WD TV Live stopped recognising hdd

[Kerfuffle]

So I upgraded to the Live from the WD TV.   I use two WD usb drives, one 320gb and one 500gb. Both were used on my WD TV. When I got the Live, I deleted the wdtv folder on each and let the new unit index them etc.

All was going well until yesterday when it decided not to recognise one of the two drives I have plugged in (the 320gb one - elements IIRC).  Basically, I moved some files to the drive on my computer, then hooked it up to the Live and turned it on and despite power going to the drive, it did not mount the drive and I could not access anything at all.  The led didn’t light up as usual when plugging in a drive.  This is even though we were watching something off of it the previous night.

So I have deleted the wdtv folder again, done a soft and hard reset of the Live and reformatted the 320gb drive. Nothing has worked, it just does not recognise it being connected.

The 500gb drive works fine in both usb1 and usb2 (so I know it is not a duff usb port).

Any ideas or is my only option to buy a new drive?

Computer recognises the drive and allows me to copy to it, read from it with no problems at all.

I was running the latest FW and I tried the drive on my old WD and it would not recognise it either.  I downgraded the firmware on the Live to see if that fixed it but it made no difference.  The drive is in NTFS format and I have also tried chaging usb cables.

Can anyone help or is my only option to just buy another drive?  Could the unit itself possibly be faulty?

[thepanoguy]

Try downloading the hard drive diagnostic software from the hard drive manufacturer’s site. You may have to reformat the hard drive using the manufacturer’s software not the default computer software. The other possibility is: if your hard drive is a USB powered drive then the WDTV Live may not be able to supply enough power to reliably power the hard drive. (very common with notebooks)  

[roadrun]

a similar problem occurs for me when I upgrade to the last firmware.

When i power off / on, the USB disks are discovered.

But when I go in standby mode then activate the WD tv live, the NTFS USB disk are not recongnized.

The USB light blinks but disappears, the usb drive is powered but no USB disk shown on the WD tv live.

Power off/on and the disk is now available.

Downgrading to the 22 level and it works now.

Tested with 2 different drives.

Have tried the “reset default factory settings” but does not correct this problem.

Have tried to  update to 1.04.31 with same problem.

=> re dowgrade to 1.04.22 : OK

tried only deleting .wd folder => no success.

So WD tv live remains at 1.04.22 firmware for my usage.

[rebob40]

I had a similiar issue and found that before you shut off the WD TV Live Plus unit you have to use the eject button on the remote to basically un mount the drive. When you start the unit back up it should recognize the drive. If not there is another option that i have found also works- power off the unit unplug the usb cable from the device power up the unit after it has loaded up and the menu is accessible plug you usb cable back in and wait takes less than a minut and the usb access light comes on on the unit. You can now access your drive with the unit.

[Kerfuffle]

I tried all of those sorts of things.  Nothing worked, so far as my WDTV Live and my old WDTV are concerned, the drive is a brick.  Still works on my computer though.  It is an older WD drive so maybe the Live just didn’t get along with it.

In the end I just went and bought a new drive and all appears fine.