My Passport Ultra 2TB not recognized (Windows 10 Laptop)

I just purchased a Western Digital My Passport Ultra 2TB external USB3 hard drive model WDBBKD0020BBK for my month old XPS 15 9560 laptop and it’s not detectable/mounting when plugged in to either of the two available USB 3 ports via the factory cable. It’s not seen under disk management either.

I’ve verified the drive as working and mountable on other computers (both Mac and PC). A G-Technology USB 2 drive works in either USB port of my laptop.

Have gone through in detail all troubleshooting steps found in your support page for external HDD’s, and tried various suggestions found via web searches over a period of several hours without any success.

It is spinning/vibrating and does have a solid indicator light so it’s powered up. The light eventually changes to a slow flash indicating it’s in standby.

Hoping I’ve missed a simple fix for this as I have a second one still unboxed for off site backup and have used and trusted WD products for many years.

whre you plugged you usb to? usb hub or directly into your subat your laptop?

Hello,

Per my post I’m using the factory cable that came with the external drive plugged directly into either of the two USB 3 ports available on my laptop.

No other USB or other external devices are being used and have tested while laptop is on battery and when plugged into AC power adapter.

Update:

After reviewing the matter with one of the laptop manufacturer’s support managers it has been determined that the USB3 portion of the motherboard is malfunctioning and the laptop is being replaced.

I look forward to using my 2 WD 2TB USB3 external hard drives on my new one :slight_smile:

Resolved:

After unboxing the second new WD drive it worked fine. Swapping the cable to the first drive and it then worked as well. I was reluctant to unbox the second drive at first due to potential return issues.

If having USB 3 issues always try an alternate cable.

Dell offering to replace the motherboard and then sending me a replacement laptop due to a “suspected motherboard issue” was very generous but given that everything tested ok a rather expensive way to check things. The new machine was returned and the WD drive exchanged at my local retailer with no questions asked.

Thanks to those who responded.

I’m glad you resolved your issue. However, here is an alternate experience with W10 not recognizing my 1TB My Passport that had nothing to do with the cable or motherboard. I am posting it on your topic because the process to resolve it is explained nowhere in the WD Knowledge Base and took up the last 6 hours of my day. Although the KB has topics on Disk Management, it does not give us computer semi-simpletons the how-to. My HD would appear in device manager but not in File Explorer. DM showed the device functioning properly but Paragon, my BU software could not see it, nor could any other program. The HD was visible and worked fine on a separate W7 Ultimate laptop. Here is what I did to fix it- Opened Disk Management- DO NOT mess with Drive 0 as that is your primary HD. You should see the external drive below it with just one partition (all white)- Right Click and select- Change Drive Letter- Name it with a letter far enough down the alphabet not to conflict with any other drives you have connected.- Once done the partition should turn striped and the PC should recognize the drive as it did mine.- If this fails- You can rename the drive and then format the drive (which will erase everything). - NTFS is the way I went and saved myself a trip to the store to swap a perfectly good HD.

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This is a common Windows problem called “signature collision”. There’s a dedicated WD Support article on this.

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=6571

Thanks for sending the link, that’s not exactly what happened to me. The
drive worked fine for a couple of days after I installed it, then
disappeared. So, no conflicts to start with and it was the only WD drive
attached. The LaCie that was attached before it never had issues or
disappeared. The here-today, gone-tomorrow is what threw me.

However, it’s good to know about the signal collision because one never
knows what’ll happen next.

Thanks

Also, I’m running W10 on the machine, the link refers to W8 and W7, however it could be an issue with 10 as well; I’m sure.

I got Windows 10 to recognize my WD My Passport Ultra 2tb. Steps: 1. download the WD SES Driver (WD SES Driver Download) and WD Firmware Updater (WD Product Update). 2. Reset the computer. 3. Press the Windows Key and look for Administrative Tools option and select the Disk Administrator. 4. The application will display the disk and most likely the settings will be disabled (right click), you must remove that unit from this same box of options. 5. Then right click again will enable the options to assign a letter to name the detected disk, assign for example Z. 6. Finally you will see that your computer recognize your WD Passport Ultra. I hope this is useful, it worked for me.

Hi digifix ,

We’re glad that its working fine. We appreciate your response.

Thanks!

I have a WD My Passport 25E2 USB Device, it does not appear at the file explorer and it appear as _Not Initialized _ on Disk Management. Is there an way you could provide some idea.

ok. i am having this same issue. I need HELP. I can NOT view my wd my passport ultra portable storage device. your answers to solve my issue, is not helping. i can not change the disc 1 numbering thingy… Help me please, somebody.