My Passport is not detected in my computer

it was simple for me… if you can detect the WD drive in Disk management just right-click and choose assign path or drive letter and there it goes on to display in My Computer :stuck_out_tongue:

It actually worked!

tnx a lot!

for me also same issue. Mine is 500 GB. In disk Management it is being hown as 2TB not initialised. When I am trying to initialise its saying that, Disk is write protected. Unable to understand. There are 4 partitions. This i happening for last 2/3 days. Yesterday suddenly all the drives were shown but after few mins could not browse for the files.

I have one doubt, while upgrading the firmware, will it erase all my files in the drive or it will only upgrade the software.

waiting for your expert comments.

sujit_maharana wrote:

for me also same issue. Mine is 500 GB. In disk Management it is being hown as 2TB not initialised. When I am trying to initialise its saying that, Disk is write protected. Unable to understand. There are 4 partitions. This i happening for last 2/3 days. Yesterday suddenly all the drives were shown but after few mins could not browse for the files.

 

I have one doubt, while upgrading the firmware, will it erase all my files in the drive or it will only upgrade the software.

 

waiting for your expert comments.

The firmware does not erase the files but it’s recommended to backup in the event something goes wrong

if the drive is working is better to leave as is and don’t update

1 Like

where is the soluiton ?

what are the steps you did in order to overcome this problem ?

  if your drive wont show up in “my computer” list  but it is  showing up to remove it  and in your deviuce manager  go to

-computer management

-disk managment,

-right click on your drive…

-OPEN and you can see your files and make changes ect.

I just did it… all my files are there and work fine.  it still wont show up in my computer.  It  will show up on my laptop but not my desktop.

also check if any drives have the same location name as the passport…

example  mine was drive (F:) 

I have another drive F:  …  i had to disconnect the working network drive F:   refreashed and then went  to computer management and  followed the steps above.

My drive showed up yesterday when I had updated the WD software but today it is not showing up…i think the wire seems a bit loose…when I put the usb into my computer the little light is flashing but if you move it a certain way then the light goes off…It doesn’t show in my computer anymore its like nothing is attached to the computer…doesn’t show up in any search…then I did a system restore to the point before I installed the update and it still doesn’t show…I’m not sure what to do…at this point…I just want my data backed up somewhere else…how do I get my data out of this drive?

Its my passport…WDBAAA5000ASL-00  . am so annoyed cause it worked yesterday…and i think i just took it out without safely stopping it or something…    

am so sad.

This worked for me, found solution elswhere on the internet. I have a 500G passport.

Download Ubuntu OS (free). Burn to cd/dvd disc. I used IMGburn. Boot computer using Ubuntu, make sure hard drive is plugged in before starting computer. May need to enter boot bios to run from cd. press f10 before windows logo. Set boot from cd/dvd as first priority. sava and exit. when ubunto loads you should be able to acess the drive. copy important information to different drive. if you plan to copy to another external drive have it plugged in before startup.

Good luck

mine is same problem sombody please me out.

with my mac its working fine. when ever i am connecting to windows getting truble whith. wd pasport is running but when i see through in my computers i couln’t see. this is my problem

Try updating the WD SES driver for your OS. Worked for me. :slight_smile:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/5419

Okay I think you or someone else mentioned at the beginning of the thread that updating the drive’s firmware was performed. I’m not a WD tech, although I am a A+ Network+ certified tech in general, but I’m pretty sure that wipes the drive as a side effect. ON TOP OF THIS…it seems that if you don’t have the latest SES driver installed before you do this, it doesn’t automatically format it again after it’s done. Presumably it’s supposed to format it to NTFS. I was noticing the same strange symptoms with my own My Passport 0730 after the firmware update. Didn’t dawn on me that it could be the reason for the drive not showing up in My Computer or autoplaying even though it was showing up in Device Manager AND the Safely Eject Hardware and Eject Media menu.

Now for the possible solutions for anyone still wrestling with this problem.

First of all, if you had data on the drive and it’s not showing up in My Computer or anywhere else **DO NOT FORMAT THE DRIVE**!! If you got lucky and didn’t have any data on the drive (like me) then skip to the Detection Recovery Steps

Otherwise, try what ginabeena suggested first:

"if your drive wont show up in “my computer” list  but it is  showing up to remove it  and in your deviuce manager  go to

-computer management

-disk managment,

-right click on your drive…

-OPEN and you can see your files and make changes ect.

 

I just did it… all my files are there and work fine.  it still wont show up in my computer.  It  will show up on my laptop but not my desktop."

If this doesn’t work or you can’t find the files you’re looking for, and you’re sure they were on the drive, there are several data recovery programs out there that will help you recover files from a drive. Formatting the drive and using the drive after knowing that there is a problem BOTH decrease the chance that these programs will be able to recover your files.

Normally data recovery programs are used on deleted files, in which case the space that that file’s data took up is freed up to be used again by another file. Since the files in question weren’t actually deleted, as long as you don’t format the drive, the data (and the pointers telling the drive where that data is) should still be there. Personally i have the best results with data recovery programs that operate from a boot disk. But since, in this case, you can’t get into the drive to overwrite any of the data, it should be easy for any decent data recovery program to locate and recover the files that were on the drive when the firmware was updated.

