I had the same issue. Its not a power issue because it shows up in device manager. Heres what I did.
Right-click on my computer and click Manage>Disk Management
Your drive should show up there. Right-click on it. If explore is not grayed out, assign a drive letter to it and you should then be bale to see it in my computer.
In my case explore was grayed out. I had to click on the option to format the drive. After re-formatting the passport explore was available. I then assigned a drive letter to it and I have access again.
I guess somehow using it on multiple computers srcewed up the file-system on it. I was using it between windows and linux.
This fixed my problem.
Another possibility is that the USB port does not provide sufficient current. I tried using a powered USB external hub, and the Passport drive was recognized - at least for now. See Western Digital dot com support where they say:
Cause:
There may not be enough power currently supplied to the machine's USB
port. Some computer systems only supply 500mA of power through USB
ports. The WD Passport hard drive requires a little over 1000mA of
power at spin up.
Solution:
Try the Passport drive on another USB port or another computer. If the
Passport drive is connected to a USB hub, try connecting it directly to
the computer's USB port. If the drive is connected to a PCMCIA (PC
Card) on a notebook computer, the drive may only function properly if
you power it with the optional power adapter (Silver Passport) or a USB 2.0 Power Booster Cable (Black or Colored Passport).
If you decide to use a third-party USB cable to connect the drive to
the computer, the cable may not be able to transfer enough power to the
drive (This includes USB "reel" cables and extension cables). Western
Digital offers an optional power adaptor and an optional USB 2.0 Power
Booster cable (the USB 2.0 Power Booster cable has two USB connectors
that plug into the computer instead of one) through our Online Store.
What you need to do is go to right click on My Computer and then click Manage then click Disk Management. If you have your WD plugged in then you should see it as UNALLOCATED! Click on it to highlight and then right click and select NEW PARTITION. First of all you need to select EXTENDED DRIVE. once you set that up the border will turn green and say FREE SPACE. Once you have done this then right click again Select New Logical Drive and then give it a drive letter. After that, check the box that says quick format with a tick and then OK and in a few seconds you will see it in the large box above telling you its a healthy drive and the border will now turn light blue.
Goto to MY Computer and there you will see it now everytime you have your WD plugged in. Trust me, if you do all these direction right then you will have no problems.
Danwok
This problem is caused by a poor electrical connection. In some cases it may be related to the cable. Try a better quality cable. If not there, its probably where the hard drive plugs into the adapter card inside the case. Unplug your drive from the computer. Gently open the case and try not to break the tabs. Once you have it open unplug and plug the drive into the adapter card several times. Before closing the case again, connect the cable to see if your computer now recognizes your drive. If it doesn't, repeat the process, but make sure the cable is unplugged. Still no luck, try installing your drive in a new case. Good luck.
Lah269I have recovered data from a WD2500ME Passport USB Hard Disk. The Hard Disk was not recognized on any PC USB port. Simply removed the cover and removed hard disk from its casing. It was a Laptop SATA Hard disk. Connected the SATA Data cable from my PC and Sata Power Connector Cable. Started the PC and all the Data was accessible.
Seemed so complicated, then I thought of the weight differnce in my various USB cables. I have two, neither would work with a small cable. Pluged them in using the heaviest that came with a Sony camera that has a tdk something or other (fuse?) and they work great.
I don't know if this has bearing on your issue or not, but I found this thread since I had a similar problem with the 250G drive (WD2500ME). In my case, I just bought from New Egg, recertified, and when I connected it to my PC (running XP SP3) it just made a clicking noise and could not be recognized at all by the computer. BUT...I had it connected to a USB extension cable. When I connected it directly to a USB port, it recognized it, no clicking, installed and all of the pre-installed files were there! So make sure it is also not connected to an extension cable, as that apparently can weaken the USB power output!
I had a similar problem with my 250. Seems that when I networked the house systems, the default drive letter for the Passport was F: Since this was taken over by a networked drive,m I had to manually go in and allocate a drive letter for the Passport. Once I did this, everything showed up just fine, all my data is there. NO reformat needed, just change the drive letter.
Guys i had the same problem, this is due to a malfunction in the electronic board that powers the HD.
the only way to solve this is:
1- carefully break the plastic cover.
2- get out the HD and disconnect it from the board
3- buy a new casing for your HD (costs less that 10$) and reconnect it with it.
but unfortunately you will not be able to use western sync any more..
Had the same problem
ran the fat32 formatter off wd website
& it picked it straight up
Before the problem faces on my external hard disk my dvd recognizes the hard disk but after i formated the external hard disk my dvd player does not recognize vidoe from external hard disk
I have the same issue with my 120gb passport.
Windows vista and xp says something about the usb running faster.
Vista recognizes it for a second and then it disappears.
