[Philee]

Hello!

My old 500 GB WD My Book Essential Drive broke down, so I’ve send it to WD for replacement.
Unfortunately the replacement drive doesn’t have a shutdown button anymore.
It used to be the green circular LED. It’s still there, but now it’s only a dummy button without function.
I wrote to WD and they replied it’s totally normal and the button has been removed in favor of the “safely remove” function in Windows.
They added if I want to shutdown the drive, it’ll anyway shutdown itself after shutting down the PC and to do it manually I can use the “safely remove” function.
That’s stupid. When I use “safely remove” I can’t switch-on the drive anymore. I’ll need to plug it out and in again.

Does anyone know if that’s right, that the button has been removed on purpose?
Has this been a correct replacement?

Thanks in advance & kind regards

[Mike0001]

Originally Posted by Philee Hello! My old 500 GB WD My Book Essential Drive broke down, so I’ve send it to WD for replacement. Unfortunately the replacement drive doesn’t have a shutdown button anymore. It used to be the green circular LED. It’s still there, but now it’s only a dummy button without function. I wrote to WD and they replied it’s totally normal and the button has been removed in favor of the “safely remove” function in Windows. They added if I want to shutdown the drive, it’ll anyway shutdown itself after shutting down the PC and to do it manually I can use the “safely remove” function. That’s stupid. When I use “safely remove” I can’t switch-on the drive anymore. I’ll need to plug it out and in again. Does anyone know if that’s right, that the button has been removed on purpose? Has this been a correct replacement? Thanks in advance & kind regards

Well spoken! There has to be a better way than this! OK, they had problems with everything not having been written to the drive when it was switched off, but the solution is useless!

Anyway, I have several drives which the system never lets me safely remove and the only solution is shut down or remove the USB cable. Often it is System Restore that has grabbed access to the drive and won't relinquish it.

[Philee]

Originally Posted by Mike0001 Anyway, I have several drives which the system never lets me safely remove and the only solution is shut down or remove the USB cable. Often it is System Restore that has grabbed access to the drive and won't relinquish it.

True, that's very annoying.
But I have to live with it now.
Later My Book models still have a power button.