Technology

Keeping WD Passport USB Drives in Sync

Tue, May 30 - 8:18 pm EDT | 8 years ago by colbert

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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.

Keeping WD Passport USB Drives in Sync source

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Dave Cutchin

I have a new WD Passport portable USB drive with WD Sync software. Software looks great if only I could figure out how to use it. Interface is sort of “Wizard like” but the online help will not work and there is no printed manual (or manual available online). Also, it does not seem to be able to back up (sync) my OE contacts.

I have no idea of how to use the drive to transfer this data to a host computer.
ignivs

I’m having trouble with WD Sync…
My default mail porgram is Outlook, but the Sync tool doesn’t allow me to backup their content… it says that’s not my default mail soft…
It let me backup my outlook express mails (that are not on the defautl mail client)
Becca

I also am having problems with my WD Passport. All I want to do is move my itunes music to it so that it is not taking up space on my laptop… I thought it would be easy but I can’t seem to figure it out.
Tom

I had trouble for a while, but I’m starting to get the hang of it. There are two ways to put files on the drive: the first uses the sync tool, and it’s really neat when you figure out how to use it. It’s almost like you’re just taking your computer with you – it will even change the wallpaper of the computer you’re using to match yours.
Ignivs said he had trouble syncing Outlook: when you go to IE, does it say your default mail is Outlook or OE? (Tools>Internet Options>Programs)
For Becca, the problem is actually really easy: just skip using the sync at all and simply copy your iTunes folder into the E:\ folder.
Train

am able to download pictures to sync drive but have not learned to add more afterward

would love to find a basic manual

want to learn to use add command or whatever causes it to pick up all “my picutes”
joy

I agree with the above comments that figuring out the sync software is not straight-forward. I am trying to figure out how to UNSYNC files that have been sync’ed – has anyone figured this out?
Steve Parry

Hey everyone, if you need some help on this then check out the following site.

http://www.dmailer.com/site/products/wdsync_key_features.html

Hope it helps, there is even a user guide in pdf.
Toby

I suspect that my files are not really encrypted. Encrypted information cannot be compressed , since only non-random infromation can be compressed Yet I was able to compress my “encrypted” files. Is my logic wrong?
Antuan

I have the wd 160gb passport and i’d like to know if there is a way of syncronizing it with itunes
http://www.thesmsguide.com colbert low

Antuan – This might help

http://www.angrypotato.net/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16572
http://www.thegadgetblog.com/2006/05/30/keeping-wd-passport-usb-drives-in-sync/ My Damn Self

I’m also having trouble coping iTunes to my WD Passport. Below is the advice previously given, but I don’t know how to skip using the sync or copy the iTunes folder on the E:/Folder.
HELP!???

For Becca, the problem is actually really easy: just skip using the sync at all and simply copy your iTunes folder into the E:\ folder.
http://www.thegadgetblog.com/2006/05/30/keeping-wd-passport-usb-drives-in-sync/ My Damn Self

And its probably relevant to tell that I have a Mac…..
http://www.thegadgetblog.com/2006/05/30/keeping-wd-passport-usb-drives-in-sync/ My Damn Self

Furthermore, when I first purchased my Passport, I was able to copy iTunes on it with no problem, but when I upgraded to iTunes 7.2, I erased the older version off and it wouldnt let me add the iTunes 7.2.
Domenec

¿Can I use the WD Sync as I use the briefcase in Windows?. I need to work alternatively with external unit and the fixed drive in the Computer
Lyknight

Id like to copy some of my programs from one computer to the other, using the WD drive,

But i cant seem to figure out how to actually add a whole folder of files to the hard drive…

is it another copy and paste into the E:/..
or can i use the WD software.
Roly

Please help
I have a 60gig WD passport and my cpmuter is not seeing it when I connect it VIA USB. Device manager does recognize it but my computer does not, therefore I cannot enter and view my stored data. I am using windows vista and I have all my drivers updated. Any Ideas?
Maria

Roly, the same problem here. My Toshiba Tecra does not recognize WD passport. Device manager does recognize it but when I open My Computer, WD is not in there. On top of that, WD’s website is down (God knows how long…). Can anybody help us?
julian

The problem I have when copying music files is that if I have two versions of a song – one live and one original – the WD program cannot tell them apart despite different file sizes and album titles. I was suprised bc windows explorer never has that problem. I think the sync function might get around it though. anyone else have this problem?
http://Synch-ingnumerousoutlook.pstfiles Dave

Hi,
I have three .pst files on my laptop – but when I sync with my WD passport, only one .pst file is carried over – any clue how I can get it to copy all three .pst files? I have the outlook folder checked.

