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Help With Western Digital External Hard Drive

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31 replies

by japanto01

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I have a WD Essential Edition 500GB External Hard drive. (USB connected)

I have Windows XP.

It worked fine for a while at first, but suddenly it says that there is a USB drive instead my actual drive..

I tried to manually install it by going through the Western Digital section when i was manually installing it..

I thought it worked when it said it found a new harddrive

"WD External USB drive"

But it doesnt show up on my computer, it doesnt show up on Disk Management.

I have another WD harddrive and it shows up clearly as "WD 5000KS external USB drive"

I have uninstalled it and tried reinstalling, but it keeps on reinstalling automatically as
"WD External USB drive"

anyone know any way to help me so i can open my files?

Thanks

31 replies

by rob miners

Write down all fixed Disk and CD/DVD drive letters so as not to delete them.

1. Login with Administrative privileges.

2. Disconnect all USB or FireWire storage devices.

3. Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

4. Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices there will be registry keys with the name that resembles the format of \DosDevice\X: where X can be any alphabet letter which corresponding to your physical system drive letter.

5. Delete all possible USB drives, FireWire drives and external drives which have a drive letter.

DO NOT delete any of the fixed Hard Disk Drives or CD/DVD optical drives registry values.

Exclude \DosDevice\A: which normally reserved for floppy disk drives.

Download the Drive Test Western Digital "Data Lifeguard"

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp#dlgtools

Works with WD drives only

by japanto01

When you say not to delete the fixed harddrive and cd/dvd drive, that just means i should not delete my internal hard drive and my dvd player drive, correct?

by rob miners

of the fixed drives. EG: C:, CD/DVD drive letter, if you have another Partition you will want to keep that drive letter and the A:. USB drives are normally allocated after the CD/DVD.

Backup the Registry Key before you make any modifications. Right click on MountedDevices and select export. Save the file as MD.reg to the desktop. All going well you can delete it when everything is running properly.

by japanto01

Ok, so i have done as you told me... I deleted the keys... And then I reconnected my external HD.

(did not reboot)

sadly though, it does not show on my computer...

by rob miners

Try rebooting the computer without any USB devices attached. Then plug in the USB drive, right click on My Computer, select manage, and then click ?Disk Management.? If the drive is not present in the Disk Management window or if you are not able to access it, then the drive may have failed. In this window you should see all of your connected physical drives, their format, if they are healthy, and the drive letter.
Change the drive letter of the drive. Right-click on the drive in the list, and from the resulting menu select "Change Drive Letters and Paths"
Click on Change so you can change the drive letter. Click Change.
Select a new drive letter from the drop down list, preferably the one that is not normally used for this drive.
Click Yes on the confirmation screen and you are done.

Caution: The cause of unpredictable behavior in a USB drive is often found to be the incorrect removal of a previously connected USB device. When removing USB devices right click on the ?Safely Remove Hardware? icon in the menu bar tray. This is usually found in the bottom right hand corner of the monitor. Once you have clicked on the icon, a menu with a single selection should appear. Click again on that selection to see the ?Safely Remove Hardware? window. Select the correct USB device and click the ?Stop.? When you receive the message that it is safe to remove the device, unplug the USB device from the computer.

Click Start and in the Run box type in cmd and press Enter.
At the command prompt type in chkdsk U:/r 'the drive letter that you just added:' EG: U: and press enter.
If it finds any discrepancies it should fix them.

by japanto01

Alright, I have 2 external HD..

I tested with the one that works, and it seems just fine.

When i tried with the one that doesnt work, it doesnt show up on Disk Management..

On Device Manager, it still shows up wrong. (WD External USB Drive)

And it should be similar to (WD 5000KS External HD)

I think the problem is the installation for the HD. I went to WD website to get some possible help, but they dont have any installtion for XP.

by rob miners

but is it getting a drive letter and can you access it.

by japanto01

No, The only letter i get in my computer is from my HD that works, not the one that doesnt.

(cant access)

It shows up wrong on device manager as i have said before, as when it did work, it shows up with some numbers before..

Here is the proof its not working..
For my HD that works, when i check the device properties and check the volume, it fills up the page with information about my HD.

for the one that doesnt work, it just says unkown, unreadable, not applicable, etc

by japanto01

I had that program before, and it showed my internal and my 2 external HD when it did work..

Now it only shows my internal and one of my external that works..

Does not show my other external hard drive.

by rob miners

If it isn't under warranty you could dismantle it and disconnect and reconnect the cables. Put it back together and try it again. If that doesn't work it is toasted.

The other thing to try is a powerd USB Hub.

by japanto01

since the warranty is gone form a long time ago...

I have seperated the HD and will see if i can connect it to another desktop and see if it works

by oh smeg

http://tinyurl.com/5kx7qc

If the test fails to either see the drive or shows it as Faulty the Drive has gone to Silicon Heaven or at least some part of it has.

If it was left turned on all of the time the Electronics on the Interface between the USB lead and the HDD may have failed so if you can open the case and connect the drive to either another USB Enclosure for that type of Drive or a compute that supports that type of Drive you can test it again with the WD Testing Utility. The drive may be OK but the Interface Card may have failed and this is the only way to test that possibility.

Col

by japanto01

Alright, mine has been turned on ALL the time... I have removed the HD from the case, but how can i connect it to another USB ?

do you have a picture or link to show me what this means?

I tried to connect to another desktop internally, but that didnt really work...

by oh smeg

One is IDE and the other is SATA you only need to insert the drive that you have into a USB Caddy that is a Caddy for your Drive Type that has a Interface for your Drive Type.

It there is a 40 Pin Header strip for a plug to go into you have a IDE Drive and if there is a small 4 Pin Connector for the Data Lead you have a SATA HDD.

If you connected this drive to a computer as an internal Drive and it is a IDE Drive you need to alter the Jumper a Plastic covered bit of copper to short out 2 pins from Slave to either Master to Cable Select CS. If you have a IDE Drive this is shown on the sticker on the top of the drive.

Col

by rob miners

so long as its not Sata0 or Sata1.

< add a bit >

Check in your BIOS to see that it has been detected before starting windows.

by japanto01

crap, i guess its possible my HD is in silicon heaven... I tried both of them, and they some sort of error..

I cant find it in the BIOS in the red one and in the black one, it says there has been an error in the slave drive..

by japanto01

Thanks for the help though...

Its just that i lost some pretty important data that i needed....

by japanto01

Sorry, im a little confused..

So i went to the link and clicked OntrackDataRecovery.com

on the bottom, but kinda led me to, just what i should do in order to get started with data recovering..

by japanto01

Ill try contacting them and see about costs and all..

Do you know any other company similar to this?

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