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USB hard drive (no longer) show up

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OC101

Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2007
I have been using this new external Western Digital My Passport Essential 1TB USB drive for a month with my laptop. Sometimes it would just show up quickly after being plugged into one of the 4 USB ports. Sometimes it will beep for up to a minute before it show up under "My Computer" along side the C: drive.

Today, it just won't show up. I had disconnected it and reconnected it many times, each time it will beep for a while like it used to but when the beeping stops... it still wouldn't show up beside the C drive.

I've checked under Device Manager, it is there under both USB controllers(as USB mass storage device) and Disk drives(as WD My Passport 0740 USB Device).
But it is not under Disk Management, where only C drive is visible.

I am on Windows 7 Home 64bit. What can I do to make it reappear? :shrug:
 
I would try the drive in another Usb port and having more than one computer as I do...I would immediately try the drive on another computer altogether to see if it has died.
 
I would try the drive in another Usb port and having more than one computer as I do...I would immediately try the drive on another computer altogether to see if it has died.

I have tried it on all 4 USB ports with no luck. Other devices still work on these ports.

Unfortunately, I do not have another computer to try.  I am out of the country at this moment with my laptop only.   
 
I have tried it on all 4 USB ports with no luck. Other devices still work on these ports.

Unfortunately, I do not have another computer to try.  I am out of the country at this moment with my laptop only.   

Unfortunately, it sounds as if you have been had again by the fickle finger of fate and it surely sounds like the Usb drive is failed. No way to verify since you are without a 'test' computer.
 
It actually shows up in Disk Management as Disk 1, but it is "Not Initialized", and "Initialize" is not an option at the moment... it was available earlier but it gave me "I/O error" when I clicked on it.
The light on the disk flashes all the time like if it is being accessed.
 
I g00gled those Usb external drives and just like last time I did, the net is full of problems with them. You likely do not have another cable with you to connect drive to computer but that seems to be an issue with many problems for users. Many had to go to a shorter cable.
 
The cable come with the drive is only about a foot long. That is quite short.
 
The cable come with the drive is only about a foot long. That is quite short.

I would certainly say it is not 'too' long at any rate. Apparently there were some of those drives that shipped with cables too long. Maybe the cable has seen one too many twists in use?

What operating system are you using that Usb drive with while you are not at home?
 
I tried it on someone else's computer yesterday. It worked just fine on two different computers. It showed up nicely and quickly under "My computer" on both computers without beeping, and I was able to read and write files to it just fine.

Then today, I tried it again on my computer, I was able to get it to not beeping at all when it was plugged...then under disk manager, it showed up differently than before. Before, it was either invisible, or show up but "not initialized", and the disk size wasn't reported at all. This time, it showed up as initialized, so after I assigned a different letter to it, it started to work. Only for a few hours. Then it started to beep again, and it disappeared under "My computer" after a system reboot. Now it is "not initialized" again.

So what is really going on? How can I fix it? :confused:
 
i have the same problem but couldn't find any solution to retrieve my files. I need help in retrieving my files
 
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