WD External Hard drive not recognized in my computer

I can understand people’s frustration when something works and then stops working, but please take the time to check if you’ve done everything on your end to protect your investment.

first off, power is a lot more important than the obvious…

plugging it in/unplugging when not in use is a good practice however if you have a surge protector or battery backup (bbackup is best), plug it in there.

keep in mind of USB power surges…they DO happen. Make sure anything you are connecting is clean, not bent, dry etc.

surges large or small can and will destroy use of your drive…that isn’t a WD hardware fault.

I’ve seen other people post info about checking out device manager/disk management. Here is a good site for that rundown as well as some other useful info: http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=194531

When a HD goes, there isn’t too much you can do to get it working again…that’s why it is very important to try to have a proactive mindset…back up your backup.

If you have access to a desktop computer, you can always try taking apart the external enclosure. They usually have regular hard drives inside or laptop hard drives. If it is a regular (IDE, the wide grey ribbon cables) drive then you can just plug it into your motherboard on your desktop and try to get it to be recognized that way. It could be that the internal parts in the external drive are faulty. There are also adapters you can purchase (which are godsends btw) that will allow you to hook up to USB. Here is an example http://www.cooldrives.com/index.php/saandidehadr1.html

Believe it or not, but there is an old trick called a “cold boot” that sometimes works. If your drive is failing just about all tests and you can’t get it to do much of anything, this would be a last resort kind of thing. Basically, get an antistatic bag (put it inside a few ziplock bags too), put the drive in it (out of the enclosure that is) and throw it in the freezer over-night. When you take it out the next morning, you must be very quick; have everything ready to go. Just plug it in, boot up the computer and hope for the best. If this method actually works for you, you have a very limited amount of time to start backing up your data. You don’t have to leave it in over night either…but I would recommend at least and hour or two.

Google it if you don’t believe me…

If you have access to programs like The Ultimate Boot CD or Knoppix, I would suggest using them to boot to and transfer your files…there is too much to explain on those if you are unfamiliar with them, but again, Google works wonders.

As for the filesystems on these hard drives…i’m not 100% positive on this, just assuming…BUT…I would assume that they are formated in FAT32 format considering that is universally read throughout windows operating systems. The NTFS format is different becase it allows for encryption on your disks…which is the standard from Windows XP and up. There isn’t really anything that will make it incompatible with your “new” computer in terms of hardware or the formatting considering everything that is out there in terms of pc’s and their operating systems…to suggest that would be kind of silly don’t you think?

Anywho, I hope that some of this info helped some of you out there or at least gave you a better insight as to what you can and cannot do…

Oh and I almost forgot! Data recovery software for those who want to try it. I’ve always had good luck with Stellar Phoenix and Digital Rescue Premium.

Best of luck to you all

-Vit

Running windows XP and nada…this stinks!

I’m betting all of these new computers are having the same problem I am.  Windows 7 isn’t recognizing the Western Digital software.  I’ve tried 6 cords,  two different Western Digital external hard drives and NONE are recognized…  on my NEW computer, but when I pulled out an old one using XP it was all there. I spent the night transferring things OFF the Western Digitals until they can find a fix for the new software. I imagine it’s a Microsoft mess up, but they won’t acknowledge it so it will be up to WD to make their units compatible.

got the same problem with my terabyte WD using firewire. lights up from  its own power source. Occasionally is recognized and can scan files inside the WD. But then it just disappears. I can sometimes get it to go by turning on off reconnecting and rebooting, but then it jus disappears. Any ideas?

Hey! Where can I find such a repair centre in Holland? I have a WD My Book Pro with the same problem. I have thousands of photo’s on it, only partly backuped on disks. For a year or so I didn’t have any problems. Than the misery begun: my computer (with Vista) did not recognize My Book now and than. It worked to pull out the cables and restart the computer. Recently it stopted recognizing it at all. If I had only read this and other sites with complaints about WD My Book before, I would have made a backup right away, when it still worked.

I think WD should  warn people for this misery in the manual and on their site. A ‘sorry’ afterwards in the forum doesn’t help people.

I have the same problem as everyone else, and i thought my files were gone forever.  All you have to do is go here, http://www.ehow.com/how_4474341_recover-data-external-hard-drive.html i promise it works with no viruses, and download the pc inspector and follow the directions on the ehow. If u have problems you can email me at terriblyartistic@yahoo.com. I wish someone had done this for me, so thats why im doing it for you. Theres no reason to have to pay someone to recover all your files for you.

=} i really hope this helps

him having the same problem as well. i’ve just brought mine today uploaded some stuff to it and now it wont let me back into it. it keeps saying i need to format it but i’ve formated it like 10 times and it wont do anything

Thanks!

Who do you thank and what for? Obviously you succeeded in getting the WD back on your computer? How?

Until now I only succeeded in getting an icon on my toolbar, which, when I open it, the computer recognizes as “WD 3 Externa USB Device”. But I don’t have any contact and I cannot find this device elsewhere on my computer.