Check if your USB connects correctly
SOURCE: My PC is not recognizing my WD Passport 120GB USB external drive.
Does you drive make any sounds like these?
If yes you have a mechanical problem and you should get a specialist to work on it.
If not - try to remove the drive from the enclosure and connect it directly to the computer to recover your files.
SOURCE: My PC is not recognizing my WD Passport 120GB USB external drive.
These WD Passport external drives are junk. This happened to two of mine, switched to Maxtor.
SOURCE: My PC is not recognizing my WD Passport 120GB USB external drive.
my pc not recognizing my wd passport
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My WD 160GB external hard disk work fine till yesterday suddenly its not recognizing neither my desk top nor my laptop please help
My PC is not recognizing my WD Passport WD2500ME USB external drive.
I used just A few days ago I used for the 1st time and it was recognizing the PC. I copied some files and pictures with out problem. Next day I connected the usb cable to my computer and the WD Passport drive and not recognized on 3 laptops. pls advise
Redards,
Tig
yup. disk doesn't show up in vista window explorer, but now is listed under disk mgmt as "unallocated".
I have the 320Gb version and this is the second one ... all of a sudden within 3 months (not even been moved off the desk) it has simply stopped being recognised.
Simply not good enough WD!
My laptop not recognizing my WD passport 120 GB usb.
Bought a new computer with vista, moved my old external maxtor drive over and it worked fine for one month, now OS won't recognize the maxtor drive,
I have the same problem, only that i have WD 250GB ext drive
yes
WD Passport Essential 250 is not recognized on a PC running XP, but OK on others with same operating system. It is scary to think that after I have this drive full of important data that it may stop working on other PC's and I may never retrieve what is on it.
Same problem with WD2500ME, it worked first off, copied some files, next shot nothing worked ever again... anybody found a solution?
I was just using my WD Passport earlier today, and then I took it out and plugged it back in, and now my computer isn't recognizing it, but if I go to the control panel to view hard drives, it says it's there and that's it's working properly and that it has the latest driver installed. However, I'm not able to see it when I go to "My Computer." I'm getting very frustrated.
my mac wont load my digital passport. it has previously but now it wont and have some important data on there. how do i get it off?
wd500me - same issue. It worked the other day, now I can't get any PC to recognize it. At first it says it sees new hardware, acts like it is loaded, but can't see it anywhere. Any answers yet?
my hardrive is not recognized
I have the same issue with a passport WD1600ME:
- when I connect it for the first time to a PC (laptop or desktop), it works fine
- but when I try to conenct it for a second time, then it is not detected/recognised. Typically Windows will not find the relevant drivers!!!
This is plain scary: I can't use it to store important data...
I had the very same problem with my 250GB Passport drive. I followed Lone_Rider23's suggestion below, and was able to get the drive to appear in XP once more. I did not have to format the drive, just had to change the drive letter.
Hope this helps everyone else!
My PC is not recognizing my WD Passport 80GB USB external drive. It did fine as for the last few months then today it wont read.
My Harddrive is not detected on any computer...
Changed cable problem solved
wd passport wont load when plugged in. The light turns on and you can heard it booting up but it does not openÂ
my wd passport dosnt work and couldnt be seen on my mac and on another 2 computers
I bought a 500 GB My Passport Essential. It was working for about a
week, but now when I plug it into the USB port on my MacBook, it isn't
found and the USB light on the case starts flashing. I plugged it into an old desktop computer that isn't compatible with it, just to see if it would be found. It was, so it seems like an issue of bus power, but if that's the case, it shouldn't have worked for that first week. Please help.
What can we do? It's so costly to buy another one... I got mine from Costco.... not from an electronic store, who do we go to?
My Western Digital External Hard drive does not show up under My Computer on any of my 3 laptops and 2 desk tops. I tried using a new USB cord and it still does not work. The external harddrive's blue light remains lite once plugged in. I called the Western Digital Soultion Center and all they said send it back and we will send you a new one. Problem they won't and can't recovery any of my data (the 8,000 Europe photos). Please Help?
My Passport was working fine on my ABIT K9 XP 32 bit - for a while. Now it is not detected, even with rescan in disk management. I've run into lots of problems with drivers on the ABIT K9.
It works on an old IBM running XP 32 bit.
what was the solution? What we need to do?
I was using my WD for 9 months and was working fine, but now it has been a few days that I can't open it
This depends on whether you need data or not.
If no data is needed, you may format the hdd when possible. If you need data, you must be very careful. This can be caused by the USB interface issue, bad sector issue or common firmware issue. You may try to swap the PCB and ROM chip (U12) on the PCB and it may work for you. Otherwise, you need some firmware repair tool to fix the common firmware failure.
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