Hard Drive can appear in Devices and Printers but it wouldn't appear in My Computer

[Lunerus]

Hi, I've plugged my hard drive into my USB port and it was working, it showed the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media", the lights were on, it appeared on my Devices & Printers but it was gone when I opened My Computer.
Model: My Passport 0827
Capacity: 1 TB
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit Home Basic
Awhile ago I opened Devices and Printers and it said I needed to troubleshoot it so I tried and it said I needed to have a driver.
I went straight to the WD website and downloaded the latest driver and it didn't solve my issue.

I tried restarting but it didn't work.
I tried to search for a solution in the forums and it didn't solve my problem.
I went to Device Manager and tried to uninstall and reinstall the device but it didn't work.
I then went to Disk Management and it showed 3 devices except one had no name. It only showed my computer's hard drive and system reserved but my hard drive didn't show up, all but one with no name, I checked its status and it said Healthy (Recovery Partition). I tried right-clicking it but it only showed "Help"

I've also tried to run Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics and select Quick Test and Extended Test but it said it passed. I didn't try to run Write Zeros because I was afraid I'd lose all my files inside the drive.

I used other wires to connect it to my laptop but once again it didn't solve my problem.
I've used it for 3 months already in case the information would be needed.

Any idea what may have caused this problem?

 

[iXeon]

are you trying to connect the HDD through USB 3 cable ? if so it might be from the usb 3 drivers.
try to connect them to another port and see if there are any updates for your usb ports.some times old motherboard can't handle big HDD sizes and they sometimes work and sometimes not.
the best solution is to update motherboard chipset and try again.
you can use this software to check updates:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/DriverIdentifier.shtml

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, Lunerus.

This sounds like a truly unfortunate situation.

Would you be so kind as to post a screenshot of what you see in Disk Management (you can use imgur.com to upload the image)? Have you experienced any other problems with the HDD - any unusual sounds/noises coming form it; freezing/hanging your system when you connect it; unusual transfer speed, etc?

You did well by not running the "Write Zeros" process. This would have wiped the drive clean and the data would have become unrecoverable. I'd suggest that you try the drive with a different USB cable (preferably not longer than 12"-18") and a different computer/device, to see if the same thing happens.

Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Lunerus]

Hey there, Lunerus.

This sounds like a truly unfortunate situation.

Would you be so kind as to post a screenshot of what you see in Disk Management (you can use imgur.com to upload the image)? Have you experienced any other problems with the HDD - any unusual sounds/noises coming form it; freezing/hanging your system when you connect it; unusual transfer speed, etc?

You did well by not running the "Write Zeros" process. This would have wiped the drive clean and the data would have become unrecoverable. I'd suggest that you try the drive with a different USB cable (preferably not longer than 12"-18") and a different computer/device, to see if the same thing happens.

Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD

Thank you for the help It looks like my wire got broken due to being tangled which may be the reason why the lights were blinking on the drive. I bought a new one and it finally worked. Once again I thank you Have a nice day

 

[Boogieman_WD]

I'm glad that everything turned out fine.

Have a nice day as well, cheers!