Heldijk wrote:

Hey! Where can I find such a repair centre in Holland? I have a WD My Book Pro with the same problem. I have thousands of photo’s on it, only partly backuped on disks. For a year or so I didn’t have any problems. Than the misery begun: my computer (with Vista) did not recognize My Book now and than. It worked to pull out the cables and restart the computer. Recently it stopted recognizing it at all. If I had only read this and other sites with complaints about WD My Book before, I would have made a backup right away, when it still worked.

I think WD should  warn people for this misery in the manual and on their site. A ‘sorry’ afterwards in the forum doesn’t help people.

Did it stop recognizing the drive when your pc went to sleep?  Also, if you were pulling the USB cable out, and sometime before that you had been copy data over to the drive, it’s entirely possible that the drive partition got corrupted.  Can you see the drive in Disk Management?

1 Like

Thanks for your answer. I usually don’t allow my computer to sleep: it’s on or off. The problem only appeared with the starting-up of the computer. Then it didn’t recognize the WD. After pulling out the cables and restarting the computer, the problem was over, although I had to do this procedure sometimes more than once. Now I don’t get any contact at all anymore, this “WD 3 External USB Device” is still in my Config Sys-disk stations . I think this must be the one, for when I  put the cables in when the computer is on, the icon for safely removing  appeares on the task bar and describes it with that name and the addition “device for mass storage”. So it can’t miss. But what to do next? I still have some hope…

By the way, I tried to reinstall the setup with the software disk, but it didn’t work. 

I didn’t try any recovery programm yet.

same dam thing happened with me 100% on my labtop,and i think it is a million of users also,well it is very shameful as a giant and famous company named WD to release an item in the world market and it is not probaply well tested ,anyway they know the solution guys but they dont want to tell us ,concerning this exact recognition problem ,i believe the only way to solve is to remove the cover case and try to remove the green ship and then to make hard recovery (transfer the disk to another working case),or try to connect in a direct sata to micro B  converter ,in case the firewire matter doesnt work. 

i wish any body professional can help      or try email here  mrblack_2006@hotmail.com     

I’ve had the same problem with my WD 500 Gb external hard drive, my laptop just didn’t recognize or detect the drive one day all of a sudden, I’ve tried on diferent pc’s but I get the same result,  but when I tried hooking it up to my friends macbook then it was detected and I had access to the data!!! Can someone tell me why this is happening and how I can get my laptop to detect the drive again???

I have not tried my macbook, because someone has written that his macbook crashed while trying tot connect his WD to it. Maybe I have to sacrifice my macbook for this experiment. I want my pictures back!

If I were you, I would backup my data right away from the WD via the macbook and throw that WD away. And not buy a new WD external before they can make proper ones.

elgato wrote:

I’ve had the same problem with my WD 500 Gb external hard drive, my laptop just didn’t recognize or detect the drive one day all of a sudden, I’ve tried on diferent pc’s but I get the same result,  but when I tried hooking it up to my friends macbook then it was detected and I had access to the data!!! Can someone tell me why this is happening and how I can get my laptop to detect the drive again???

Are you moving the drive around on your computers, or is it plugged into the same power strip?  If so, you may not be getting enough power.  Plug it into the wall and see if it works then.

Hey everyone I am not going to lie I don’t know a great deal about computers. However it seems I have had the same problem as everyone else. I bought a 160 GB WD and plug it into my computer and it did pick it up for about five minutes, then it wouldn’t just like everyone else’s. However near by was my micro USB cord for my nokia phone, I plugged it in and it worked straight away and continued to work until I lost the cord. So I have tried using the original cord again that came with the product and it does not work again. So I am looking a purchasing another micro USB cord and I post on here again if it works.

Cheers

I have this same problem all i can say is never again will i buy Wester Digital… had a internal hdd that was WD it died now this Hdd after 3 months of not much use only works when it wants to what a peice of junk… how are they even allowed to sell such a malfunctioning peice of [deleted]… Never Again!!!

Hi Everyone just an update, i bought a new micro USB cord and my computer has picked up the hardrive again , with everything still there, just got it from **bleep** Smiths, cost about $20… Hope it all works for you too… [deleted] cheers

hey I did the same as you mentioned and it worked for me. Thanks a lot …

but it isn’t the permanent solution so already contacted the Support team for replacement of hdd 500 gb

HI

i have a western digital external hard drive of 500gb …

suddenly i got a problem with it… it is not showing in my computer but showing in device manager …

i tried in disk management but its telling " the media is write protected"

YA in the disk management the drive is showing but there is no drive letter , when i try to assign it , there is a error msg come " the Media is write protected "…
and able to do any thing bec of that error …

and also showing this pop up box in disk management when i connect my hard drive

pop up msg :

after i press ok , im getting this error msg…

also tried to update my passport but the update software is also telling me" USB is NOT FOUND"

so couldn’t upadate the firmware also

so can any one help me to solve my prblem