Setting up security to lock or unlock a WD external drive with WD Smart Ware

Important Notes:

• In order to set up security on a WD SmartWare external drive, you will need to have WD SmartWare installed.
• Passwords have a limit of 25 characters total.

1. Open the WD SmartWare program. It should bring you to the Home tab. Click on the Settings tab.

2. Under Settings, click on Set Up Drive.

3. Under Settings, you should already be showing the Security settings. If not, click on Security. You will need to then type in a password (passwords have a 25 character limitation), and then verify it, by typing it in again. Once you've typed in the password twice, check the I understand box in confirmation that there's no way to retrieve your password if you forget it.

4. Once you click on Update Security Settings, you will be notified that your drive is secure.

5. If you want to change your security settings, just type in your password and choose either Remove Security or Change Password, in order to do either.

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Unlocking a Drive

WD SmartWare can unlock a drive two different ways. The Automatic Unlock pops up if you have SmartWare installed and a locked drive is attached. The other way is by Manual Unlock. To manually unlock the drive you open the Virtual CD and double click on the "Unlock” icon. The manual unlock does not require SmartWare to be installed on the system.

To re-lock the drive, the drive has to lose power to the USB port. You can do this by unplugging the USB cable and then plugged it back in.

Automatic Unlock

When a locked drive is connected to the system it should popup with a box asking for the password. This box may take a few minutes to come up. When the box comes up, type in your password and click on Unlock. Your drive should now be unlocked.

Manually Unlock

1. If your drive is locked and you are not prompted to unlock it when the drive is attached. You can go to My Computer, or Computer, and open the Virtual CD for the drive. Then double-click on the Unlock.exe.

(Windows)	(Mac)

2. The Drive Unlock screen will open. Type in your password and click on Unlock.

3. If the password was correct, the drive should be unlocked. Click on Exit.

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Failed Login

If you enter the wrong password 5 times, you will receive the screen below. In order to try your password 5 more times, you will need to safely eject the drive and unplug both the power and data cable from the unit. Then plug it back it. You will now be given 5 more tries before you get the below screen again.

If you can’t remember your password then you will not be able to access the drive. However, you can reuse the drive after it has been formatted. Reformatting the drive will erase all the data on the unit, as well as remove the password from the drive. If you want to start over, check the I understand that reformatting my drive will delete all of my data and click Format. The drive will be reformatted and unlocked to start over again.

Important: The reformatting option will only work through the Automatic Unlock feature that shows up when you plug the drive in to the computer.

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