I have a drive where the usb on the chip broke and can not access the hard drive because of the smatware password.If i plug in hardrive I can re format, but how do i access the drive to recover my files before resetting the drive. i know my password, but cannot access the smatware software to unlock the drive any one have any ideas. WD says I have to go to datareceovery for over $400 dollars.
1 Answer
Try updating the firmware to remove the smartware altogether?
See this question: How do I remove a MyBook's “WD SmartWare” virtual CD from my desktop?
You can also give TestDisk a try, it's saved me many times for data recovery purposes but may also be able to read past the smartware lock.