cannot format WD Passport (WDBAAA2500ABK-00)

[AFD]

Hi folks,

As you may have heard Western Digital external drives seem to play funny with Linux

I have acquired a 250GB WD Passport (WDBAAA2500ABK-00) and would like to format to use with Linux - possibly even as a persistant LiveUSB...

Has anyone de-cyphered how to format these little buggers?

Gparted and Fedora 13's Disk Utility can't touch it.

All I understand so far is that it has something to do with the Smartware they put on it to have it function on Windows/Mac.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Your biggest fan - Anthony.

[scott32746]

Hello,

Maybe try to remove the partition in windows, then try to format it in Linux
may also try fdisk to work with it

[magnusk]

It is possible to remove SmartWare. Take a look at http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/. It is a bit odd but, as you can see in the instructions, you have to run the update program (in Windows) for SmartWare and choose the option for removing instead of updating.

[AFD]

Thanks for the tips guys

Seems like Windows has it's uses after all!!

Will post an update when I get the desired results.

Much appreciated,

Anthony

---------- Post added at 03:21 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 01:07 PM CDT ----------

Hmm...

No joy as yet - Don't have the password so can't use the wdsmartware removal under Windows.

If there's an option under Linux I haven't discovered that would be ideal...

Have so far tried dd fdisk and cfdisk to no avail.

Any more suggestions?

Thanks in advance