Can't access drive

I can’t, the drive is not there as far as windows is concerned, whats weird is that its shows up in my network places.

I spoke to tech support and they told me it was a fault on the network card and to return it to the store which I did. Plugged in my new drive and guess what! same issue. I have found a work around by trial and error, if I connect the drive up to my laptop and change the name of the drive using the dashboard the drive shows up on my system allowing me to copy data. I then have to plug it back into my router to access the files from my ipad which is what I bought the drive for. Once I do this though the drive disappears again.

It has now taken to running really slowly. worked fine fro a day and now it takes 10 mins to download and small file. this happened with the last drive also and then somehow righted itself. I’ve tried rebooting but no joy. If the drive did what it was supposed to it would be a great bit of kit but i’m starting to suspect that its more trouble than its worth having read through the forum and from my recent experiences.

I have to say that Wd are pretty useless with their tech support and help. I emailed them 10days ago and am still waiting for a reply. This sort of device should be plug and play. Having to mess around setting it up is a waste of time I could do without.