Help With Western Digital External Hard Drive

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See how you go with this

by Jacky Howe · 12 years ago In reply to Help With Western Digital ...

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

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Let me make sure

by japanto01 · 12 years ago In reply to See how you go with this

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?

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Yes, Take note

by Jacky Howe · 12 years ago In reply to Let me make sure

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.

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Well, I did it, but....

by japanto01 · 12 years ago In reply to See how you go with this

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...

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Is it in Device Manager

by Jacky Howe · 12 years ago In reply to Well, I did it, but....

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.

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Hmmm One problem

by japanto01 · 12 years ago In reply to Is it in Device Manager

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.

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It may show up wrong

by Jacky Howe · 12 years ago In reply to Hmmm One problem

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

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No it isnt

by japanto01 · 12 years ago In reply to It may show up wrong

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

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What is the result

by Jacky Howe · 12 years ago In reply to No it isnt

from the WD test.

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Pretty much nothing...

by japanto01 · 12 years ago In reply to No it isnt

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.

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