmware and remove it.

 

[XFlak]

i have one of those...and what XFlak told you is true.
They tend to get "slower" than the previous model.

As for your question...yes you can remove smartware. There are instructions at the WD site to upgrade firmware and remove it.

IIRC, there is no way to remove it, u can only disable it (ie. u don't recover the 0.5GB or w/e space partitioned on the virtual CD)

but maybe something has changed in recent firmware updates, its been awhile since I've had to d*ck around with this sh*t

 

[yatesl]

I don't really mind if it stays there, as long as it doesn't get in the way. Who knows, one day it might actually save me.

 

[Pakatus]

i have one of those...and what XFlak told you is true.
They tend to get "slower" than the previous model.

As for your question...yes you can remove smartware. There are instructions at the WD site to upgrade firmware and remove it.

IIRC, there is no way to remove it, u can only disable it (ie. u don't recover the 0.5GB or w/e space partitioned on the virtual CD)

but maybe something has changed in recent firmware updates, its been awhile since I've had to d*ck around with this sh*t

But thing is...i never managed for the disk to be recognized in the HBC before i removed that sh*t...
it was a pain..believe me.

PS1: Yes...you can remove it in the new firmware
PS2: Yes...it's still slow to awake.

 

[XFlak]

Can you explain me how to turn the sleep timer off...like you posted here?

http://gbatemp.net/t243255-western-digital...sport-essential

Thanks,

Just install the WD software included on the virtual cd of the drive, launch it, and look for the option to turn off the sleep timer and turn it off (I've only had to do this once, and it was a long time ago, so if u need a more detailed description, I won't be able to give u one... I don't even own that drive anymore)

Cheers.

edit: Don't take it personally that I posted the answer to your PM publicly, I just want others with the same Q to be able to search and find the answer too

 

[Pakatus]

Can you explain me how to turn the sleep timer off...like you posted here?

http://gbatemp.net/t243255-western-digital...sport-essential

Thanks,

Just install the WD software included on the virtual cd of the drive, launch it, and look for the option to turn off the sleep timer and turn it off (I've only had to do this once, and it was a long time ago, so if u need a more detailed description, I won't be able to give u one... I don't even own that drive anymore)

Cheers.

edit: Don't take it personally that I posted the answer to your PM publicly, I just want others with the same Q to be able to search and find the answer too

Sure..np...and thanks

 

[mestapho]

Having used the WD and Seagate, I would suggest taking a look at a seagate.

 

[hdhacker]

Having used the WD and Seagate, I would suggest taking a look at a seagate.

I agree. I originally had the WDC Essential and opened it up to disable the sleep mode. Sleep mode supposedly isn't an issue with the newer CIOSes, but it's trivial to turn off on the Seagate. My FreeAgent Go has been rock solid.

 

[renhoek23]

As long as WD are messing around forcing useless software on their customers I would recommend avoiding any hdd that has ''smartware' installed, on principal alone.

The software was/is a complete disaster and will render the hdd useless on anything other than pc until its disabled. The passports also have drivers and firmware which is ridiculous for a portable hdd.

I bought one by mistake and can confirm it works 100% with the wii once 'smartware' is disabled, wishing I bought another brand though feels like a pre installed rootkit.

 

[yatesl]

I don't mind who the manufacturer is (although I've only heard good things about WD?), as long as the outer casing is white, it's about the same size of the Wii, and USB powered.

 

[Kittymat]

I have 2 of the WD passport Essentials, both work fine without the Virtual CD being disabled, however the plug is the biggest problem, if you unplug the cable the unit soon becomes unresponsive, then it will work if you wiggle the plug, why oh why did they have to use this useless plug rather than the standard USB B.

Yes the WD does work, however if you are going to unplug it and add files on a regular basis avoid it like the plague, it will soon need a new cable. WD now realise this and you can buy a spare cable as an extra - not a double header though - so fine for a PC and modern laptop but older models may have issues running it - and thanks to their corporate decision there is no easy solution

 

[bugaveli]

i have one of those...and what XFlak told you is true.
They tend to get "slower" than the previous model.

As for your question...yes you can remove smartware. There are instructions at the WD site to upgrade firmware and remove it.

IIRC, there is no way to remove it, u can only disable it (ie. u don't recover the 0.5GB or w/e space partitioned on the virtual CD)

but maybe something has changed in recent firmware updates, its been awhile since I've had to d*ck around with this sh*t

Absolutely correct xflak, you can only disable it, and never remove it as its in the flash on the usb controller