AS long as the computer device drivers are up to data, the USB port should be operational and communicate with your external drive. If the external drive is connected to a USB port and you are certain the external drive is running (listen for the whirring sounds) and still no communication; the hard drive may have lost the formatting feature. Switch USB ports around and see if any signal reaches the File Explorer in Windows.
SOURCE: my passport essential
This product requires a lot of power from the USB port on the system. As stated before, the longest cable that we have tested the drive with is 22" (i.e. 56 cm). Anything longer than that, and you will encounter issues.
SOURCE: External hard drive not recognized
I recenctly bought a my book 500 gig drive and it is usb.
the firsttime I plugged the usb cable in it worksed. I had only a 40 gig ide harddrive and so I ordered an internal 500 wd hard drive to replace it. The internal 500 gig is a sata drive. first I cloned the 40 to the sata 500 and then copied the external 500 to the internal. I mover the cables to then make the internal 500 sata my boot drive. The computer would no longer show the external e\when i used the windows explorer. the device manager said it was there and working with no problem but windows did not see it.
After several experiments with diferent configurations I have concluded my motherboard wasauto configuring the external and internal 500 drives as drive 0. Since the usb was detected first and was notthe boot drive then windows assigned the internal drive as drive 0 and since the usb drive was drive 0 also it would not work. windows ignored it. my solution was to return the ide as the boot drive and plug the sata into a slave port. with that configuration both drive are seen and work normally. It took me several days to find this arrangement. so since my sata ports are auto configure and the external has a sata connection i will install an esata port adapter and try to hook it up as a slave sata drive so i cab\n use my internal 500 sata drive as my boot drive.
sorry this was so long but it is my solution to what others may be facing.
SOURCE: no drive letter
When remove the drive do this steps properly first when you want remove the drive remove safley than remive it
SOURCE: Not Detected on PC
Since you say that it is detected in Device Manager and is shown as working properly, it would appear that the problem is that it is not getting a drive letter. Have you added anything recently that might take up a drive letter like a flash drive? If so, try removing both and then plugging the WD back in. If this is not the case or does not help, do this:
Assuming you are using XP.
Right click on My Computer and select Manage
The computer Management window will open, click on Disk Management
Do you see the WD in the window on the right?
Does it show a drive letter?
If not, you can assign it one by right clicking on it and selecting Change Drive Letter and Paths ...
If the WD does not show up in Disk Management, possible problems are:
1) USB cable is damaged, try another one.
2) USB circuits in the WD case not working properly, hard drive can be removed and put into another case.
3) WD USB case is good, hard drive is good but there is a loose connection inside. Open case and reseat everything.
4) WD USB case is good but the hard drive inside has gone bad (worst case scenario)
SOURCE: WD Passport 3200 isn't assigned a drive letter when plugged in
try to right on my computer and click on Manage
then click on Disk Management
Observe if you are able to see Drive 0 <- which is your internal drive in your computer.
Observer also if you are able to see Drive 1 <- this will indicate that the system recognise that an external USB drive was attached to it.
Right click on the area right next to the box that says Hard Drive 1 and see if you can find the wordings "Change Drive Letters and Paths".
If you manage to go that far, click on any of your preferred drive letters, for example Z: and then click OK. And then go to Windows Explorer or My Computer and see if Z: existed there.
i noticed you ran the chkdsk utility on this drive did you try to repair bad sectors or just files
click start control panel administrative tools computer management disk management right click on your drive select properties click tools you should see click check now click start two boxes
automatically fix files and scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors place then a tick in both boxes then select check now start
you might tick one box then return after its finished the first repair then return and tick the second box you should not do anything while the chkdsk utility is in progress any input may damage this drive
I found that you get best results by ticking one box then returning after it has finished then tick the other box if still no joy
try to use the external hard drive in a different computer and check whether you are able to access the data that is present on the external hard drive or you can try to connect it to a different port and check
hope this helps
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