20 Most Recent Western Digital Passport 120GB External USB 2.0 Portable WDXML1200UExx Hard Drive Questions & Answers

Your unit is detecting the electronics on your external case, not the internal hard drive it contains. If that is not being recognized that usually indicates a failure of the hard drive logic board, not a good thing. Remove the drive from case and plug in directly into your pc. If still not recognized that confirms initial diagnosis. Your usb port is ok but the drive is fubar and since the logic board is toast data recovery will have to be done by the pros and be expensive, very expensive. Always a good idea to have multiple backups!!!!!!!!!

There are tools that will undelete & unformat you drive.
look here for free one.
http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/filerecovery.html
and here for a selection.http://www.freebyte.com/filediskutils/
finally this one is great but costs. http://www.easeus.com/

:depending on your operating system this may vary in windows7 click start control panel you should see system security tab in that back up then windows will ask for a back up DESTINATION location you can select either dvd or another device or in XP click start all programs accessories system tools you should see back up after the back up finishes windows will tell you your computer back up was successfull also you could right click on the back up file select properties this will tell you how many GB were used hope this helps

Hi and welcome khaksh ,
Connect your passport to your lap .
Let your antivirus full scan the content of it .
Complete the scan with MalwareBytes , a powerfull malware killer :
http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html
To completely finish the job , have the content of your lap fully scanned by both applications .
When you are shure both pc and passport are virus free , try accessing locked files as administrator .
I hope this will help you .
Best regards ,

A little program called TrueCrypt can make a flash drive/portable hard drive set up for password protection.
Makers site->http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/517/cpsid_51791.html
Keep in mind that this is not the only one out there, but this is the easiest to set up.
Good luck and do not forget to rate me :)

Hello

Okay , so there are some steps to figure out what is wrong with your external.

Firstly , if your computer makes a sound when you plug in your external , go to Start-Control Panel-Administrative Tools-Computer Management-Disk Management , and see if your external drive is listed here with your local drives. If it is listed , right click on the drive and change the drive letter to make it appear in "my computer".

If your drive does not make a connection sound when connecting to your computer and also does not show up , please follow the next step.

Remove the hard drive from the casing if possible and install it in your computer case or another external case.If the drive works , the problem is with the casing and you can ignore the drive.

Now , if the problem is with the casing , there are still 3 possibilities.

1. The USB cable between the drive and the computer may be damaged.
2. The circuit board which connects your drive to the interface of the external may be blown.
3. The power supply (if applicable) may have a blown transformer.

The latter is the easiest to diagnose , does your external light up at all when you plug in the power? If not , then this is probably your problem. On the bottom of the adapter is a label which you will be able to use to have a new adapter made at your local electronics shop and this will cost about $30 max. They will also be able to test the adapter with a clamp meter to see if this is really the problem and this should be free.

The second component you want to test is the USB cable. If you have a printer , swop out the cables and see if your printer functions normally. Most externals use the same connector so you should be able to test it in this manner. If the cable works go on to the last step. If the cable is defective , replace it with a new one which you can find for about $10 at most electronics and chain stores.

The last component to test is the circuit board. This is a bit of a grey zone as you probably won't be able to spot the blown component unless it failed really badly. With the casing already opened , locate the external's circuit board and check to see if you have any blackened components or fluids leaking from some components. If all the other components of the external worked perfectly , then this is the faulty part. It is not really economical to replace the circuit as most of the time it is out of production by the time you need to replace it and it still costs a lot even if it is available so if your drive is working perfectly when connected via sata or IDE on your computer , the best is to buy a new casing and place your old drive in the new casing.

A casing costs about $50 and you could get it at most tech shops and big chain stores like Best Buy.

I hope this solves your problem and please reply if you need more help.

Kind Regards
Andrea

In that case it's most likely that the hard disk inside has died. Last hope attempt: take it out of the case and plug it in directly to the motherboard. If even then it's not recognized then it's truly dead and all your data has been lost.

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Although it is possible that the drive has indeed crashed, it may also be a power problem. This is a common problem among passport drives and especially with laptops. If it is at all possible, try connecting the drive to a desktop PC (to a USB port at the back as this generates the most power) and make sure you use the original short USB cable provided. If the drive works on these terms, you should call WD and request a USB Y cable, which will solve your problem and they will send it free of charge. If it doesn't work, I would suggest testing the drive with their diagnostics software (data lifeguard diagnostics - Link can be found at the bottom of this post). This will only work if your laptop registers that there has been a device connected, which it does according to your description. Any errors can be found in their FAQ knowledge base, or you could call them about the error if any.

Win DLG diagnostics software:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=203&sid=3&lang=en

Hope this solves your problem!

Hello

I had this exact same problem a week ago after i formatted my computer, All you have to do is follow these steps and you should be set.

Start
Control panel
Administrative tools
Computer management
Storage
Disc management

Now you should see your drive in the schematic below. Right click on your external drive and choose the option to change drive letter and path.
if there is not drive letter assigned to the drive you should assign one, if there is already a drive letter for this device, change the current drive letter to another letter. This will work. Follow these steps and restart your computer and you should be set.

Best regards

You might need to install a new USB card, one with 1000 mA, to provide the power necesary for your WD external drive. Check the WD manual to see whether there is a way to use two USB ports when jumpering them to see if you can provide the power yourself.
Also check the WD web site.

You might try placing it in a zip lock baggie and put it in the freezer for about 12 hours, then quickly take it out and plug it back in. This MAY allow you about 5 minutes to move files off the drive. You also might try a linux boot-up and see if you can see the drive that way. I would recommend A programm called SLAX Linux. It saved me when I had a similar problem.
http://www.slax.org/get_slax.php

The Smart is on verge of showing that the hard disk has plenty of bad sectors, and cannot be trusted for data.A data recovery expert is needed to get data first and If you can clone the patient hard disk to a new donor hard disk , then your NAS will be up and working.I hope there are no head reading issues.

If your WD passport is no longer seen by your desktop or laptop operating system something within the passport has failed. You won't have many options to try to resolve this, as when they fail , it is usually due to age or a component faulure. If you know an honest reliable techy you can ask if they can try to test the device for your or can recover the data from it.

try to change the data cable of HDD.

This program allows you to modify the date (and other metadata) on one or multiple files. http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/bulk_file_changer.html

You can send it in to WD or a company that specializes in data retrieval from dead hard drives and have them copy off the files for you, but it will cost a furtune to do it.

Any Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Computer store, online...etc.

Connect it like usual and see if its working. Better to backup any data you have on that hard drive, to be safe.

These may be helpful for your issue: