Apparently it's protected by the firmware
WD has some sort of tool to disable it but it still resides on the drive so without actually replacing the firmware you're out of luck
You can get at least some of the missing space back by disabling the feature with the tool, disassembling the drive (voids warranty), hooking it directly with SATA cable, nuking the drive with DBAN and finally assembling the drive.
Basically not worth the trouble. Better get something else.

Yeah well that's what I thought. I noticed the drives have an interface card to communicate SATA->USB, I guess that the firmware is embedded on that as well. Pull out the card, connect it directly to SATA and then wipe the drive and you should be ok.

Of course, voids warranty and all that, and you have to basically break the cover open. So not very feasible.

What on earth spurred WD to include such a feature in the first place? It's not like they're saving on actual disk space by ripping off their customers, the disks are 500GB, it's just that they've actively blocked some of it through firmware.

Can you spell dumbfuck?

Trying to make them idiot proof. The lights are there to let idiots know the drive is being accessed and now might not be the best time to pull the wire out.

My 1.5tb WD My Book I got a year ago doesn't have a hidden partition on it. The first thing I did was format it to be XFS instead of crummy NTFS.

I had a 1TB and it died in a few months.
Ever since then I've always used Seagate and haven't had any problems.

Thanks for all the replies. I can use this to remove the software, right?

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/utilitiesstep1.asp?id=wdfMP_Essential&os=WIN

It doesn't actually remove it, only hides the VCD partition from OS So to get space back you'd still need to disassemble the drive and nuke it with DBAN or some other similar tool

If it makes it not get in the way, than its all good I guess. And there's no way that I'll be opening the drive.

My main reason for purchasing one is so that I can give House M.D. to my girl for our anniversary. The whole season right now is above 200GB (each episode with 720p video and 384 kbps audio).

How about using Western Digitals Diagnostics tool and writing all zeros to the disk? It works on most SMART hard drives, not just WD's. It also lets you view the SMART data, run diagnostics etc and it's a small download.

Here's the link to the program: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=606&sid=3


Edit: Should add that the reason the Western Digitals have a bad rep is because a lot of them have no heat management system and so if left on all the time will overheat and die. I have a 1tb drive and have had no problems with it (so far) I just use it for file transference and back ups.

I have a passport and after a format no trace of any WD software is to be found. The disk works falwlessly after 2 years in constant use.
As for missing GBs its a factory cauculation where 1Mb=1000Kbs and not 1024. So if the disk is bigger the loss becomes more apparent. Another factor are programs like System Restore because they make saftey images of the disk or partition and store them hidden there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Capacity_measurements

For my second external disk I got myself a 500GB Silicon Power Armor. Just the name makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.