I have a WD 500GB that I was using on our Mac. The lights on the external drive come on and I can hear the drive turning, but the computer no longer recognizes the drive. I tried the WD500 in a regular PC and it does not see the external drive either. I thought it was cables so I used different cables, but still same problem. If these external drives go bad, do they still power up and appear to be working? I don't know what else to do. Thanks,

Without taking it apart it would be difficult to diagnose. I would venture to guess that one small component broke internally. You may be forced to purchase an external HDD enclosure, and move your drive.

Hi Neil The are many reports of these drives doing just that (mind you, it's not confined to WD)
I'm guessing you're on a Mac - did you install any of WD's software?
the WD software does nothing on a mac other than cause problems. The best thing is to try connecting to another mac to see if it shows up there.
On the positive side, most times it's not the HD but the enclosure that is at fault.

Have you tried it in another computer? I think these kind of problems can sometimes be caused by USB voltage problems, especially if your MBP has an old battery (I believe the battery is used as a power buffer to keep size of transformer down). If that doesn't work, see if you can find someone with the same HDD power supply and try switching that over. Failing that it's data recovery, you may be able to do this yourself by switching the actual hard drive into a new enclosure.

Hi,

Check the file system of your hard drive. If your PC is recognizing it, check if its a FAT or NTFS. If it is NTFS then you have to reformat it using your Mac and choose FAT. Mac OS recognizes NTFS as a read only drive. If you plan using it with your PC and MAC you should format it using your mac and choose MS-DOS in disc Utility. You cannot format the drive using your PC Computer with a FAT file system because of the capacity. Only Mac can format it with a FAT file system.

Providing you didnt format it specific to a MAC then moving it to a proper windows PC would be my next step as you suggest.

A few things to check. These are my generic tests but will still work on almost any external drive. They all assume at least a USB 2.0 connection as anything else may prove unreliable.

1. ensure the drive is connected directly to the computer and not via a HUB

2. ensure you use the original cable that came with it (not one that looks the same)

3. remove as many other usb components as possible

4.check the power supply for the external drive if it has one

5. shut down and restart the computer

At this point you should be able to see and move files around.

If this is not the case and the drive is no longer under warranty you could try the following

remove the drive from its enclosure and mount it in a computer that has a suitable interface eg. SATA or IDE.

If you can now use the drive normally then the enclosure is at fault.

If the drive CANNOT be used normally then the drive is at fault.

If its the drive then it is either dying or dead.


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You will need to try formatting the drive. You can do this from the drive management section on the Mac.

load the driver for mac use, the external hard drive comes with cd, the mac driver should be inside, load it to your mac computer. if you donot have the cd go online to western digital and download it. just load the driver and u will be fine, make sure u connect the cable in right places.

I’m happy to help further over the phone at https://www.6ya.com/expert/mustafa_06f84c65ab5cc745

I am having the same problem!!!! I have my time machine backups on there and I cannot access them! Class action lawsuit???

it must be initialised /mounted 1st for osx

I also have the same problem. I bought a 500gb WD HDD and it worked great via USB for about 4 days, not the computer does not have it. i am running windows xp home. i can also hear the drive working and the blue light comes on, but it is delayed. When it was working correctly it came on instantly and the computer found it instantly.