WD passport not recognized?

[BScott1122]

My coolermaster cases front USB ports recently stopped working. So, i bought a silvestone front panel with four usb ports mic/headphone and a 1394 (firewire) port. Before installing this my WD passport drive worked fine. However now, when i plug it in i get USB device not recognized. So, i figured maybe it was something with not enough mA going to the usb ports? So i uplugged my new front panel so all i had were the USB ports directly on my mobo. (all of which i kno work fine). i restarted the comp and plugged the drive into the back. i got the same message. So, now i dont understand what is going on. Its a fairly new drive too. There are no drivers for WD passports so i dont know what to do. i looked is disk managment and its not recognized. in device manager is unknown device. it is not recognized in any computer. Please help!

Specs:
1000W Cooler master PSU
Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3ghz
2x 9800gtx+
4gb ddr2 800mhz
xfx nforce 780i

 

[Guest]

you were right to check the mA.
however if the device powers up and you hear the drive spinning, then it is a OS problem.

to eliminate any doubts on the drive, check it on another pc and see what it does. it will most likely work just fine...

to see if the OS is the problem, if you run Windows, do try to put Ubuntu Linux via wubi (http://wubi-installer.org/) as a test on your machine.
no need to put new partitions etc.
see how that plays out with your WD drive. you can also run the ubuntu directly from a usb stick.

if windows is the problem, then try to plug your drive via a usb hub (if you have one at hand) or a shorter USB cable (if you do not already use the one of the drive...).

also do some spring cleaning in the registry (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner) and update windows and drivers.
it might also help to remove hardware from the device manager (like the USB controllers and stuff from your mainboard), restart, allow redetection, restart and then plug the drive again.
weird things happen with windows sometimes.
pluging in a new usb device (i.e. camera) and afterwards your hdd might also trigger a correct recognition from windows...

good luck.

 

[BScott1122]

Best answer selected by BScott1122.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey