My PC is not recognizing my WD Passport 120GB USB external drive. I used just few days ago and connected the usb cable to my computer and the WD Passport drive and not recognized on my 2 laptop and 2 other laptops. After 6 weeks use, suddenly 'USB device not recognsed' appears!!! WTF! I'm unable to access my 180Gb's of data! After reading these comments and others, I'm beginning to think we've been had. These external HD's are just NOT reliable......unless someone can advise me on how to recover everything.

Hi there,

This is because there is a connection problem between the external drive and the computer. If you have changed cables to no avail, you can open the casing of the external drive where you will find the hard disk inside. Unplug the two cables connected to the harddisk and replug it after a minute. Then try again. If it still does not work, then you need to buy just a usb enclosure and plug the harddisk there to be able to use it again.

Hope this helps. Thank you for using FixYa.

if the external hard disk drive powers on, perhaps replacing the USB cable could help ?

i had WD extrenal, and it crapped out on me -- i had so much vital information that i lost . i finally discovered that the power modeul inside the housing that encases the drive was bad.. i coul not get the PC board replaced.

i hope you can resolve this with new USB cable.

have you tried another computer -- see if that PC recognises the WD external drive

let me know how it works out for you

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!!!!!!!!!

You've tried different USB cables; so, that cannot be the problem.

You've tried connecting to different computers; so, the problem is _not_ your computer.

What's left is "inside" the case:
* the USB-to-disk-drive adapter,
* the disk-drive.

Open the case, and remove the disk-drive, and connect it as a "slave" drive to some computer.
If it is detected, then the USB-to-disk-drive adapter that has failed.
If it not detected, then the disk-drive itself has failed.

FInd the serial-number on the Western Digital disk-drive, and enter it onto Western Digital's web-site, on the "check-warranty" page. If it's older than 3 years, the warranty probably has expired, unless you were "lucky" and got a 5-year warranty.

Western Digital has a "Customer Loyalty" program -- just buy a new Passport through their web-site, and cite the serial-number, and you'll get a significant discount on _their_ price (could be higher than your local retail computer-store) for a new (probably larger) Passport.

Check to see if the drive is available in disk management, if so and it's got a blue bar at the bottom, try changing the drive letter. If not, try the following:

Normally with the passport drives, you receive a shorter USB cable (this is because the drive relies on power from the PC, which your normal length USB cannot offer sufficiently. If you are using a short cable, try connecting the drive to the back of your desktop PC, this generates more power than the ports on the front (the ports on the front are actually hubs). If none of these options work try it on another PC, using the steps above.

If you still have an issue, the drive has most likely failed and you will need to get data recovery done to retrieve your data. If you do so, contact samsung for warranty information, so that your warranty doesn't become void.

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.

try it again, after going to wd dot com, and getting and installing a new set of drivers..

Change your USB cable, I had same problem...changing the USB cable woked for me.

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.

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.