Not showing my external hard drive

Nice simple solution: Start > My Computer (Right Click) > Manage > Storage > Disk Management > Right Click the My Book > Format > Continue to format disk, quick format is much quicker so I used that. Hope this helps. Nice to see a friendly, knowledgeable forum. Nick.

Same problem - the drive works fine, just doesn't assign a drive letterautomatically. Assign an unused letter manually using Disk Management,and it works great. Too bad WD doesn't post this solution for thenovices among us.

DGH9

I HAVE SOLVED THE PROBLEM! or at least this works for my my book 1tb external hard drive. when i initially connect it i get the 'new device detected' pop up thing, but then it doesn't show on my computer. However, I have found that keeping the device pllugged into the computer but removing then replacing the power source from the device causes it to show up. That's all I did, unplug the power cord on the back and replace it. The computer says 'new hardware detected' and 'found my book mass storage device,' then it appears on my my computer tab. Hope this works with you as well!

Just got a western Digital Harddrive 250 External from a friend to troubleshoot. What I found was a Bad voltage regulator on board. Looking at the circuit board I noticed a very poor design. Im going to try and replace the voltage regulator, but Im thinking I will go with a different power supply. Looks like this could be the probelm!

DId you guys try and remap the drive to another drive letter under My Computer/ manage funciton/ Drive Management?? It could be using another drive that is already mapped?

Check out this post on self help especially if it is the power with the system and not the drive itself. I am going to do this because when I hook up my WD 250 gb drive the drive doesn't appear on the computer, the light blinks, and i don't hear the spinning of the disk inside.

http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-mybook-open-case-recover-data.htm

Just acquired one of these drives going cheap on ebay and had the exact same problem. At first I was disappointed but didn’t complain too much as I thought the price was too good to be true. However, after a quick google, I discovered that it’s a common problem even with brand spanking new models so I had a little tinker and can say that Solution #4 above from DGH9 is the way forward. For those of you using XP, right click on ‘My Computer’ and select the ‘Manage’ option, then right click on the new ‘disk’ at the bottom of the screen and I can’t really remember the next steps but they must have been fairly intuitive for me to end up assigning a drive letter to the unit. As I had intended to use the drive as mobile storage between home and work I’m not too sure if I will have to repeat the process on every computer – I hope not.

Cheers.

i checked with disk management
drive is shown there but drive letter is not assigned then i have to assign drive letter manually
n even while transferring files it does not support long file names

This is a common fault with WD Hard drives, I would return it if i were you and get another.

All these solutions got me to the same place, in computer management / disk management , then when i right clicked on the hardrive the "assign new drive letter" was greyed out, so i just had to delete the partition, and then remake the partition, and format. Which i supose wasnt a good solution for someone who is trying to save their data, but then again i didnt need the data, i just wanted to use my harddrive. thanks again for the help!

Soloution #3 works. Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management then you right click on your drive and choose "Change Drive Letter and Path"> Assign a unused letter. The autoplay box should show up and hapiness will naturally follow.

Even with solution 9, i am not able to delete the partiton, please i need help i have tried all the ways is described above but all the options is greyed out such as
Change Drive Letter and Path
or delte the partition!

mine worked with soltion#9 from Grandin. thanks

Even I had a similar problem with my 500 GB WD. When I looked at the Device Manager -> Storage -> Disk Management, i could see a volume but drive was not assigned to it. So, I assigned a drive name and my external drive started showing up.
Hope it helps.

It could be your usb cable i had the same problem but now i solved it by using my ps3 usb cable instead

Had a similar problem trying to hook up my external drive It was showing up in device manager but not in explorer. i followed the advice of grandin (Solution #9) and it worked straight away!!!