This is an older WD Passport Ultra drive (WDBMW series), maybe 4 or 5 years old, for which WD will no longer provide active support. So, I have come to the Hive Mind to see if you guys can help me
It worked perfectly fine until this week on my PC laptop (Windows 10), and all of a sudden, it no longer does. When I connect it with the USB 3.0 to USB cable it came with, I get a single, steady light, and the disk whirs, but my computer doesn’t recognize the drive. It is, however, recognized and visible on my husband’s PC laptop, which also has Windows 10 installed.
Why would this be, and more importantly, what can I do to fix it on my computer? This thing has every photo I’ve ever taken of my son, so it’s very dear to me (and yes, I do have backups of most of it elsewhere).
A) I am not sure. How can I figure this out? And resolve it?
b) No.
c) It works on none of my USB ports (though other usb connected devices do), and it works on all of my husband’s computer’s usb ports
d) I have another, older external drive, and my computer recognizes it.
e)No.
Did a little more troubleshooting, tried a solution from another website, where a guy was having the same issue:
“… First, plug in the USB cable halfway through any one of my desktop computer’s USB ports. Then, wait for the drive to show up in explorer. Finally, I can push the USB completely into the USB port. The difference is that the successful connection of the 2TB WD happens when the USB cable is half way into the USB port.”
AND IT WORKED. Which is great, but I something clearly isn’t right, and I’d like to understand it, and fix it at the source, rather than be nervous every time I plug in that it’s not going to work, or risk shorting the thing out or something. Any ideas, given the new information?
Hi, I’m having the exact same problem with my WD My Passport. It wasn’t showing anywhere in my laptop until I plugged it halfway into the port and fully after getting it recognised. I’m wondering if you have managed to solve the issue?
I had the same problem with my external HDD and I’ve tried to plug it in halfway like you said and I can’t believe it worked. But I can’t seem to figure out what exactly is the problem because my laptop can detect other external drives but not this one. Thank you for the solution though!