WD My Passport not recognizable by Windows 11

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
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I have an old My Passport P/N WDBAAA5000ABL-00 S/N WXP1E30EVC34T. When I connect this to My Windows 11 Home edition laptop, the light is glowing but the system is not recognizing. How can I solve this?

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Hi @satyanagesh,

External Drive Not Detected by Windows or macOS Quick Assistant: Resolve External Drive Not Detected by Windows or macOS Guided Assist

Please contact the WD Technical Support team for the best assistance and troubleshooting:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/ask

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Hey there! It’s great to see you reaching out for help. Let’s see what we can do to get your WD My Passport working with your Windows 11 laptop!

First, let’s try some basic troubleshooting steps:

  1. Check the cable: Make sure you’re using the original USB cable that came with the My Passport drive. Sometimes, using a faulty or incompatible cable can cause connection issues.

  2. Try different ports: Attempt to connect the drive to different USB ports on your laptop. It’s possible that one of the ports might be faulty.

  3. Check Disk Management: Go to “Disk Management” on your Windows 11 laptop. To do this, right-click the Start button, select “Disk Management.” If the drive is listed there, it might just need a drive letter assigned to it. Right-click on the drive, choose “Change Drive Letter and Paths,” and assign a letter.

  4. Update USB drivers: Make sure you have the latest USB drivers installed on your laptop. You can check for updates in the Device Manager.

  5. Test on another PC: If possible, try connecting the My Passport to another computer (preferably with a different operating system) to see if it’s detected there. This will help determine if the issue is specific to your laptop or the drive itself.

If the above steps don’t work, there might be a more significant issue with the drive. In that case, you can try the following:

  1. Check for driver updates: Visit the Western Digital website and search for the latest drivers and software for your specific My Passport model.

  2. Data recovery: If you have important data on the drive and you can’t access it, consider contacting a professional data recovery service. They might be able to retrieve your data even if the drive is not working properly.

  3. Contact Western Digital support: If the drive is still under warranty, you can contact Western Digital support for assistance. They might be able to help you troubleshoot the issue or provide a replacement if needed.

Remember, if the drive is very old or damaged, it might be time to consider getting a new external hard drive. Technology does have its limits, and sometimes, old drives simply wear out.

I hope these tips help you get your WD My Passport up and running again. If you need further assistance, don’t hesitate to ask! Good luck! :blush:

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I just got (in the past 2 weeks) a new Windows 11 laptop and found this issue after the latest updates.
I have two WD external drives.
One 14Tb easystore and a 4Tb My Passport.
When I connect the 4Tb drive, I get a virtual drive (CD Drive (H:) WD Unlocker) - which when I click, mounts the actual drive. This seems to work fine BUT it takes a LOOOONG time to be recognized when connected to the laptop and the virtual unlock CD drive to show up.

The 14Tb drive is not being recognized at all - no matter what I try including all that is suggested above in your post.
When the same drives are connected to a Windows 10 (latest version) laptop (almost 8 yrs old) everything works like a dream.

I have one external 2Tb Samsung SSD (with finger print) unlocking drive that works perfectly on W10 and W11.
I also have an external 4Tb Segate drive that too works perfectly on both laptops.
Upon searching online it seems WD is not even acknowledging issues with it’s external drives under W11 - when you see countless cases of issues being reported.

So what do I need to get use of my 14Tb drive? That is my primary backup drive and I must have access to it very quickly.

Update:
I am following the instructions provided at this link.

Resolve External Drive Not Detected by Windows or macOS Guided Assist…

Now I am getting this pop-up every few seconds…

image
image714Ă—288 37.2 KB

There is nothing wrong with the drive or the cable or the power supply (all supplied by WD when I purchased the drive.).

So, I moved the drive back to the old windows 10 (latest update) computer and now I am getting the same popup message. This could spell disaster for me if I have lost my backups on this 14Tb disk.

Final update: (for those who may encounter similar issues)

Ok after several combinations of tests between 2 laptops, 2 os’ and cables etc…
It turns out that the USB cable has somehow become defective.
I swapped the WD cable with the one from Segate and the easystore 14Tb WD came to life to my relief…

I am using 2 drives off USB-A ports on a multi port hub connected to a USB-C port without any issues.

Wonder if WD will replace the cable under warranty?

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Some of the information given are true by Amelia. I would suggest troubleshooting the issue by first checking the hardware connections such as the ports, USB cable, etc.
If the hardware connections are functioning properly, then move to software or system-related fixes such as reboot, driver update, assigning drive letter, formatting, and others. Check out this article to fix the drive not recognized issue.

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