I have a 320GB Western Digital My Book? Essential Edition External Hard Drive (WDG1U3200A). It has been working fine for about 5 days then did not use it for a week.
I’m using a HP Pavillon Laptop with windows vista home premium 1.66GHz 160GB 1G ram….
Suddenly I am not able to see the drive name on my ” Computer” list. The USB detects the external HDD by showing an USB connection icon on the system tray with the usual sound.
In the device manager the HDD shows up under the “Disk Drives” as “WD” and “Device status” on the “General” tab says that the device is working properly.
I tried to populate the volumes on the “Volumes” tab and status shows up as “Unreadable” type “unknown”
The asume the HDD is running fine and i can hear the drive sound when i switch the power on the external HDD.
Resolving Methods Tried:
1. I checked if the disk management detects the external HDD, but it does not show up there.Only a disk icon with a little red arrow pointing down ‘titled’ “DISK 2 Unknown Unreadable
2.tried the Data Lifegurad Diagnostic quick test and failed on” 11-cable test ” not sure what this is but changed USB lead and tired again same response
3. I uninstalled the USB driver and reinstalled. But still the problem persists.
4. I had tried to connect the external HDD to another (WXPs2p)laptop as well and it is not detectable on theis laptop either. So i guess the problem is with the external HDD.
5. i attempted to change the drive but can’t as it is not recognised
6. have down loaded all applicable updates to Vista\microsoft ( I think) wich i thought may have resolved it.
7. Have been in contact with WD support with no resolving problems either
I don’t have access to a Desktop PC.
I’m lost as to be able to solve the problem. And have valuble data i wish to retrive\use.
Experts – Please help .