External hard drive problem.

In most computers that are encountered, devices that are plugged into the USB ports are "plug & play" capable. There are numerous scenarios that can turn this function off inadvertantly such as a virus, data corruption or driver changes. In order to fix the issue and make an external device, such as a Western Digital Passport Elite hard drive "plug & play" capable, a user will have to make a few system changes. Click "Start" and "Run," then type gpedit.msc Click on "Administrative Templates," from the tree then click on the "System" folder. Double click on "Turn off Autoplay." Select the "Disabled" option and ensure it applies to all drives. Hope this helps,

You plug it in. Right click the drive on windows explorer, then select format. Perform a full format and your data should be gone.

CRC errors are when the data is corrupted. You should run some tests on the hard drive.

Read this:

http://www.labnol.org/software/test-hard-drive-for-problems/17430/

The clicking sound is caused by the spindle inside the hardrive, because it was not removed properly. Just connect you external hardrive to your computer, if it makes the clicking sound again dont remove it yet, just restart your computer properly. In that way all the devices connected to the computer will be refreshed and properly shut down. If it is not detected still, unplug the haardrive then try another USB port. Recommended ports are at the back of the CPU if your using a desktop. These USB ports have higher voltage output that can power up all external hardrives properly.

Try downloading the device driver from western digital site for your respective OS. And try formatting it with the western digital inbuilt software, which works great.

i wish i knew the answer, i am having the same problem. i have switched ALL of my toshiba computer power settings to no stand-by, no hibernation, no automatic shut down (as this was suggested) and windows xp still turns into a blank screen just a few seconds after plugging this in. hard drive too strong for my 3.5 year old computer? not sure, but this is beyond ridiculous.

This is a hard one, as 7 is so new. But it sounds like the very next thing to do is to plug the drive into another computer to see if the drive is working properly. If it works well, make sure that your drive is not trying to grab a drive letter that is already being used by another device. Do a search on the MS website for known issues and instructions on how to check for drive letter management issues. Good luck.

The hard-drive is "dying".

Is it still under "warranty"?

When you have the serial-number of the hard-drive inside the external unit, access Western Digital's web-site, and check the Warranty Status.

Note that Western Digital (the maker of the external drive)
has a "Customer Loyalty" program. Enter the serial-number
of the hard-drive on their web-site, and you can purchase a new external hard-drive at a significant discount.

Doewnload Testdisk and run it to see if it can find a boot sector.

I will recommend you to use Western Digital I my self alos using a western Digital and its very reliable to use , So I will go for buying that one and it will be a big help for you...

Hope that helps.......