WD is checking up on your serial numbers on your drive "Real Time" !

**Richard Cranium** · November 26th, 2002, 08:32 AM

This am, Western Digital dropped me a note saying;

"as an ongoing attempt to provide you with better blah blah, we are running a quick check to catergorize your serial number for future updates blah blah"

Gonna get someone to host the jpg or bmp that I took of the message.

Anyone else getting these ?

**woodbutcher** · November 26th, 2002, 08:43 AM

No, but then again another reason not to buy WD.
BTW, Whats to keep them from acessing other data on the drive?

WB

**muno** · November 26th, 2002, 08:49 AM

How would they go about checking the serial number of your hd?
-M

**Richard Cranium** · November 26th, 2002, 09:00 AM

**jman01pa** · November 26th, 2002, 09:19 AM

Is this built in to the hard drive or is it on a floppy / CD?

**tmx468** · November 26th, 2002, 09:22 AM

What modern drives does this come on? I was thinking of getting a nice WD as they seemed a good deal...

**eagle1** · November 26th, 2002, 09:31 AM

WD are one of the best drives in the market right now!
Maybe this has to do with better service in future transactions with them or something (like RMAing a disk, etc.)... maybe!!

**no1_vern** · November 26th, 2002, 09:33 AM

Are you /Did you pay for this "service" as in paying for a warranty extension?

**psyklone** · November 26th, 2002, 09:36 AM

yikes ...

i've got a couple of wd600ab 60 gig drives, a wd 80 gig, and i just picked up a wd 200 gig this weekend ... i don't like the way that sounds.

**Mntsnow** · November 26th, 2002, 09:47 AM

I havent run accross this yet but I only have a couple of WD's in use. I'm wondering if this is on the new "datalife" floppy.....Going to have to do some checking on this....

Muno, The serial # can be embedded in the firmware of the HD. Thus a "reader" program can easily gleen that info. (kinda like how Sisoft Sandra can tell you what serial # and bios version your motherboard has ect ect)

**muno** · November 26th, 2002, 09:55 AM

Mntsnow,
Yes I know that.
But what I was wondering is how would they get the serial number without some external software. But that R.C already answered, by running that program - DataLife or whatever it is.
Reading the first post, I thought it was a mail or something they send to him. But it appears it's just a banner on startup of that program.

Thus, my question 'how would they go about checking the serial number' was a question like 'are they going to hack into your computer, look at the serial number and send it to them without you knowing about it'.
-M

**dunbar** · November 26th, 2002, 10:42 AM

Looks like Doc ran some software and it phoned home on him. Did Doc know it would phone home???

**Tomteriffic** · November 26th, 2002, 10:58 AM

Last I looked, the latest WD installer software gives you the option of installing, or not installing, the Data Lifeguard stuff, which is what this is. I always skip it.

I have no idea how nosey or invasive it is, though. It used to be a non-option, started with Windows and "phoned home" whenever you were online. It was a bear to get rid of. At least they give you an option now.

**John Prophet** · November 26th, 2002, 11:42 AM

"Thank you for joining blah blah blah"...whatever you clicked on to join 'voluteered" you for that. Im pretty sure if you just fdisked and formatted, it wouldnt have happened.

probly just to get the seriel numbers to know what warranty you have.

I doubt its anywhere as intrusive as what we get when we click on microsoft update page.

JP

PS...I always laugh when you go to Msoft update page and you have to downlaod that little utility to search for the proper update and it has a yes or no space to check off for something like"Always trust downloads from Microsoft"??? lol! Are you JOKING??

Why not say "would you trust Charles Manson to babysit your toddler?"

JP

**caddmannq** · November 26th, 2002, 11:49 AM

I ran into this too, when upgrading a friend's PC.

Throw those "Data LifeGuard" disks in the trash!

I don't think you'll need 'em unless your PC has a real old BIOS that don't support large drives.

**vass0922** · November 26th, 2002, 11:52 AM

why are they worried about what s/n you have?
what they think you downloaded the HD off kazaa?!

Not like you can illegally copy a HD

Hmm I've used a WD for a number of years and never bothered to install any of their software *shrug*

**John Prophet** · November 26th, 2002, 12:01 PM

caddmann I have to disagree you there....I dont believe in throwing perfectly good stuff in the trash...its that attitude that makes America the worst trash producing country in the world...we are swimming in trash!

there is a simple solution for these dataguard disks (as well as AOL disks). This way you wont be wasting a perfectly good disk.

If you are patriotic and responsible you will get some use out of these instead of just "throwing them away".

What you do is this...get a buddy with a shotgun and have a disk skeet shooting party!! Throw them up...blast em with a shotgun and THEN throw em in the trash.

Benefits.

A.cant be accused of wasting good stuff
B.promotes natonal defense and neighborhood safety (no one will rob you after they see you doing this)
C.promotes camaraderie and a spirit of co-operation (you throw for him, he throws for you)

So please, next time think first before you suggest an irresponsible course of action such as "Throw those "Data LifeGuard" disks in the trash! "

JP

**caddmannq** · November 26th, 2002, 02:28 PM

Thanks for the tip, John.

They do make nice shims to level the short leg under your desk.

You can also play "dog frisbee" with 'em.

Otherwise, they serve no useful purpose AFAIK.

**John Prophet** · November 26th, 2002, 02:41 PM

of course floppies can be reused....somehow we had a million "bitware" floppies (some kind of mouse driver I think) laying around my ex shop...and the tightwad boss would ever buy us floppies..so we had to attempt to reuse those.

**caddmannq** · November 26th, 2002, 02:46 PM

"Bitware" was a modem communications proggy, as I recall. Back in the old DOS days...

Now that I have CDR, network access, and a Zip drive, I won't hardly look at an old floppy, much less re-format one.