New WD external drive not showing up in my computer

Hi:
That's an easy task:
1) Plug your Hd to your laptop and wait until the laptop recognize it as a new drive and assign a new letter to it. If you have a disc use it if your laptop ask for it.
2) Copy all files you want to transfer to the new HD and paste them on it.
That's it.

Several things could be happening.
1. the hard drive direct drive motor is giving out.
2. the hard drive is full.
3. the hard drive needs to be optimized ( that is defragmented) using the Windows defragment utility. If the drive is large it will take some time to complete.

Your WD HDD have been attacted by viruses for your computer or outside computer where you used it last. Make sure that you have an up to date antivirus software, scan your computer or the external hard drive, explore your computer, go to tools - folder options under view files & folders select show hidden files and folders apply and ok it.

1. To restore the Western Digital icon to the drive letter for the external drive in "My Computer".
2. Please go to the Western Digital Download Library and download the WD Logo Icon which has a file name of External Icon.zip when you download it.
3. Save the file to your desktop and use a file compression software like Winzip to extract the files inside the .zip file to your desktop. When it's unzipped, it will create a folder named "ExternalIcon" on your desktop.
4. Double-click on the ExternalIcon folder. It will open a Windows Explorer showing a folder named, Autorun, and a file named, Autorun.inf.Double-click on My Computer and it will open.
5. Double-click on the driver letter that represents the Western Digital drive you want the icon on and it will open.
6. Highlight the Autorun folder and the Autorun.inf file. Right-click on them, and left-click on Cut when the Menu appears.
7. Right-click in the open space of the drive that you opened in the new Explorer window, and then left-click on Paste.
8. Close both Explorer windows, safely remove the external hard drive by using the Safely Remove icon in the system tray, shut down the computer, and unplug the external drive from the computer.
9. After you reboot into Windows, reconnect the external drive to the computer again, and the Western Digital Icon should now be displayed with the drive letter in My Computer.

If these steps do not correct the problem, you will need to re-format your External Hard Drive ***WARNING*** FORMATTING A HARD DRIVE WILL ERASE, YOU WILL LOSE, ALL DATA

hi there could be a couple of things you can try, you could, ( if you have xp ) have the drive in, then go to my computer, then tools, then folder options, click, view, then look down the list for show hidden files and folders, that's one, the other is to take the drive caddy apart, remove the hard drive ( as they are just normal hdd's in external boxes ) connect it up to a spare port on your desktop computer and see if you can transfer files that way, ( note! this will void the warranty on the drive case if you do this if it is still under warranty ) the other way would be to get a data recovery program, like winundelete, which you should be able to find on either your computer or the net for free, hope this will help

Try going to the "Computer" icon and look for the external drive. Open the ext. drive folder and look for the InstallSeagateManager icon, the Application one. Double-click on it and it will allow you to install the software to do a backup on your new computer. First thing you should see is the Language Selection screen. I think you can take it from there!

HOW TO BYPASS THE CRAPPY SOFTWARE
---------------------------------------------
1. Install WD Smartware and update it.
2. Run Virtual CD (VCD) Manager at http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdsmartwareutilities
to remove the virtual CD drive.
3. Use Control Panel add/remove programs to uninstall WD Smartware.
4. Everytime When you plug the hard drive in Windows will come up with the look for drivers window hit 'Cancel'
5. Now use it as an ordinary hard drive!

the problem is inside the disk,if the hard drive have its warranty return it to store where you bought it,replace it brand new

If all you want to do is transfer data that you have backed up on your main computer then all you need to do is plug the drive into another computer, click on 'my computer' and click on the mybook drive to explore the data on it. To transfer a certain file just copy it and paste it onto the drive of the new computer.

If you are talking about backing up data from a second PC, you will need to install the WD software on that particular PC, and use the advanced backup menu. Just remember that if you back up a second computer, you need to create a folder for that data to be stored in, otherwise it is possible that it would overwrite the data from your first PC

in otherwords to back up several PCs the root of the WD drive should have folders in it labeled - 'PC 1', 'PC 2', etc

Hope this helps

Regards
DarkmnaUK

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