Plug the WD drive in, right click Start, open Disk Management, and see if the drive shows up there even without a letter. If it’s listed as “Unknown” or “Unallocated,” Windows sees the drive but hasn’t mounted it. You can try assigning a drive letter or bringing it online from there. Also open Device Manager and look under Disk drives or USB controllers to see if it appears with a warning icon. If it does, uninstall that device, unplug the drive, reboot, and plug it back in so Windows reloads the driver. This step fixes a surprising number of “not detected” cases.
When a WD drive is not detected, the cause is often a USB connection issue, power problem, failed enclosure, corrupted partition, or drive hardware failure. Checking Disk Management or Device Manager can show whether the system recognizes the drive at a basic level, and testing it on another computer helps rule out software or OS problems. If the drive powers on but does not appear, the issue may be with the file system or USB interface, while clicking noises or no vibration usually indicate a mechanical fault. Avoid formatting the drive if the data matters, and if the drive is not detected on any system or shows physical signs of failure, advance data recovery may be the best option.
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