I bought the 2 Tb external harddrive (Passport) and used it once on my desktop to back up photos and videos from older phones and disks. Those phones no longer work. I have tried 5 different computers and none of them recognize the device. The rest of the message states, “The last USB device you connected to this computer malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it.”
The only problem with that message is two of those computers I plugged it in to have never had any USB devices plugged into it.
My son was killed in a car wreck and The Passport is the only place many of those pictures and videos now exist. The devastation of losing them feels like someone who lost their photos in a fire that destroyed their home. I will do anything to get access to these files.
I’ve tried downloading everything the website says to download, but I don’t know what it is I’m actually downloading.
Please help.
Thank you
Hi,
Were you using the same USB cable for each computer? Can you get a different one?
Cliff
I didn’t think I’d need another one because the Password and the cable were new. I can find one thru Amazon or their WD website. I HOPE that’s it.
OK. I do know a lot of people have trouble with the cable.
I’ll get another cable and update. Thank you
New cable didn’t help. Light on Passport comes on like before, but that’s it. I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack!
I don’t understand, all this supposed technology, and nothing works. I have this basically brand new Passport plus 2 Seagates I’ve had for years, which also don’t work. One quit years ago and the other one quit recently also.
All 3 have priceless photos and videos I’ll never see again?
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Do you still get the message you mentioned? If so, I can’t help you. There are places that can recover files from damaged drives. Check on the Internet. Western Digital can refer you to a few. Search under Knowledge Base.
If the cable is good, next we need to know something about the software. Have you seen anything called WD Backup? Or WD Smartware? These are the standard programs used to copy files from your computer to the Passport. WD BAckup is now preferred for Passport. Did you use either? Or did you copy or move files using Windows ?
If you used WD Backup, you need to restart it to see what files are on the disk. Same thing with WD Smartware. To start WD Backup you need to open a program called WD Discovery. Open the Windows Start by clicking down in the lower left corner of your desktop screen and see if you can find WD Discovery. Or, if you see a “Type here…” at the left of the taskbar, type 'WD Discovery". Either way you should see a new screen. Select Apps and then Open for WD Backup. The new screen should show a picture of the Passport with “My Passport Ultra” or similar.
If not, then the Passport is not being recognized by the software! That will require some more work.
If you see the Passport picture, then you or someone must have done some set up. Click on Restore at the top and then “Select Files to restore…” A new screen opens. Wait a while for it to find your files, if any. You will see folders same as in windows. Search!
If you used WD Smartware, start as above but the results are different. Try to find the files. Use the Help button at the top.
If you moved files using Windows, try to find them and move copy them back to your computer
Let me know how you make out.
Cliff
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Unfortunately I too have had the honor of losing all my precious images ON 2 EXTERNALS. I’m so sorry to hear that your loss was so much more of an issue. Such precious images that cannot be replaced. My heart aches for you and yes understandably in panic attack mode. Wish I could tell you positive vibes but…
But why should you have to lose ANY files.
This is the second external My Passport external drive that has just quit on me for absolutely no fault by me, it just stopped booting! It was working perfectly. The first one which was a couple of years ago, I took to a professional restorer suggested by my computer guru who could not help me. They charged me $140. and could NOT restore any of my stored images. Unfortunately that’s the price to pay to TRY to recover files. Win or lose. NOW a practically new CLOSE TO FILLED 2.0 external has just stopped working. NOT ABUSED! SO with the bigger drive I even lost more that with the fist drive. When plugged in the light on the external illuminates But no longer flashes, and the drive itself feels like it’s working/running, But it doesn’t come up or load on my File Explorer or any other computer. I did try multiple cords and no go. Obviously there is a serious problem with these products!
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That’s exactly what happened with mine!! Argh!! It’s heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time.
I bought a new cord and the only difference is it quit saying “USB device not recognized. The last device you connected to the computer malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it.”
I tried to download WD Backup on the desktop that i initially used, the one time I moved the pictures over from old phones. But, get this, when I try to go to the WD website, I get this, every time. “This site can’t be reached. Support.wdc.com took too long to respond…” What’s that about? I so wish i had uploaded everything to OneDrive Cloud or something and had all my photos printed!
My only hope is once I figure out why I can’t access the website and download WD Backup, it’ll work then.
Clifford Cleary, you’ve been great and gotten me this far - any thoughts on why I can’t access the WD site? Also, I got the same message when I tried to get on the Seagate sight! I’m having same issues with that external drive too. It has even more photos on it. Unbelievable.
I replied below. Thank you for helping. I’ve hit another brick wall.
Hi,
I just used Support.wdc.com and it responded immediately. Do you have problems with other websites? That response you mention seems to be coming from your Internet provider. Maybe they were having trouble.
I hope by now that you have got WD Backup working. Let me know if that helps at all.
There seems to be a lot of people losing picture and videos due to moving files from devices to external drives. Most of them are with older drives. Moving files does not seem to be the way to protect pictures or other files. The idea of Backup is to COPY data and retain it on the source as well as the external memory, whether a physical device or a cloud service. If the source lacks space, then maybe a second external device should be used. Some large companies use several backup copies of data.
Cliff
I still can’t get on the WD site or the Seagate site, everything else I’ve tried I can. I can get on WD and Seagate on my 2 laptops but not the computer I used when I initially used the Passport. So there’s that…
I can only think that there is something wrong with that computer. Do you use Norton or other protection? You could also do a Windows Recovery. Disconnect the Passport first thow.
Cliff
After connecting the hard drive, have you checked it into the disk management? If it is visible there then what is the status of the hard drive in disk management.
I did check it and it wasn’t there, showed nothing.
