My WD Elements 2TB usb 3.0 HDD stopped working

Aftermath studios

Reputable
Aug 2, 2015
7
0
4,510
My external hard drive stopped working today, it was working fine until around 4pm when I unplugged it and restarted my PC to uninstall a program, when the pc came back on, the HDD would not be recognised by my PC. The port is fine because I tested it out with my usb 3.0 mouse and that worked fine, and the HDD worked on my other PC when I tested it, so I want to know why it doesn't work now...
 
possibly the driver corrupted.
Plug the drive in and then foind & delete it in device manager. Whenit asks if you want to delete the associated files say yes.
now unplug the drive, wait a few minutes and then plug it into the exact sameport. This will force the drivers to reload fresh.

and by the way, you should never just unplug an external drive. always eject it first and wait for the 'its safe to remove' message. in explorer you would right click on the drive then then left click oon eject.
 

I did that, but now the device won't install on my PC
 
Hi there Aftermath studios,

So the drive is working properly on your other computer right? If this is the case, it may be a good idea to back up the data stored on the drive until you sort this out.
So what popatim suggested didn't work right?(Uninstall the drive when in Device Manager -> unplug the device -> reboot -> plug it back in and wait to reinstall) If this is the case, you can go to your MOBO's website and reinstall your USB drivers.

It will not hurt to test the drive as well: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=xiqXRZ

Let me know how this goes,
D_Know_WD
 


Just source code for a couple of mods I'm making, one of which is going on steam and about 420GB of steam games
I would be fine, but some of that was made by me and as for the steam games, there is only about 250GB left on my internal HDD
 


The drive is not appearing on the test program you sent me, or on device manager
Also, the drive is powered on because the disk on the external HDD is spinning and the power light is on(it is not flashing, it's on constantly)
(Also, what is a MOBO)
 
Is the drive recognized by BIOS? In case it is not, you can try attaching it with a different cable.
You may need to attach the HDD to a different system in order to completely rule out a driver related issue. In case the issue persists, there could be something wrong with the enclosure or the HDD itself.

D_Know_WD
 


How do I do this, I have UEFI not BIOS
 


CrystalDiskInfo said that there are no drives other than my internal HDD
 


Welp, that's a massive issue.
 


I think it's a corrupted driver, either way, I'm getting it fixed in PC World in a couple of days, but thanks to all of you for the help