WD Elements is not accessible on my laptop windows 10

[Reyson_1989]

hello everyone!

i noticed that my laptop can access my WD elements portable disk which i just bought a month ago. i have a windows 10 Acer E1-410 laptop. a few weeks ago i was still able to use this HDD, i downloaded movies, pictures etc. i also used this on my samsung smart tv and it was okay and running good. but until may laptop suddenly updated windows 10, when i was going to use it, my laptop can't access it, i tried using cmd and it was okay, i checked disk management and it says RAW on it. i was confused because when i ran MBAM to check if it has malware, MBAM can read it. took me about 3hours for just 20% of my 1TB WD Elements and i quited. so this means that there was no problem on my cable or the disk it self. now i was wondering how can i access this? or use it? BTW i tried to connect this to a windows 7 notebook and it can be accessed. i'm not a computer genius so i don't know how to fix this.

if anyone can help me that would be amazing! here is my email nosyer.epsaraz@gmail.com

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH community, @Reyson_1989!

Did you have the external drive plugged in the laptop while updating to Windows 10. Since the WD Elements is easily accessed from the Smart TV and the other Windows 7 laptop, the issue should be in the Windows 10 laptop. I'd advise you to go to Device Manager and uninstall & reinstall the WD Elements as a device from there. If that doesn't help, you should check the USB Hub Controller drivers from the laptop manufacturer's official website and make sure you manually update them from there. Sometimes, Windows Updates tend to install more generic and a bit outdated drivers on your system, which can cause such detection issues of external hardware.
Either way, I'd definitely backup the data from the WD Elements on the Windows 7 laptop and make sure you have a copy of it somewhere else, while troubleshooting the drive.

Keep me posted.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Reyson_1989]

Good day @SuperSoph_WD!

i'll try to make a back up then uninstall and reinstall the hard drive and update you about the result! And thank you for welcoming me here!

 

[Reyson_1989]

good day again @SuperSoph_WD

i made a back up and i saved it on another laptop which is run by windows 7. i did what you told me. to uninstall it on device manager but i can't figure out how i can reinstall it since there is no option in device manager. my laptop windows 10 still unable to read it. and my usb hub controllers are still updated as per device manager. any alternative solution to this?

thanks

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

good day again @SuperSoph_WD

i made a back up and i saved it on another laptop which is run by windows 7. i did what you told me. to uninstall it on device manager but i can't figure out how i can reinstall it since there is no option in device manager. my laptop windows 10 still unable to read it. and my usb hub controllers are still updated as per device manager. any alternative solution to this?

thanks

Hello again, @Reyson!

Make sure you update/reinstall the USB hub controller drivers manually from the laptop manufacturer's official website. If you are only checking if they are up-to-date through Windows Device manager, you might still have some Windows Updates messing them up and installing more generic and outdated drivers.
As for the uninstalling & reinstalling of WD Elements as a device. The re-installation should happen automatically. Once you've uninstalled it, rebooted the system and plugged the external back in, it should detect it as new hardware device. (Just like when you first plugged it in the laptop) You don't have any issues with it on the Windows 7 laptop though, right?

Hope this helps. Let me know if you encounter further issues.
SuperSoph_WD