WD External Hard Drive not recognised (light flashing)

[Guest]

I have had a 1TB WD Elements external hard drive for a few years now. I use it very rarely and to only hold my music and photos. I recently uploaded some photos onto the device and a number of songs, but after disconnecting it and trying to reconnect it again, it's not being recognised on my PC (Windows 8) and I just have a flashing light which appears once every second. I have tried using the WD diagnostics tool but it still isn't registered. The sad side of this is that I have so much personal music and photos on this hard drive and cannot afford to format the hard drive. I am by no means a very technical person, but I was hoping to get some advice.

Thank You

 

[lonewolf7]

Try the HDD on another system. Or change the USB cable. Try it on different USB ports aswell as on back ports. Unless the HDD gets detected you cant do a thing.

Here is a data recovery software : http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

 

[Guest]

Hi Lonewolf

Thanks for the advice, I have already tried connecting it to my work PC and the same is happening. I have also tried using a different USB cable, but the original one seems to be fine as I used it to test my WD Passport HDD with no issues. I have 3 USB ports on my laptop and trying all of them doesn't seem to help 🙁

Thanks or the recovery software, I may need to consider this if I can't get it issue resolved.

Thank you

 

[Tejaswiii]

Hi Lonewolf

Thanks for the advice, I have already tried connecting it to my work PC and the same is happening. I have also tried using a different USB cable, but the original one seems to be fine as I used it to test my WD Passport HDD with no issues. I have 3 USB ports on my laptop and trying all of them doesn't seem to help 🙁

Thanks or the recovery software, I may need to consider this if I can't get it issue resolved.

Thank you

Is your issue got resolved? I am also having the same problem. Pls help me.

 

[vineit]

Hi Lonewolf

Thanks for the advice, I have already tried connecting it to my work PC and the same is happening. I have also tried using a different USB cable, but the original one seems to be fine as I used it to test my WD Passport HDD with no issues. I have 3 USB ports on my laptop and trying all of them doesn't seem to help 🙁

Thanks or the recovery software, I may need to consider this if I can't get it issue resolved.

Thank you

Is your issue got resolved? I am also having the same problem. Pls help me.

my disk light is blinking.. its vibrating also.. still not able to open it

 

[akhilg90]

just remove the hard disk cover.. fix the hard disk properly to the circuit board.. it'll be all fine.. or just change the circuit board.. its easily available in computer shops..

 

[guaracunha]

The same happened to my Samsung D3 running on windows 8 after a power problem and i solved with this fix from microsofts blog. Seems after power went down the hdd went to suspended mode. Just download the script at end of the blog and follow this section "PowerShell script to disable suspend", after that it should come back again.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/archive/2013/11/01/help-after-installing-windows-8-1-my-usb-drive-disappears-or-file-transfers-stop-unexpectedly-r-a-post-title.aspx

 

[Rossco1984]

just remove the hard disk cover.. fix the hard disk properly to the circuit board.. it'll be all fine.. or just change the circuit board.. its easily available in computer shops..

How do you do that? I mean fix it to circuit board?

 

[Bookjunky]

I am having an issue with the same external hard drive. Only my drive is not usable in either of 2 computers i have plugged it into in any usb port. It does not show up as a drive it only shows up in the device manager and i have not been able to see anything in it or use it in any way.

 

[kubeman]

upgrade your hard drive firmware and software from the WD website?

 

[cynet2k]

I had the unrecognized drive messege and it didn't show up in disk management. It was the cable. Try a known working USB3.0 cable before taking drastic measures. I think I accidently bent the cable. Luckily, I had a second known working WD MyPassport drive I could test with so I used that good cable on both drives and they both worked fine. Tried the bad cable on both and they both got the unrecognized drive message.