WD Passport not recognised by windows explorer

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi Folks

Hoping I get get some support here.

When I plug in the usb I get the familiar windows sound that sounds when a usb is plugged in. The drive starts and the activitiy light is on. Windows explorer normally starts up - now it doesn’t. After a little while the usb removal sound is made quickly followed by the usb insertion sound. This cycle keeps going for as long as it is plugged in. I have changed the cable to see if it is a loose connection. I have closed all visible programes. I have shut down with passport connected and restarted. I have tried on the laptop (windows 10) and the tablet (windows 8). When I start windows explorer manually the drive is not listed.

When using the “safely remove hardware and eject media” function It lists “My passport 0730”. - when I click it after a while I get a mesage “Problem ejecting usb mass storage device - windows is unable to stop the device. Don’t remove while still in use. Close any programs using this device and then remove it” - there were no visible programs open.

It could be that the drive is shot? If so would I be able to retrieve the data? or get it retrieved?

I am a grown man of 51 and I think I am going to cry!!

Thanks

Mark

2

Hello,

How is the drive showing under disk management?

3

Hello,

I have almost the same problem as him. Mine doesn’t disconnect and connect again. It i just connected but fails to come up in This PC and it shows in disk management a drive without a letter with 931.45GB unallocated space. It is not initialized. It prompts me to initialize but when I try to initialize, it says “device not ready”

4

Hi ERmorel - Thank you for replying

Just to update -
I took the drive to my local PC World and they were able to access the drive and all the data using Linux. They copied the data onto another external hard drive - this time I went for Seagate and they reformatted the WD hard drive. My computer can now see the WD hard drive. I tell you I am a very grateful man to the guy that rescued my data. Thank You Ryan!
Now I really will back up more often.

Very Best

Mark