Purchased 2nd hand 2TB WD Elements - no instructions

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi.
I purchased what I thought was a new WD Elements Portable 2TB hard drive at an auction. When I got it home, the seal had been tampered with and no instructions inside the box.

HD has been used because someone has stuck a DYMO label on it saying DRIVE 02.

I bought it with the intention of backing up all the files on my laptop. Not that many really - pictures and documents total 12GB.

Anyway, I am a complete novice. I was hoping I would just plug it in and things would start whirring and some wizzard would talk me through what I needed to do. So I plug it in, and I can feel some movement in the portable hard drive, fairly quiet, but nothing comes up on the screen. I was expecting it to show up as a driver on THIS PC folder, but no, nothing there except the C Drive.

So I click on the wee arrow on the bottom bar close to the clock and I can see an icon like a memory stick. So I right click and I choose the option to OPEN DEVICES & PRINTERS. So I click on the portable drive icon and there are 4 choices.
-Create Shortcut
-Remove Device

  • Troubleshoot
  • Properties

So…any idea what I should do. Or did I buy a dead duck.

Please go easy on the technical terms. I need a complete novice dummy guide.

Thanks in advance

2

Brand new WD external hard drives are “plug and play” … and will display in Windows Explorer with a Drive Letter (it will never be C: Drive) and will be ready to use.,

for Pre-owned hard drives … first thing i would do is re-format it. (super simple guide below)

If that’s successful … download and run Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows (link below) and check the condition of the drive.

if not successful … then the drive is probably a “dead duck” as you say.

(personally, i would never buy a pre-owned hard drive not matter how cheap … previous owner could have used it as a football… Well, “dropped it” at least, which hard drives don’t like.)

3

Thanks Joey for taking the time and also your comprehensive reply.
When I plugged it in to reformat but the FORMAT button is greyed out. So I downloaded the Lifeguard Diagnostic software. I run the quick check and it gave green healthy ticks for every category.

However…nothing else happens so I believe it falls into the dead duck category

Thanks again Joey. Good Karma too you