Cheers, Dave
PK

Maria and Rolly I am having the exact same problem as you guys. Any news?
Mix

Maria, Roly, PK, same problem here too… except I used to be able to use the device just fine. Would love to get to my files.
Barb

I’m not in love with the WD passport. I missed my Mac and went back to it with my latest PC purchase. I backed up EVERYTHING including “precious” files and family photos. The WD Passport was annoying in that it didn’t want to allow me to add files from my desktop once I realized they weren’t backed up. Now it won’t open to transfer anything to my Mac. I’m not sure what to do next.
Bill Mac

I can’t get this WD 160 GB to even be recognized by my PC. It is very frustrating, I am going to return to Sam’s where I bought it for $89.95.
Has anyone tried the 800 help line. Do they speak english?
fgwyn

Hi I have just bought a WD Passport 160 GB and am just trying to copy and paste folders (not using sync). Worked fine for my photos but got through half a folder of my other files (mainly Word docs) decided it didn’t like one file and stopped the whole transfer. Any ideas much appreciated ! Thanks !
Jaclyn

I have a Mac PowerBook laptop, and I could use my WD Passport (Black) when I used another power source for it. Apparently Passport needs xx amount of power to be operable. I got it to work and transferred all my files from laptop as backup. The last time I transferred anything was a few months ago (3rd time to use it) and now it’s not recognizing anything on my laptop… what can I do? What did I do wrong? It was stored at a cool place, no sunlight, or fire or anything that sort… I’m planning to connect it to a PC, but read your comments and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea now.
Could someone help?
PS. I never liked the Passport. Once I get my files back, I’ll sell it… if I could get my files back.
Just Bill

If you have a solution to my problem or comment, please let me know. Thanks, Bill
anon

Yeah I am having the same issues. The “Quick Install Guide” tells almost nothing about how to install the drive, backup files, or retrieve files. I’ve spent hours trying to figure it out and trying different things. I’ve spent a good amount of time corresponding with someone from customer service who just keeps saying over and over, “Refer to the Quick Install Guide”. I suspect he doesn’t speak English. LOL, This is ridiculous. I am so sorry I purchased this product. WD will not accept a refund and neither will the retailer, because I threw out the package. Don’t buy this product!
Vicky

Iv been having the same problem as some of you people. I took out my WD passport and when i put it back in again it wouldnt detect it on the computer although the USB light is on on the actual hard drive. Does anyone no what to do because i have all my files on there and no i cant access anything!
Alan

This is for Roly, Maria and Vicky. Don’t know how this works or why but in March of this year I bought a 160GB WD external hard drive to back up my desk top which was going in for an upgrade. it worked fine once; The time I used it to back up and store all my files!!! After that I had the same problem. The light was on but no one was at home!!! I can not tell you why but for some reason some where between bashing it on the desk and banging my head against the wall I swapped the usb lead it came with (which is perhaps about 400mm long) for a shorter lead that came with a card reader I bought in Kalimanttan (another story!!). This lead is about 200mm long (1/2 the size) and the bloody thing works!!!! Every time, long lead nothing, short lead, up and running in seconds. It’s enough to make you want to chew your own leg off or the head of the salesman that sold it to you!!!! Plug and go….nonsense. Absolutely no idea why, these things run off milliamps and the current flow shouldn’t be affected by an extra 200mm but that’s all I can think it is. Hope it works for you. I have since restored all my files and the WD is stashed in the deepest darkest corner of my brief case. Good luck, Alan
damsel in distress

I switched from a pc to a mac and when i got my mac, all i did was plug in the WD Passport and it worked perfectly fine. Now, I plugged it in today and it says that it hasn’t been formatted or somehting and the computer can’t read it. What’s wrong?
Lost Techie

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?
monsieurgadget

@ 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.
Eva

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?
Lycurgas

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!
Michelle

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?
Timo

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
Tommy

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
ANGIE

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!
dundar aytar

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.
Dave

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?
https://support.dmailer.com Chris

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
clulssact

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!
hafpint9

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!
David

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
http://myspace.com/themufflicks FrankH

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?
varun

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
pniemczyk

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.
aussie guy

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
mike fotopoulos

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!
Ulrich Kniep

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
Kev

I can sync all my files,great.But when I go to do it again and if I have deleted files from my laptop they automatically get removed from my passport.I’ve lost my whole itunes library because of this.Any help would be much appreciated.
Michelle

There is a user manual in pdf format on the E:/ folder. its in pretty much all languages that are most common. Its under documentation :D
mboc

Don’t get a WD! It is extremely frustrating and if you’re not familiar with Sync-ing you can accidentally delete many files you’re actually trying to back up!

I’m going to research some other brands before I buy my next portable hard drive (this one was a gift that I’m going to sell asap).
http://technogra.ph Rico Mossesgeld

What exactly happened to you? How’d you lose your files?
http://technogra.ph Rico Mossesgeld

varun: Disks encoded with the FAT32 file format can’t support file sizes larger than just below 4GB. You’ll have to reformat the disk to use the NTFS file format, but the hard disk will only be able to work with Windows PCs as a result.