I have a WD 3TB My Book Essential with 3.0 USB that I have been using for a few years. I have never had any problems with it. Just last month I had to buy a new computer which came with Win 8.1 installed. When I plugged the hard drive in, Windows recognized the device right away. But, within 24 hours, it quit recognizing it. I had to unplug the power cord and USB and then re-plug them and again Windows would recognize the device. I never had this problem with my old machine which was running Vista, nor with my work computer which runs Windows 7. I’m not sure, but it seems to be an issue with Windows 8.1, seeing as I’m already finding other issues with it as well, such as it won’t recognize .MOD files anymore, but Vista and 7 did.
Just wondering if anybody else is having the same issue. If so, what can I do to fix this? Is there a patch or update that needs to be downloaded for My Book or what?
I have tried all of that. That forum is actually for a Windows 7 OS, not the 8.1 OS that I’m using. However, there is a similar article on the 8/8.1 forum that says the same thing. That’s the first avenue of approach that I took, then I contacted support for my computer and they uninstalled and then reinstalled all of my USB ports. And, it happened again. What I’m trying to find out is if there’s a compatability problem with the 8.1 OS and Western Digital external hard drives.
