WD passport's SES Driver cannot be installed

[jiafish]

I have a My passport essential se, which i havent used in a while. Now when i connect to laptop, it doesnt appear.
i did extensive research online, it appears in the device manager, under other devices, as "unknown device"

i have tried uninstalling and reconnecting the passport but it doesnt work. i have tried changing cable, usb port, computer, none of which works.

what seems to work the most is installing the SES Driver manually from this link: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/5419

however, once i install the .msi file, nothing happens. SES Driver does appear in my list of programs, but when i go to the folder that its suppose to be installed in, i dont see it. (and yes, see hidden file is enabled)
so im wondering perhaps someone can give me the files that SES Driver actually contains, so that i can load it manually from the device manager through browse driver option.
I believe these files are in the my passport drive/extras folder as well.

thank you in advance.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Absence of the WD SES driver in no way prevents the external hard drive from being accessed & used. It's only purpose is to allow you to use some of the drive's optional features -- nothing to do with accessing, reading from or writing to the drive:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3739/~/what-is-the-ses-driver,-why-is-it-needed,-and-how-to-get-the-driver-popup-to

The only reason I installed that driver was to stop Windows throwing up an annoying error bubble every time I plugged in my Passport. If you don't get that error then it means the SES driver has been successfully installed.

 

[jiafish]

Absence of the WD SES driver in no way prevents the external hard drive from being accessed & used. It's only purpose is to allow you to use some of the drive's optional features -- nothing to do with accessing, reading from or writing to the drive:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3739/~/what-is-the-ses-driver,-why-is-it-needed,-and-how-to-get-the-driver-popup-to

The only reason I installed that driver was to stop Windows throwing up an annoying error bubble every time I plugged in my Passport. If you don't get that error then it means the SES driver has been successfully installed.

actually, from this wd answer here:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1708

"In order to simplify the installation process WD elected to use the standard drivers that are built into common operating systems. While there are a few exceptions to this, in general, there are no drivers provided by WD for our drives."

For WD My Passport, the table list that it does uses SES Drivers, i believe that it is one of the few exceptions.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there jiafish,

As Phillip Corcoran already mentioned, the SES driver should not be the cause of your external HDD not being recognized properly.
How is the drive recognized in Disk Management and does it require some action? It may require to be initialized.

Check this thread out: http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-Portable-Drives/Computer-detects-My-Passport-Essential-Se-as-Unknown-Device/td-p/348503

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

 

[jiafish]

Hi there jiafish,

As Phillip Corcoran already mentioned, the SES driver should not be the cause of your external HDD not being recognized properly.
How is the drive recognized in Disk Management and does it require some action? It may require to be initialized.

Check this thread out: http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-Portable-Drives/Computer-detects-My-Passport-Essential-Se-as-Unknown-Device/td-p/348503

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

as i said in the post above, passport essential se indeed requires the SES drive.
it does not appear in disk management at all and has been initalized upon first use, its just been sitting for a long time.
The thread you pointed me listed installing the SES drive as the solution. Which i have been unable to install properly due to reasons stated in my original post.

I downloaded the 400mb SD smartware file, and inside that folder are the extra folder, which contains the extra files i asked. However, i couldnt install them either.

After another try at uninstalling the unknown device and replugging, the passport now shows up as initio default controller. which has turned into a whole other problem. simple search comes up nothing useful, so i am now officially giving up. (after what amounts to about 4 hours of research)

Conclusion: nothing online worked, so i will now be taking it to best buy and asking for help. maybe i will get a new hard drive case and try getting back my data that way. i heard they sell them for about 20 bucks.

 

[D_Know_WD]

If you put the drive in another enclosure, you most probably will not be able to access the data as the drive is hardware encrypted.
My suggestion would be to contact WD's Support either by e-mail or phone. They may be able to sort the issue out.

WD's Support: http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD