wdckit Drive Utility Download and Instructions for Internal Drives

wdckit is a command line tool for supported drives.
It can be used from the terminal or within the interactive session.

Supported Drives

• UltraStar Hard Drive (HDD)

Unsupported Drives

• WD Colored Drives (WD Red, Blue, Purple, Green, Gold and WD_BLACK)
• Solid State Drives (SSD)
• Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Drives
• HGST TravelStar Drives

• OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) drives are not supported.
  
  Need more help?
  Answer ID 7820: Difference Between Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Retail (RTL) Internal Drives


• Firmware updates are not provided for Out of Warranty drives.
  
  Need more help?
  Answer ID 50745: Firmware Download and Updates for Western Digital Internal and External Drives


• Technical Support DOES NOT provide usage or instructions for wdckit.
  Refer to the User Manual included in the download package.


• Linux distributions are not supported..


• Virtual platforms (VMware, Hyper-V) are not supported.

wdckit Top Features

• Show:
  List the details like disk#, serial number, capacity, state, geometry, protection, progress, version, statistics, and more.
• Format:
  Does a format on a SCSI/ATA device to change sector size.
• Update:
  Updates the drive with new firmware.

Download wdckit

Read the wdckit Third Party Notice

• Windows Download Contact Support for the link.
• Linux Download Contact Support for the link.
• macOS is not supported

What's in the download package?

• Windows or Linux versions of wdckit.
• User Manual.

Command Examples

• Show: wdckit s


• Format: wdckit format -b x --fastformat disk#
  
  

  The x needs to be either 512 or 4096 depending on the sector size the drive will be changed to. The # is the disk number for the drive. IMPORTANT: Not every make and model drive the supports the --fastformat option. Remove --fastformat option from command syntax if the drive format fails.

• Update: wdckit update disk# -f x
  
  

  The # is the disk number for the drive. The x must be the firmware file name.