Tell me about . . .

  • WD SmartWare software

  • Operating system compatibility

  • Hard drive support

  • Functional description

  • Home tab functions

  • Backup tab functions

  • Retrieve tab functions

  • Settings tab functions

  • Help tab functions

WD SmartWare software

The WD SmartWare™ software is an easy-to-use backup application that gives you the power to:

  • Protect your data automatically—Relax! Your data is safe. Automatic, continuous backup instantly makes a second copy whenever you add or change a file.

  • See your backup as it happens—Category mode backup organizes and displays your files in categories and shows the progress of your backup.

  • Bring back lost files effortlessly—Retrieve your valuable data to its original location whether you have lost everything, deleted a file, or just overwritten an important file.

  • Take control—Customize your backup, set drive security, run diagnostics, manage the power settings, and more from the WD SmartWare control center.

  • Secure your encrypted drive—Gain peace of mind knowing that your data is protected from unauthorized access or theft with password protection and 256-bit hardware-based encryption.

Operating system compatibility

The WD SmartWare software is compatible with the following operating systems:

  • Windows XP

  • Windows Vista®

  • Windows 7

Compatibility can vary, depending on hardware configuration and operating system.

For highest performance and reliability, always install the latest updates and service pack (SP). Go to the Start menu and select Windows Update.

Hard drive support

The WD SmartWare software supports the following WD external hard drives:

  • My Book® drives:
    • My Book Essential

    • My Book for Mac*

    • My Book Elite

    • My Book Studio*

    • My Book Live

  • My Passport® drives:
    • My Passport Essential

    • My Passport Essential SE

    • My Passport for Mac*

    • My Passport SE for Mac*

    • My Passport Elite

    • My Passport Studio*

*You must reformat Mac drives for compatibility with Windows operating systems to use them with this version of the WD SmartWare software. For information about reformatting your My Book or My Passport drive, see answer ID 3865 in the WD Knowledge Base at http://support.wdc.com.

Note: The WD SmartWare software does not support other manufacturer’s hard drives, or WD hard drives that were not originally configured for the WD SmartWare software.

Functional description

All operational features and capabilities of the WD SmartWare software are presented in five tab-selected screen displays:

  • Home

    • Provides a content gauge showing the total capacity and category structure of your computer’s internal hard drive, and each external My Book or My Passport drive connected to it.

    If your computer has more than one internal hard drive or multiple hard drive partitions, then the WD SmartWare software displays a selector box that you can use to specify the one you want to work with.

    If you have more than one external My Book or My Passport drive connected to your computer, then the WD SmartWare software highlights the one you select to work with.

    See Home tab functions for more information about the Home tab.

  • Backup

    • Provides:

    • A content gauge showing the total capacity and category structure of your computer’s internal hard drive, and the external My Book or My Passport drive that you are working with

    • A backup files selection box for specifying the files that you want to back up by either category or file/folder structure views

    • A File Backup/Category Backup toggle button for switching between the two backup modes

    • A Start Backup/Stop Backup toggle button for controlling the backup

    See Backup tab functions for more information about the Backup tab.

  • Retrieve

    • Provides three full-screen dialogs for selecting the:

    • Backup volume that you want to retrieve files from

    • Destination on your computer where you want to copy the retrieved files

    • Files that you want to retrieve

    See Retrieve tab functions for more information about the Retrieve tab.

  • Settings

    • Provides full-screen dialogs for managing and customizing the:

    • Software Settings

    • Drive Settings

    See Settings tab functions for more information about the Settings tab.

  • Help

    • Provides instant online access to:

    • Detailed information about backing up and retrieving files and making your software and drive setup selections

    • WD Customer Support and software update services

    See Help tab functions for more information about the Help tab.

Note: In addition to the detailed Support tab information, each WD SmartWare tab display provides easy access to abbreviated online help to quickly guide you through your backup, retrieve, and settings tasks. Whenever you are uncertain about what to do, just click the info/online help icon in the upper-right corner of the display.

To close the info/online help screen after reading the online help, click the X icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.