So after using one of those programs and recovering the files on your undetected drive TO A DIFFERENT DRIVE that is working normally, do the following:

–DETECTION RECOVERY SECTION–

FROM AN ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT

Make sure all the recommended drivers and programs for your drive are installed on your computer/laptop and up to date.

Plug the undetected drive into your computer and wait until you get some indication from the computer that it saw a USB device got plugged in. If you don’t see or hear anything from computer (usually a sound plays when you plug in a USB device) then just wait about 20 seconds depending on the speed of your computer/laptop.

Find your My Computer shortcut either on your desktop or the Start menu and right click on it.

Click on Manage. (<-- You won’t be able to do this without an administrator account or administrative permission)

In the left navigation pane Click on Disk Management under Storage.

There are a few ways to identify the drive that isn’t acting as expected.

        1.        The size of the drive if you know it. Typically either about 500GB (mine shows up as 465 GB) or 1000 MB/ 1 TB

        2.       If your internal hard drive and the one you need to fix are VERY similar in size (like mine are within a few megabytes, **bleep**?), then your internal hard drive will be the one with the System Reserved and C: partitions in it (among others if you have multiple partitions or operating systems on it.) Windows can’t be installed on external USB media by default, so it’s safe to say that the one you want to repair WON’T have the C: partition in it. Your internal hard drive is also usually the one identified as Disk 0. DON’T EVER MESS WITH THIS DRIVE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.

        3.       If all else fails it will have a file system of the type “unallocated” like mine was, which is a dead giveaway.

Once you’ve identified the drive, the rest should be easy. Click on the box in the bottom of the Computer Management window that represents the messed up drive and right click on it.

Click New Simple Volume…

Click Next until you can’t anymore (unless you have a good reason not to use the default parameters/settings) then click finish.

In about the time it takes to stop checking out a cute girl, *cough* you should have a newly formatted and (hopefully) useable external hard drive again. …maybe a few cute girls if your drive is larger than 500 GB.

Good luck and email me with any questions.

[Deleted]

I had this problem before, But after download this application

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/firmware.asp?id=wdfMP30_SEEssential&os=WIN

and update my passport’s Firmware it gone

and now it works nice.

Hard to believe, but this fixed mine! Western Digital Community

I am having the same problem, and it seems like my world is turned upside down. I suddenly can not access my drive and it contains very very very valuable piece of work that I don’t even want to think of recreating…I may not be able even if I  try.

Usually when i plug it in, it takes few second and it is ready to be accesssed, now when i plug it my computer is trying to detect it but with hardware detection noice but it does not appear. What can I do?

Any help (urgently) to recover these file will be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Newington

Hii. My WD Passport does not show up even in the Disk management. I need all my files, so I’m not in a position to format it. Here’s a screenshot of what i see… It shows up in Device Manager, and all the drivers are up to date. I just don’t know what the problem is. Please help…

also i am facing the same problem, and it contains very important files to me

anyone can help please 

I am facing problems with WD Passport 500GB since a long time. Immediately after buying, I repartitioned in to 3 partitions. 217 GB, 217 GB and 28GB. And used WD Smartware to secure it. Every thing was working well until one day it showed unlock prompt and despite successfully entering password and not receiving any password error, it was not showing any drive at all. However the disk drive was detectable by  disk management. I tried removing wd sec driver, put that drive in a new fresh install of windows 7, windows xp, but in vain. I gave up on it and tried to format but format also required password to unlock first. I was like **bleep** is wd.

A month or 2 later, while not touching that drive I decided to try it one more time. N you will not believe that i got it back. My first reaction was to unsecure the drive. 2ndly i backedup all important data in my PC. Some months went without any trouble,

One day i was watching a movie on my SONY Bravia and suddenly sony rebooted. I replayed my movie and watched the remaining part without any trouble. On the same day, I connected the drive to win 7x64 bit ultimate to copy some movies but the explorer was showing only the 1st partition (28GB) and showing big partitions as healthy but without disk drive letter being assigned. I tried to assign it but it said that 

“The operation failed to complete because the Disk management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists close the Disk management console, then restart Disk management or restart the computer.”

I also tried the to see properties but it is not allowig to date. I tried the same hdd on another computer running windows 7 and same problem arrived. Here comes the silly part. I got a random thought and tried it in sony bravia and all my partitions were fully accessable. Then i tried windows xp and YUPPPP! my partitions are fully accessable in windows xp.  This is the situation up till now since 2 months. I am again waiting for a miracle so that my drive partitions will be accessable in Windows 7 too. I tried different pc / laptops running win 7 but it is only showing the 28GB partition.

I am also trying to attach screenshots in this reply for your reference, ANy help will be much appreciated. The WD support is of no help as they keep telling me childish basic steps instead of focusing on the root of the problem,

The images are those which i uploaded to RMA Case in support. I am still facing the same issue. The only difference is I unlocked the drive permanantly when accidently got the chance.