my external hard drive recently has become unusable, When it's plugged it only shows "Local Disk ( D: )" on My computer, with

[Sim___]

my external hard drive recently has become unusable, When it's plugged it only shows "Local Disk ( G: )" on My computer, with no drive size/space left

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Sim___,

That is really unpleasant. 🙁

Unfortunately, there is a chance that there is something wrong with the enclosure or the HDD itself. Yet, you can perform several simple troubleshooting steps.
I would be nice if you just start with attaching the drive with a different USB cable to another USB port. If you attach it to another system, you will be 100 % sure that the issue is caused by the device but not your system.

Do you have some data stored on the drive? In case the issue persists, you can try to access the drive with a data recovery tool: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html
After that, you can just test it and see what is wrong with it: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

Keep in mind that there is a chance that the drive won't be picked up by these software tools. If this is the case, then you can:
- Just RMA the drive if it is under warranty.
- Contact a data recovery company in case the data stored on the drive is crucial.

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD