One of my My Books DISAPPEARED!

[JongwonChoi]

Hello,

I have been a Western Digital External Hard Drive user for WELL OVER FIFTEEN YEARS,
First starting with my 1 Tb WD Passport, WHICH SEEMED GIGANTIC TO ME, when the storage space of my ENTIRE COMPUTER was less than IT!!!

I have grown my External Hard Drives to Two Elements, and Two more My Books.

About an year ago, I started to notice that one of my My Book didn’t appear on the My PC screen!?
Truth be told, PROBABLY my fault, as I did A LOT OF DANGEROUS P2P downloading at the time, and have COMPLETELY RUINED A LAPTOP OR TWO

I wanted to check if I DID, IN FACT FRY IT UP, AND MY WINDOWS 10 (AND NOW, WINDOWS 11) WAS UNABLE TO RECOGNIZE IT COMPLETELY)

A few weeks ago, I checked the Device Manager, and just re-checked now,
I can see FIVE (THE FIRST PASSPORT, THE TWO ELEMENTS, AND THE TWO MY BOOKS) USB Mass Storage Devices!

I tried unplugging ALL BUT THE MY BOOK THAT DOESN’T SHOW UP ON MY PC,

I CAN STILL SEE AN USB MASS STORAGE DEVICE!

And I can DEFINITELY hear the My Book buzzing fan noise, so the power DEFINITELY COMES ON!

Not sure WHAT TO DO. . .

It has been WELL OVER TEN YEARS, and I DIDN’T PURCHASE ANY INSURANCE. . .

CAN ANYONE HELP ME :’(?

Thank you EVERYONE for reading,
and SPECIAL THANKS + <3 FOR THE PERSON WHO HELPS ME

[cat0w]

If it’s attached to your router, have you rebooted the router?

Is there a way to reboot your device? If not, then unplug it, wait a couple of minutes and then plug it back in.

[Vegan]

try a generic USB enclosure for the disk.

after 15 years the disk probably has bit the dust, hard disks are not unlimited in service life

[DataWizard0103]

In Windows 11 right click Start then Disk Management and see if the My Book shows there as “Online” with no drive letter or as “Unknown.” If it’s there but letterless just assign a drive letter and it often pops right back up. If it shows as unallocated do not format it if you care about the data. Also My Book units are known for the USB to SATA bridge failing while the drive itself is fine which explains why Device Manager sees it and you hear it spin.

[Vegan]

I have been here a long time and the suggestion of a USB enclosure is the lowest cost test for disk health

[DataWizard0103]

Check Disk Management. Windows can detect the My Book as a USB device but still not show it in This PC if the drive letter is missing or the disk is marked Offline. Right-click Start, open Disk Management, and look for a disk that has no letter or says Offline or Unallocated. If it’s healthy, assign a drive letter or set it Online and it should appear immediately. Do not format it. The fact that it powers on strongly points to a Windows display issue, not a dead drive.