I had this problem today. I have several WD My Book Essential Drives and never installed a driver and never had a problem with any WD drives. Given the number of users that are reporting this problem, I wanted to provide what worked for me.
The quick solution that worked for me was this:
- connect a non WD drive (I have an IOmega) and then reconnect the WD drive. While this seems trivial, it was the solution that worked for me. See below for the details of what I tried before trying a competitor’s drive.
Some points to note and steps that did not work based on others’ suggestions:
- The Mass Storage Device drivers loaded but the “Symwave SES USB Device” would not install. Device Manager showed a question mark.
- Tried reooting.
- Tried unplugging drive - USB and Power.
- Tried a different USB port.
- Device Manager showed the drive not initialized - I was tempted to rebuild the MBR but I did not.
- I found the link to the WD SES drivers and loaded them manually, despite Windows complaiing. No luck. Here is the link I followed: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5419/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xNDM0OTM0NzgxL3NpZC9TZWkqdXVwbQ%3D%3D
- I even tried to connect the drive to my XP Virtual Machnie and got the same error.
- I did NOT try a different cable, different power supply, or different machine. They were next steps had my solution not worked.
In my case, I think the culprit was a new USB device to allow “normal” hard disks to be connected via USB. Prior to using that device I never had a problem with any commercial USB drives.
