In dire straits..WD 1TB Passport on Win7

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

i got a virus yesterday and had to do a full reinstall. i installed Win7 and now when i try to access my passport it shows “This Folder is Empty” and no files come up.  however, on my Vista Home machine i have no problems accessing the drive. 

i updated the firmware and the WD Smartdrive software, i have full control for permissions and i am the Owner and i still cannot see the files.  i can see the drive in My Computer and under Device Manager.  i uninstalled the Mass Storage Device driver and had it reinstall to no avail.  aaaaggghhhh  this is killing me! 

if anyone can point me in the right direction i will be forever grateful!

brent

2

When you reinstalled Windows 7 did you also do all of the updates from MS?

Joe

3

i would have to say no to that.  i will run the update wizard and see what happens.

brent

4

Since you can see use the drive on Vista then it’s not the drive… Give the updates a shot, also consider the possibility of the drive being infected with the virus as well if it was connected at that time.

5

well guys…i installed all the updates: 94 of them. and still cannot see the drive.  i ran anit-virus on the drive from another pc so its not infected.  i am super stumped on this one…

brent

6

Look in tthe drive Manager down where it shows the bars and does it say anything like Raw? You might try some recovery software if it shows in Disk Management. Here are a few to try http://findandmount.com/   http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk   http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm  You might also try a Linux Live CD and see if that will access the data.

Joe

7

ok. thanks!  i will try these and let you know.

brent

8

well. i give up.  i tried the software in the links you provided. my files were being read and all partitions found, but no results were ever posted. i ran the easeus software for 15 hours and when i came back, everything was closed, almost as if my pc was rebooted over night. 

thanks for all your help though!  im just going to have to give this one to MS for yet another [Deleted] up problem with their [Deleted].

brent

9

well…dont i feel stupid.  i had the folders set to Hidden and didnt have the new Win7 install set to show hidden files :neutral_face: :angry: :cry: :smiley: 

at least its fixed…but man i feel like an ■■■■■

thanks for all the ideas

brent

10

Glad you figured it out thanks for posting back.

Joe

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