Re: WD My Passport not showing up
08-03-2010 04:36 PM
Dropping included, you have several kinds of issues that arise that can cause a drive not to read.
- The drive itself is broken, which means you can only possibly retrieve your data through data recovery - where they have clean rooms and are capable of taking the drive apart to see what’s actually physically wrong with it.
- A power issue, the drive isn’t getting enough power. This can include passports. Try the drive on other pcs to see if it shows up on them. Or, purchase a power booster cable that connects to two usb ports for added power.
- A cable issue. the cable is damaged and the computer can’t read the drive. This includes using a longer than 22 inch cable on a Passport drive. There will be too much resistance and the drive won’t get enough power to spin up. This also includes connecting to a USB hub. The Passport drive should always be connected directly to the PC.
- A drive case issue. The casing holding the drive has been damaged or has failed somehow. This may require removing the internal drive to see if can be connected directly to the pc and then maybe show up in Explorer. However, doing this will void the warranty on the drive.
- Finally, data or partition corruption to the drive. Incorrectly removing the drive from the pc can cause data corruption. You cannot just pull the cable and run with the drive, especially after you’ve copied data to it. This will guarantee corruption on the drive. A corrupted partition won’t show up in Explorer, but should show up in drive management, usually as raw. You will need to find a partition or file recovery software to retrieve this data.
I hope this helps.
If the drive does not show in drive management in vista, win7 or in ubantu, but the drive is spinning, has not been dropped. Is there any other way to check the disk for errors, by slaving as an internal drive
