Unable to access My Passport Essential 500GB USB 3.0

My issue started after using it last week. I tried to eject my passport from windows but said it was in use, so I had to shut the pc down so I can unlplug the device. The next day when I attached it to the pc, it made the sound that it detected a usb plugged in but the pop up screen of the autorun option didn’t show up and the device is not detected properly. The ext. hdd is there in My Computer, it has a drive letter but only shows as a local drive and you can’t open it. Label and the capacity does not show anymore. When you try to eject it nothing happens. When you try to acces it on My computer it stops responding. Device is seen in device manager, drivers are all installed. In disk management drive is online and sees the full capacity, but no options can be performed. Can’t format, delete volume or any task in disk management. Most of the time when you access the device the application trying to access it will stop responding until you unplug it. tried all 3 usb ports on the laptop, same thing. I’m using Windows 7, I’ve installed Windows XP on the same pc. In XP the drive is detected but does not show the capacity you can double click the drive but nothings there. Can’t perform anything from disk management as well. I’ve tried TestDisk, WD Quick Formatter for Windows, WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows, all apps is stuck detecting or finding the drive. Tried it on the office pc for some reason i get an error that its read only or write protected. I’m not sure if its in the pc’s security. But still wasn’t able to access the drive.I want to retrieve the files from it if possible. Also the light on the ext. hdd is steady then blinks 3x and then just continous on a cycle, I’m not sure if that indicates anything.

Any help would greatly be appreciated. Thanks

Try running chkdsk as this might repair the partition

the drive got corrupted when the computer was having problems

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I can’t, on windows 7 when I right click the drive from my computer to run check disk my computer stops responding. When I try it on command prompt it attempts to run it but after I press enter to start the command nothing happens. It would not complete or do anything until I remove the ext. drive from the pc. In XP, since the capacity is not detected after I click start to run check disk the window just disappears as it completed it already.

I was able to run command promt chkdsk in xp. I can access the drive now.

my WD passport wont appear on my computer, i cant even see it on disk manager… what do i do?? help me please…

I have had this problem with a similar drive. I eventually solved it by

1 Opening  Device manager

2 selecting Volume and then populate

3 selected uninstall and removed the drive

Then unplugged the drive and replugged it a new driver auto installed and it was OK

I hope this helps

Uncle John

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