WD Passport Not Recognized

[mossmuppet]

I have a 1TB WD My Passport which has been working fine for the past year or so up until this morning still. In the afternoon I plugged it in and it made some buzzing noises which continue as long as the USB cable is plugged in. (I work with an ASUS laptop).

The external HD doesn't show up in My Computer, but in the notifications area the Safely Remove USB icon still shows and the option to remove "My Passport", but with no drive letter. After a couple minutes the option to remove "My Passport" becomes simply "...". I checked the devices section and "My Passport" is there but prompts to troubleshoot. (The troubleshoot says that there is an error with the driver, but the troubleshooter doesn't fix the problem)

I also checked Device Management, and the external HD does not show up. It seems there are a lot of issues like this with WD externals, but none of the fixes work for me and I have very important data on the drive that I need. I installed Recuva, but since the HD doesn't register, I can't select to recover the data off of it.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there mossmuppet,

Sorry that you are facing some issues with your WD drive. 🙁
So, the drive is not recognized by Disk Management right? In case it is not, I doubt that you will be able to access it with some kind of data recovery tools.
You can try something simple as just attaching the drive with a different USB cables(Y type of one preferably). You can attach it to another USB port as well. In case you have another computer, it will not hurt to attach it over there as well.

In case the buzzing sound continues though, I would say that most probably there is something wrong with the enclosure. In this case, and if the data stored on the drive is really important, you may need to contact some data recovery company.

You can check WD's Data Recovery Partners out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=yNDJnX

Let me know how the cable/USB thing goes,
D_Know_WD

 

[mossmuppet]

Hi there mossmuppet,

Sorry that you are facing some issues with your WD drive. 🙁
So, the drive is not recognized by Disk Management right? In case it is not, I doubt that you will be able to access it with some kind of data recovery tools.
You can try something simple as just attaching the drive with a different USB cables(Y type of one preferably). You can attach it to another USB port as well. In case you have another computer, it will not hurt to attach it over there as well.

In case the buzzing sound continues though, I would say that most probably there is something wrong with the enclosure. In this case, and if the data stored on the drive is really important, you may need to contact some data recovery company.

You can check WD's Data Recovery Partners out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=yNDJnX

Let me know how the cable/USB thing goes,
D_Know_WD

Hi! Thanks for the reply, I was not expecting such a quick response.

Indeed the drive isn't recognized in Disk Management.
I've tried attaching it to another laptop, but it doesn't read at all, in fact the Eject USB icon doesn't even appear for it. Unfortunately I don't know where I would get another wire, because I'm currently in Europe and I won't be back in the States for a while.

In regards to the buzzing noise, I would say it's not so much just buzzing as it is more of a light...screeching sound? After replugging the drive, there have been 2 instances where after maybe 5-10 minutes, the drive made a somewhat high-pitched screech (much sharper and a little bit louder than the persistent screeching) but then it would go back to the light screeching.

Do you have any ideas as to what might have caused this issue? I do sometimes carry the hard drive with me in my bag, but I'm quite careful with it as well.

 

[D_Know_WD]

All these sounds could be related to to some physical problems with the HDD itself(not the enclosure), such as: heads, acutator arm, etc. If this is the case, you need to contact some professionals as you can't really be sure what is broken and the HDD should be examined(opened) in dust free environment.

Using different USB cable may not help, but it will not hurt just to borrow one from somebody and try it.

The thing is that external hard drives are less reliable than internals. They have problems with electronics of the enclosure, broken USB ports, internal damage due to slightly harsher use. The internal ones just operate without all these external conditions. The best thing is to just have a backup copy of the data on your laptop, so it is stored on at least two places.

In case the HDD is still under warranty, you can just contact WD's Support either by e-mail or phone and RMA the drive. Though, keep in mind that this way you will lose the data stored on it.

WD's Support: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=n2T4wH

D_Know_WD