Computer will not recognize one 500 external hard drive- nothing wrong with connections- other external hard drives are fine. I have tried everything

Good day, this video tutorial will help you to recognize your WD 500GB. Just follow instruction and your problem will gonna fix.

First make sure usb cable connected to harddrive is working fine.
try it in different usb ports.
Press windows key +R key so you can see run then type in run "devmgmt.msc" then press ok so you can see device manager uninstall all usb drivers then it automatic install usb drivers.
then check.
Also you need to change registry for that type in run "regedit" then press ok then you can see registry editor then locate below key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11 CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
And remove upper filter and lower filter.Then restart computer then check.
Try your harddrive in different computer if it is not recognized on another computer too then your harddrive has internal issue.

Let me know if you need further assistance.
Thanks for using FixYa

am not so sure if this is a similar issue with iomega external drive in which the drive wont show up on My Computer but when the external drive was plugged into an ubuntu machine the drive was being detected and working just fine.

Please try to do the same. plug your external drive to an ubuntu machine and lets see if it can be detected. If it is then the hard disk has a similar issue with iomega drives. check this link for the solution.

change the cable then try again


otherwise change the usb port of your computer

ok bye.....................................

How do you have it connected to your PC? USB or Firewire? try plugging it in to different slots or try plugging it in on another computer to further isolate the problem. some external drives requires power adapter to work so make sure that you're using the power adapter if it comes with the device. if not, there might be something wrong with the device specially if it was working before

You need to first narrow down the problem to either your PC or the external hard drive. Do you have access to any other PCs you could try connecting your hard drive to? (think friends, family, public PCs, etc)

If the hard drive works on other PCs, we know it isn't a problem with the hard drive.

If it turns out that the hard drive is fine and the PC is the problem, I would suggest going in to Device Manager and uninstalling everything USB related. Once you have done this, either reboot your PC or right-click inside device manager and "scan for new hardware". All of your USB related devices should reload their drivers automatically. You may want to try this both with and without the usb drive connected.

Another tip would be to try various USB ports.

Did you try the disk on a different computer to make sure the disk is functioning?
And if using a laptop, make sure that power is not an issue, an external power supply or 2 USB ports are always required.

Also check:
http://www.devicedriverfinder.com/blog/device-errors/external-hard-drive-troubleshooting

Maybe one of those troubleshooting suggestions can help you.

Jules

you can find a program on the maxtor/seagate site maybe you can fix this with that..

Gr Rich

I asume the connection is via an USB?
Try another usb-port and see if that helps, if not try to connect the disc on another PC (maybe a friends pc) and see is that pc recognize the disc.

Good luck!

One thing to remember is the some of the Simple drives requires the USB mini to conect to the drive and the TWO USB connects to be plugin to the computer.