Home tab functions

The WD SmartWare software provides two different Home tab displays, depending on which version of the WD SmartWare software you install:

  • WD SmartWare Home tab display

  • Drive management Home tab display

With the full version of the WD SmartWare software installed, use the WD SmartWare Home tab display to view hard drive content gauges and select:

  • The internal hard drive or hard drive partition that you want to back up files from or copy retrieved files to when your computer has more than one

  • The My Book or My Passport drive that you want to back up files to, retrieve files from, or customize when you have more than one connected to your computer

With the drive management version of the WD SmartWare software installed, use the drive management Home tab display to view the content gauge for each connected My Book or My Passport drive.

Functional components of the Home tab displays include:

  • Your computer icon

  • Internal drive selector box

  • My Book or My Passport drive icon

  • Drive display scroll pointers

  • Your computer content gauge

  • My Book or My Passport drive content gauge

Your computer icon

On the WD SmartWare Home tab display, your computer icon provides the name of the internal hard drive or drive partition that the WD SmartWare software uses for backup and retrieve functions.

This icon does not appear on the drive management Home screen when you install the drive management version of the WD SmartWare software.

Right-clicking the icon and selecting Properties displays the Windows System Properties dialog.

 

Internal drive selector box

On the WD SmartWare Home tab display, if your computer has more than one internal hard drive or drive partition, the WD SmartWare software displays a selector box below your computer icon for specifying the drive or partition that you want to use for backup and retrieve functions.

This icon does not appear on the drive management Home screen when you install the drive management version of the WD SmartWare software.

 

My Book or My Passport drive icon

This icon provides the name of the My Book or My Passport drive connected to your computer. If you have more than one My Book or My Passport drive connected to your computer, left-click the drive that you want to use for backup, retrieve, and drive settings functions. The WD SmartWare software highlights your selection with a light-blue shadow background.

Right-clicking the drive icon displays a menu with options for:

  • Open—To display the drive listing in Windows Explorer

  • Properties—To display the Windows Drive Properties dialog

  • Safely remove—To prepare your system to disconnect the drive

For a network-attached My Book Live drive, the options are:

  • Open—To display the drive listing in Windows Explorer

  • Dashboard—To display the Web interface for configuring the drive

  • Learning Center—To display the My Book Live Learning Center help

  • Map—To display the Windows Map Network Drive dialog

  • Create Shortcut—To add a shortcut to the drive to your desktop display

  • Alerts—To display the WD SmartWare WD Alerts reports

  • Properties—To display the Device Details and Troubleshooting information for the drive

  • Shut Down—To ready and shut down the drive

Drive display scroll pointers

One installation of the WD SmartWare software supports as many My Book or My Passport drives as your system can handle. When the number of connected drives exceeds the display capacity, the WD SmartWare software provides left/right drive display scroll pointers so you can see them all.

 

Your computer content gauge

The content gauge for your computer’s hard drive shows all of your files that are available for backup against a blue background in six categories:

  • Documents—Includes files with these extensions: .doc, .txt, .htm, .html, .ppt, .xls, .xml, and other document extensions.

  • Mail—Includes files with these extensions: .mail, .msg, .pst., and other mail extensions.

  • Music—Includes files with these extensions: .mp3, .wav, .wma, and other music extensions.

  • Movies—Includes files with these extensions: .avi, .mov, .mp4, and other movie extensions.

  • Pictures—Includes files with these extensions: .gif, .jpg, .png, and other picture extensions.

  • Other—Others that do not belong in the five main categories.

For a complete list of all included file extensions, see answer ID 3644 in the WD Knowledge Base at http://support.wdc.com.

Note that:

  • The System category, shown against a dark gray background, includes all of your operating system files that are not available for a category-type backup, including system files, program files, applications, working files like .tmp and .log files, and any files that are stored in a Temp folder.

    • When you select and run a file-type backup, the name of the System category changes to Excluded and it then includes all of the files that were not included in your file backup.

  • Because they change so frequently, Outlook .pst files are only backed up once every 24 hours. This exclusion does not apply to other mail application files.

  • Hovering the pointer over a category displays the number of files in the category.

The content gauge for your computer’s hard drive is not available if you install the drive management version of the WD SmartWare software.

 

My Book or My Passport drive content gauge

After installing the WD SmartWare software—before running your first backup or copying any files to the drive—the content gauge for your My Book or My Passport drive shows a small number of files in the Additional Files category. These are the system files and hidden files that your computer’s operating system put there when you installed the drive.

After running a backup or copying files to the drive, this content gauge shows all of the files in the same categories as the content gauge for your computer’s internal hard drive.

Backup tab functions

The WD SmartWare software provides two different Backup tab displays, depending on how you want to select files to back up:

  • By category—As shown in the content gauges

  • By file—As shown in the folder structure of your computer’s internal hard drive

Use the WD SmartWare Backup tab displays to select the files or types of files that you want to back up and control the backup operation.

Note: The Backup tab does not appear if you install the drive management version of the WD SmartWare software.

Functional components of the Backup tab displays include:

  • Your computer content gauge

  • My Book or My Passport drive content gauge

  • Switch to Category Backup/Switch to File Backup toggle button

  • Advanced backup area

  • Start Backup/Stop Backup toggle button

Your computer content gauge

The function of the content gauge for your computer on the Backup tab is the same as the one on the Home tab.

 

My Book or My Passport drive content gauge

The function of the content gauge for your My Book or My Passport drive on the Backup tab is the same as the one on the Home tab.

 

Switch to Category Backup/Switch to File Backup toggle button

Use this toggle button to switch the backup mode between categories and individual files:

  • Category mode—Backs up files according to their categories, as shown in the content gauges for your computer and your My Book or My Passport drive.

    The button name is Switch to File Backup when the backup mode is category.

  • File mode—Backs up files according to their folder structure on your computer.

    The button name is Switch to Category Backup when the backup mode is file.

    •  

Advanced backup area

In category mode, the initial/default configuration of the WD SmartWare software is to back up all of your files. In this configuration, the advanced backup area is blank.

Clicking Advanced View displays a backup files selection box that you can use to specify the categories of files that you want to back up.

Clicking Apply Changes in the backup files selection box updates the content gauge for your computer and your My Book or My Passport drive.

Clicking Switch to File Backup displays a folder structure view that you can use to specify individual files or folders that you want to back up.

Note: The folder structure displaces the content gauge for your computer on the Backup tab display.

In file mode, the initial/default configuration of the WD SmartWare software is with none of the files/folders selected for backup. After selecting the files or folders that you want to back up, clicking:

  • Apply Changes updates the content gauge for your My Book or My Passport drive
  • Revert clears your recent selections and redisplays the prior applied configuration

 

Start Backup/Stop Backup toggle button

Controls backup operations by starting and stopping the backup.

Retrieve tab functions

Three WD SmartWare software Retrieve tab displays guide you through the tasks for finding backup files and copying them to your computer’s hard drive:

  • Selecting a volume to retrieve from

  • Selecting a destination for retrieved files

  • Selecting the files to retrieve from your My Book or My Passport drive

Functional components of the Retrieve tab displays include:

  • Backed Up Volumes selection box

  • Retrieve destination option buttons

  • Change retrieve folder box and Browse button

  • Retrieve files option buttons

  • Retrieve some files selection box

 

Backed Up Volumes selection box

On the Select a volume to retrieve from display, the Backed Up Volumes selection box Lists the backed up volumes that are available to retrieve files from on the selected My Book or My Passport drive.

You must select a backup volume before you can click Next to continue with the retrieve operation.

 

Retrieve destination option buttons

On the Select a destination for retrieved files display, use the retrieve destination option buttons to specify the location on your computer’s hard drive where you want to copy the files retrieved from the selected My Book or My Passport drive:

  • To the Original Places copies the retrieved files to the same location that they were backed up from.

  • To a Retrieved content Folder copies the retrieved files to the specified retrieved content folder.

    •  

Change retrieve folder box and Browse button

By default, the WD SmartWare software creates and uses a folder named Retrieved Content in the My Documents folder for your user name. If you want to specify a different folder, use the Browse function and click Apply.

 

Retrieve files option buttons

By default, the Retrieve Some Files option is selected and the WD SmartWare software displays a selection box that you can use to find and retrieve only selected files or folders.

Selecting the Retrieve All Files option closes the selection box and the WD SmartWare software retrieves all of the files from the selected backup volume on the selected My Book or My Passport drive.

 

Retrieve some files selection box

Displays the all of the files from the selected backup volume on the selected My Book or My Passport drive in a folder structure with check boxes for selecting individual files or folders.

 

Start/Cancel Retrieving toggle button

Controls retrieve operations by starting and canceling the retrieve.

Settings tab functions

The WD SmartWare software provides two Settings tab displays, depending on whether you install the full version or the drive management version of the software:

  • With the full version of the WD SmartWare software installed, the WD SmartWare Settings tab display provides buttons that link to the:
    • Software Settings screen

    • Drive Settings screen
  • With the drive management version of the WD SmartWare software installed, the Settings tab displays only the drive management Drive Settings screen

Functional components of the Settings tab displays include:

  • File History button

  • Backup Speed button

  • Retrieve Folder button

  • Preferences buttons

  • Label button

  • Security button

  • Registration button

  • Diagnostics button

  • Sleep Timer button

  • Drive Erase button

 

File History button

Displays the Set File History dialog for specifying the number of backup versions that you want to keep for each file.

 

Backup Speed button

Displays the Reduce Backup Speed dialog for enabling/disabling the option to run backups only when your computer is idle.

Retrieve Folder button

Displays the Set Retrieve Folder dialog for specifying a different destination folder for retrieved files.

 

Preferences buttons

On the Software Settings screen, when you have installed the full version of the WD SmartWare software, displays the Set Preferences dialog for enabling/disabling the option that automatically checks for software updates.

On the drive management Drive Settings screen, when you have installed the drive management version of the WD SmartWare software, displays the Set Preferences dialog for enabling/disabling the options that:

  • Automatically check for software updates

  • Enable the backup and retrieve functions

    •  

Label button

For My Book or My Passport drives that have a customizable label, displays the Label dialog for naming the drive.

 

Security button

On encrypted drives, and depending on whether your drive is already password protected or not, displays the:

  • Set Security dialog for creating a password

  • Your Drive is Secure dialog for changing your password or turning off the drive lock feature

    •  

Registration button

Displays the Register Drive dialog for registering your My Book or My Passport drive.

 

Diagnostics button

Displays the Run Diagnostics dialog for launching three diagnostic/self-test utilities for checking drive health:

  • Quick SMART Status

  • Quick Drive Test

  • Complete Drive Test

 

Sleep Timer button

Displays the Set Sleep Timer dialog for specifying the period of inactivity for turning off the drive.

 

Drive Erase button

Displays the Drive Erase dialog for erasing your My Book or My Password drive.

Help tab functions

The WD SmartWare Help tab displays provide quick access to Learning Center topics and links to online support services.

The Learning Center topics provide more detail than the info/online help for each screen, but not as much as the user manual.

Functional components of the Help tab displays include:

  • Learning Center topic buttons

  • Update Software button

  • Support link

  • Contact Us link

  • Online User Manuals link

  • WD Store link

Learning Center topic buttons

Clicking each button displays a main Learning Center help topic:

  • Overview

  • Backup

  • Retrieve

  • Manage & Customize

Update Software button

Uses your web browser to compare the revision levels of your WD SmartWare software and the firmware of the selected My Book or My Passport drive with the most recent available versions. If updated software or firmware is available, the WD SmartWare software prompts you do download and install it.

Support link

Uses your web browser to connect to the WD Service & Support Home page at:

http://support.wdc.com.

Contact Us link

Uses your web browser to connect to the WD Service & Support Contact Us page at:

http://support.wdc.com/contact

Online User Manuals link

Uses your web browser to connect to the user manuals page at:
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartware/um.asp.

There, you can select and open the online version of the user manual for your My Book or My Passport drive.

WD Store link

Uses your web browser to connect to the WD online store at: http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdus/DisplayHomePage&swlang=ENU.