Western Digital MYBOOK 500GB external harddrive won't come on. When it plugs in, the blue light comes on for about a second. Computer does not recognize drive.

Inside the LaCie D2 250GB (300770) external harddrive's case, is a 250GB IDE (PATA) harddrive that is 3.5 inches across in width.

A desktop computer sized harddrive. (May be a Western Digital WD25000JB)

The harddrive plugs into a small circuit board, (Bridge board), and the circuit board has a USB port on it.

Using this Western Digital Passport for an example,

http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?src=/images/storage/wd-passport-250gb/p3.jpg&1=1

Scroll down to the second photo, and left-click on it. The case of the external harddrive is shown open.
Inside is a 2.5 inch laptop sized harddrive.
An aluminum tape strip covers the small circuit board, attached at the back of the harddrive.

The second photo down on this page, shows you the small interface circuit board, that the harddrive plugs into, with the aluminum tape removed.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/wd-passport-250gb_2.html

(Another design has wires coming from the small circuit board, to an interface the harddrive plugs into )

It is this small circuit board that goes bad in a LaCie. QUITE common.

Solution?

Simple.
1) Obtain a 3.5 inch IDE external enclosure
2) Remove the 3.5 IDE harddrive from the LaCie's case.
3) Install the harddrive out of the LaCie into the external 3.5 IDE enclosure.

An example of a 3.5 IDE (PATA) external enclosure,

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1733195&CatId=2779

For additional questions please post in a Comment.
Regards,
joecoolvette

It's dead. Time to buy a new hard drive...

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.

Do you hear the motor on the drive?It could be a firmware issue.your best bet is to call western digital if you are still under warranty,there website should have software which will enable you to test the drive or download any available firmware.
good luck

Take it our of the external encasing and plug it in directly to your motherboard. This has worked for me in the past. I just had my second wd external harddrive crash so now I will do the same process all over again.

i have the same problem

i had the same problem & got an error message. was told that if you use a "power strip" some times the mybook will not get enough "pure" power and that it needs it's own supply. have been using a different outlet and so far it seems to be working

just called western digital and the solution is: buy an 500Gb disk, that is the max this machine can take....

gone with the wind,

my 500 gig mybook is clicking and not showing up at all, I am going to serioulsy lose my mind WTF!!!!