You're experiencing issues with your My Passport 1TB drive after installing it, specifically the "No writable WD SmartWare partition found" error, which has made the drive inaccessible. You're worried about losing your valuable data, including thousands of photos and files used at work. To resolve this, you can try using third-party software such as Deep Data Recovery Wizard, DiskGenius, or Recuva, which can help recover lost data and possibly restore the partition. Additionally, running a disk check or scanning the drive with a tool like CheckDisk can also help identify and potentially fix any issues. It's recommended to act quickly to minimize data loss. Would you like me to elaborate on any of these options?
If you're experiencing the error 'No writable WD SmartWare partition found' on your Western Digital external hard drive, you're not alone. This issue can make the drive inaccessible, especially on My Passport in Windows or Mac. Don't worry, data loss and disk replacement are not the only options. With the help of some useful instructions and tutorials, you can fix this problem and recover any lost partition data.
Just follow the two steps below and then you can fix the error without data loss.
You can try Qiling hard drive recovery software to recover data from the Western Digital hard drive when it cannot open due to the 'No writable WD SmartWare partition found' error, as it works well to retrieve data from lost partitions, and is available for Mac users to download.
Connect your WD external hard drive to your PC, download and launch Qiling free data recovery software, select the disk, and click the "Scan" button to initiate the recovery process.
2. The software will soon start a quick scan to find the lost & existing data on the WD hard drive partition. After the scan is completed, a deep scan will automatically launch to find more files.
After scanning the WD hard drive, preview and select the files you want to recover, then click the "Recover" button to retrieve them back.
After restoring all your data, you can try to resolve the 'No writable WD SmartWare partition found' issue by using the disk management tool to reformat the WD external hard drive. This may help fix the problem.
1. Open disk management tool.
2. Find the drive listing that corresponds to the one you want to partition and format, which is usually indicated by an unallocated black bar.
3. Right-click on the black bar to see a menu of available options, then left-click on New Simple Volume.
4. To reformat a Western Digital hard drive using the Simple Volume Wizard, follow the on-screen instructions to complete the wizard, which will guide you through the process of reformatting the drive. This will erase all data on the drive.
After completing the steps, the Western Digital hard drive's bar will turn blue, indicating it's Healthy, and you'll no longer encounter the 'No writable WD SmartWare partition found' error.