WD hard drive says "this folder is empty"

[Rathbun]

My WD My book was working perfectly for many years, my main backup and storage. I unplugged it during my recent move. It was with me in the car, hotel, everywhere protected. Now in my new home and plugged it in (tried my laptop and my husband's desktop). Instead of the computer recognizing it as MY Book, it calls it local drive and says the folder is empty. Help!?

 

[Rathbun]

Still me, adding more info to this problem. My laptop and my husband's desktop both have Windows 10. The HD worked fine on Windows 10 before unplugging for the move. Tried it on my boys' older Windows 7 desktops and same problem, so I guess not a Windows problem. NEW addition to this problem = I also have a WD passport which is my backup to the MyBook. I waited an hour to plug that one in, because I simply couldn't take the stress if it didn't work either. IT ALSO DOESN'T WORK!!! The passport is not recognized at all by any of our computers - says installing driver software, then says error, not installed correctly. So, now I have my day-to-day WD MyBook which is recognized by all computers but says folder is empty. And my WD passport, which is my backup of EVERYTHING, which is now not recognized by any computer. Is it possible we built our house on an ancient graveyard?!?!?!?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH Community, @Rathbun!

I'm truly sorry to hear about your issues with both the WD My Book and WD My Passport drives! 🙁 I'd strongly recommend you go to Disk Management in Windows 10 and Windows 7 and check how both HDDs are recognized there.
I'd recommend you go to Device Manager and uninstall & reinstall the WD My Book as a device. After a reboot, the external should get recognized as a new hardware and re-install itself. Hopefully, that will make the contents appear. If that doesn't help, try Un-hiding the folders on the drive.

As for the WD My Passport, you should definitely use a different USB cable and see if that will make the external hard drive detectable by the computers.

Keep me posted!
SuperSoph_WD