My brand new WD My Passport isn't working

Hi people…

I just bought a 2Tb WD My passport external HDD (by just I mean, just a few hours ago) and when I plug it to my laptop, its light just keeps flashing and it makes some beeping noises… (2 beeps, 1 second pause and then 1 beep more, though sometimes the sequence changes) but my laptop doesn’t seem to be detecting it at all… it doesn’t appear in my PC, nor in the device manager.

My laptop is a HP pavilion dv6, I bought it on 2009, I’m fairly certain that it has 2.0 USB ports.

I also tried plugging it to my mom’s netbook, which she bought… last year I think… and it does the exact same thing. It is a HP too.

Both computers have Windows 7, probably different editions… mine is Windows Ultimate.

any ideas on why this could be happening?

As I said, it didn’t work right from the beginning so there’s no data in it.

Were they plugged into wall so they were not running on just the battery? These drives are really sensitive to voltage and sadly a lot of PC makers use barely adequet power supplies. Also plug in directly to PC and not through a hub. Use the original cable not a longer one. If you have a desktop try it there.

Joe

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Hi, thanks for the quick reply… sorry that I didn’t answer before but this forum has some serious problems with logins.

Returning to the matter in hand, my laptop was plugged in since its battery is almost completely dead. It wouldn’t stand alone with no charger for more than 5 minutes. On the other hand, my mom’s netbook wasn’t plugged in at all when I tried.

I didn’t use a hub, I just used the original cable, and trying it on a desktop doesn’t seem possible at all… I have one but it’s old and slow as **bleep** and it probably doesn’t even have usb 2.0.

Any other suggestions? or any Ideas on what the beeping is?

Since it doesn’t work on 2 computers I would return the drive. If it’s a place like Staples or Best Buy they can try it on a desktop.

Joe

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Hi, it’s weekend already so I won’t be able to return it till monday now…

Leaving that aside, I’ve been reading about this (apparently they call it the “click of death”) and it seems to be more normal than I would like it to. I mean, It makes me feel like even if I get a drive that works it would break again in a week. Are WD drives really that bad? Why isn’t there a solution to such a common error? and, and I know I probably shouldn’t ask this here but… should I consider another brand? I’ve read both good and bad (and horrible) critics about WD and Maxtor drives…

I got this one with a 2 year warranty from factory plus a 6 month warranty from the seller, and you’d think that speaks about it’s quality… but apparently not, and I don’t care about the drive itself I just don’t wanna lose my data.