Good evening,
I attempted to update my passport 320gb essential HD today and now it is no longer recognized. BY that I mean that the light comes on, and the drive spins up but windows does not recognize that anything is plugged into the USB.
I have updated the smartware, and attempted to rescan with the firmware updater but nothing is happening.
I have attempted this on Windows 10 64 bit, and a Windows 8.1 laptop 64 bit.
I have checked for disabled devices in device manager also and nothing shows up.
Any suggestions? I would like to continue using the drive, but nothing on there is irreplaceable. Is there any way to get the drive recognized so I can format it or anything at all?
This is my 2nd WD external hard drive and both have ended poorly.
I have the exactly the same problem. My Passport Essential 500GB used to function well. However, when I tried to update WDfirmwareupdate yesterday, it failed and it could not found by any computers, including Macbook, even through “diskpart” or “list volume” in cmd.exe. The messaged said “Firmware contains low-level instructions that control drive performance. Before starting this firmware update, it is recommended that you back up your drive data and close all applications accessing the drive. Do not disconnect rive power or the USB cable during the update.” After the message, it could not be rescanned any more. I used “Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics, WinDlg_v1_29” to scan it but it could not be found. Neither by WD Drives Utilities. When I pluged the portable drive to my computer, the light is on and I can hear a sound that a external drive was plugged through USB, as well as the spins in the drive but it does not show in My Computer in 64 bits Windows 10 system. The cable is the original I bought. There were any problem before yesterday.
Hello tehbozza, I just called WD support and the technician said the firmware is malware that is not supposed to be installed. If Disk Management could not find it, there is nothing WD can do. He asked me to change another cable but it still has the same result. He said the drive is finished. Too bad. I did not know how the firmware update jumped out to my computer and asked me to install. It is my fault.
Yeah I changed the cable before I attempted the update as it was going bad and making the HD drop connection.
That is unfortunate to hear, i’m not quite sure how I understand that it is malware downloaded from the WD website (unless it is an amazing replication of the WD website/links). Lesson learned i guess.
Thanks for the information. Guess i’m going seagate on my next one.
I have the same problem, also used only firmware update, thought this was secure.
