Weird things after installing WD smartdrive

[phf]

After installing WD Smartdrive software and plugging in the passport 2TB drive my laptop took nearly 4 x longer to boot up. Also it was super slow on everything and if I left it running for more than 10 minutes it would either show BSOD or just shut down. I uninstalled Smartdrive and unplugged the passport drive and the bootup time returned to normal. However the colors changed on the bootup "welcome" screen from the default windows white text on blue background, to black on a plain white background as did the ctrl/alt/delete screen.
I tried scanning with Malware bytes but that would not open, so I deleted that & reinstalled, after which MB ran and did not show any viruses. While the boot time is back to normal the computer is slower than before. I am unable to restore to earlier time. I am not certain that Western Digital smartdrive is causing the problem, but it is a coincidence that it was after I installed it that I just started with these problems

 

[Berton]

I haven't found a need for the WD software, only use my 3 HDDs for storage.

 

[CKWD]

Hello phf,

this is a really unpleasant situation and weird coincidence.

In the WD SmartWare itself there isn't any spyware/malware, as the software is official and legit, whether it's located on the certain WD storage drive or downloaded form the official site.

A few options come to mind to fix this problem:

1. Are you using the USB 3.0 port for SuperSpeed?
2. Try and update your USB drivers if you haven't done so, are all of your other drivers updated?
3. Was the installation of the WD SmartWare successful? If it was, it would've briefly displayed the WD SmartWare logo in the end. If it didn't, then something went wrong with the installation for some reason;
4. There are also softwares to check/test your motherboard (and other hardware components), you could consider also doing that;
5. To make sure it isn't the WD My passport drive that's the cause of the problem you could scan it for errors. You could do that with the WD Lifeguard software or simply just connect it to another PC and see if it works;

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=810&lang=en

6. Did you try the System restore option from Safe mode?

System Restore - Microsoft Windows
System Restore: frequently asked questions - Windows Help

7. Try and check your boot order from the BIOS menu.

If nothing from the latter helps, you could consider a fresh install of your OS after backuping, of course.

Otherwise, if you don't want to use the WD Software provided with your WD external HDD, you're not obliged to, you could always choose something else.

I hope any of this helped!
Best of luck!

CK_WD