Hi there, I have bought this drive 2-3 years ago, was perfectly functional. So my problem started 1 week ago when my brother connected my external hard drive to his laptop, the drive was not recognized by windows and kept loading. Nevertheless, I removed it from his laptop and connected it to mine. Did couple Smart tests using WD utilities and Dashboard, both short test failed, so i opted to format the drive and erase all data, thought it had to do with corrupted data or something like that, the smart test showed good results too. That worked out pretty fine and the drive was up and running. 2 days after that, i wanted to download some games to the drive from steam, but it reached a certain capacity about 300gb was used, so 3,3 Tb was free overall then it failed to read or write. I tested the drive again and the result were a complete failure with error code 4. I reformatted the drive again and the same problem happens over and over. When the drive reached the 3.3Tb limit, it fails to read or write . So, does that mean it is dead ?
Hi @SeaBear1,
Please contact the WD Technical Support team for best assistance and troubleshooting:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/ask
Check the Drive in Disk Management
check whether Windows detects the hard disk when you plug it in. Plug your removable drive into your computer, if it isn’t already.
Next, open the Disk Management tool. To do so, press Win + X (or right-click the Start button) to open the Power User menu and select Disk Management from the list. You can also open the Run dialog with Win + R and enter diskmgmt.msc to open this utility.
As the name suggests, Disk Management lets you see all the hard disks connected to your computer. It allows you to review sizes, partitions, and other disk information.
You should see your external drive listed in the Disk Management window, likely below your primary and any secondary disks. Even if it doesn’t appear in the This PC window because it doesn’t contain any partitions, it should show up here as a Removable volume.
There, you’ll partition and/or format your drive properly so Windows and other devices can access it.
If your external drive is still not showing up in Disk Management, continue on. You’ll need to determine why your drive isn’t recognized. It’s possible you have a hardware issue, driver problem, or a dead drive.
Try Another USB Port and Computer
The reason your external drive isn’t detected may not lie with your device, but instead with the port you’re using to connect it to your computer.
Unplug the drive from its current USB port and try plugging it into another port on your computer. Should it work in one USB port but not another, you may have a dead USB port.
Troubleshoot Device Driver Issues
If the drive does show up on other computers—or you don’t have another computer around to test it on—Windows may have a driver problem with your device. You can check for this using the Device Manager.
You’ll find a shortcut to the Device Manager under the same Win + X menu mentioned earlier. You can also enter devmgmt.msc into the Run dialog to open it.
In the Device Manager, expand the Disk drives category and check for any devices with a yellow exclamation point next to them. It’s a good idea to check the Universal Serial Bus controllers section too.
If you see the error symbol for any entry, that device has a driver problem. Right-click the device with the issue, select Properties , and look at the error message under Device status . This info can help you fix the problem.
As a final resort, you can use the Uninstall Device button to remove the device from your system. Upon rebooting, Windows will then reinstall the driver and hopefully configure it correctly when you reconnect the drive.
Like any other electronic product, Hard disks are also uncertain in life and failure can happen anytime due to a bad power supply, virus attack, damaged block, sectors, or corrupted operating system files. Here I suggest you to check out the below blog for the list of top 6 reasons for hard disk failure with their symptoms and solutions:
Hope it will help.
I’m sorry to say that the drive is definitely failing or has already failed. You could try to get it out of the enclosure and plug it in directly with a new cable. It’s a long shot that likely won’t help. Since you were unable to get the drive to show up in the system to even run a S.M.A.R.T. test then it can mean it’s dead.
Hi my Passport 4TB is visible but I am unable to down the executable file it fails every time at download 36%. I am running windows 11
