WD My Book reset password

Solved
KD - Sep 29, 2008 at 09:40 AM
 VL - Nov 21, 2012 at 11:32 AM
Hello,

We recently had an employee leave our company. Her files are backed-up on a WD my book essential external hard drive. The program to restore is password protectected and we have no way of getting that information. is there any way to reset the password?
Related:

4 responses

Recovery Button
Pressing the recovery button while powering up the device resets the admin user
name and password to default without erasing shared folders or volumes. The
recovery button also resets network configuration to DHCP (obtain an IP address
automatically). Follow the instructions below to reset the device using the recovery
button.
1. Turn off the device and disconnect all cables from the unit.
2. Insert a paperclip or narrow tipped pen into the recovery slot on the back of the
unit. Press and hold down the recovery button.
3. While continuing to hold down the recovery button, connect the power cable to
the back of the unit.
4. Hold the recovery button down until 10 seconds after the power/activity LED
lights on the front of the device, then release the button. The unit may take up to
three minutes to boot up completely.
Note: The default user name is admin and the default password is 123456.
39
Hi,

I just read the instructions on resetting hte admin password. While I see you have confirmed that it will not erase data, or change nay of the shares or volumes, will it leave all the other user configuration in place.

ISTR that I nWindows NT if you deleted a user, and recreated the name username again, it would have a differeint UID, so even though the name was the same, none of the file permissions would be inherited.

I dot want to reset this to find that all my user name configurations are gone, and that they wont map back onto the stored files if I recreate them.

Cheers,
Chris
0
I don't know if it will clear the user data, but I can tell you that you don't need to worry about NTFS access rights being removed. The base system for the WD MyBook is Unix. There are three partitions used by the OS, one of which is a swap partition, and then one used for data. On the two-drive systems, the same three partitions exist on both drives for the OS, and the fourth partition is used for data on each. (RAID 1 mirrors the data, RAID 0 creates one partition out of both drives.) You don't need to worry about NTFS permissions because the drives don't keep this data stored like NTFS does. (The drives are formatted ext3 for those interested.)

Hope this eases your mind, and the minds of those that follow...

- TLD
0
gbengulo Posts 2 Registration date Saturday May 29, 2010 Status Member Last seen May 29, 2010
May 29, 2010 at 03:04 AM
Hi,
I have tried to follow the step that was mentioned above but I can't find any reset or recovery button on my laptop. Meanwhile I have an important file on my WD Smartware hard drive so I can not afford to loose it.
Any help will be welcome.
THANKS
CHEARS
0