You are not swapping from mAC to PC and back , right?
try other USB ports.
many external drives do not run with out an external power pack.
elements, use 4 diffr. 18watt power packs, Are you using the right one?
so plug that in ,first. then plug in USB , w7 must go Ding dong
or the USB is DEAD. (use this as #1 fact to follow)
then put ear to the case of drive, hear it spin?
if not ,there is no power, for SURE.
solve that first.
ok, it spins. (soft whirl\'g sound, do this when new to memorize how GOOD sounds)
for a tests, leave the USB cable , not connected.
let w7 boot to the desktop.
now plug in the USB HDD, cable.
W7 goes, Ding dong.
then see the USB icon in the tray, does it see the drive>?
Y/n?
click on that tray icon, i see USB to ATPI bridge then...
My externals (have many) shows as Z:/external below , bridge....
if not , USB is failing.
yes, ding dong, yes Icon, yes see drive above.!
then go to disk manager, type those 2 words in the run box.
start +run " disk manager"
CP(controlpanel)+computer management +disk management.
does disk manager see this spinning drive.
mine shows,. DISK 2 and is letter coded Z:
if not , the USB port is not working. or the drive is not with power.
if disk manager shows the drive, the assign a letter to said drive
now program manager can see the drive, with this letter Z.
it dont need to be Z , per ce\' but that letter is a nice flag.
step by step.
oops it has green tech, that means it goes to sleep.
make sure you turn that off first. or it may not show up at all.
it\'s so green its , invisible?
wd on their DL page has a spin down utility, use that.
how was drive formatted? there are many , which, NTFS is correct answer.
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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.
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.
SOURCE: My PC is not recognizing my WD Passport 120GB USB external drive.
I had a similar problem with my WD passport 320GB. When I connected it to my laptop it never showed up on My Computer even though the blue light on the hard drive came on.
Here is what I did:
Right click on "My Computer" and click on "Manage" and then "Disk Management",. you should see your WD hard drive listed. then click on "change driver letters and paths" and change it from the listed to another drive. I changed mine from G to F drive and it worked for me.
SOURCE: WD My Book Essential keeps asking me to format
Hi,
There are two main reasons why this could be happening. Vista will ask you to scan/format any portable or flash drive the first time you plug it in as it prefers you use it's newer version of NTFS but it's not required. If this is the case there is an option on that pop-up window to continue without repairing the drive and it will work fine once you select that.
The other major possibility is that the drive was active at the time of the crash and that the file tables were damaged at that time. If this is the case your file are almost always still there but windows hasn't a clue where to find them, it's like somebody shot the librarian and you don't know the name of the book you want.
If it is the second problem you have a couple options depending on how bad the damage is.
1. Try the program"Get My Data Back" it's a bit amateurish but works well on deleted files and minor drive damage.
2. Send your drive to a pro(try one first if you like), there are a few good places in North America that offer cost effective recoveries on minor problems like this generally $100-$200, but it can be more if the damage is more extensive. Armor-IT Data Recovery has adverts in each US state and can be search in FixYa's Database, or on Google if option one doesn't work.
Hope this helps FixYa
Chris
SOURCE: WD Elements USB drive not recognized
Try going to Disk Management and see if they show up there.
If your computer is recognizing a mass storage device they should show up in disk management and you can just assign them a drive letter.
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