Western Digital Passport 120 Gig External HD

Fazer6

I haven't used my WD Passport in a long time and it's been sitting in a padded bag in a desk drawer. Today I plugged it in to my PC and it appears to power up and the disc sounds like it's spinning and there's no nasty noises coming from it.
However neither of my two PCs will recognise it. I'm running Win XP Pro on both PCs and I've tried plugging it into all the USB ports on both PCs with no success.
Can anyone solve this problem or will the drive head to the recycling bin?

Thanks in advance.

Fazer 6.

LoGiE

Can your pc see the disk?

Control panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Managment - Then Click on Disk Manager under 'Storage' (See attached image)

It maybe a case that you need to assign a drive letter. It should appear along side your c:\ and DVD drive anyway if it's being detected.

I'd also try a different usb cable and Western Digitals Data lifeguard Diagnostic tools.

Fazer6

No joy, I'm afraid. Neither PC will even recognise that the passport is plugged in.

Any other ideas?

freethepenguins

When you plug it in to the USB port go into your device manager and check if the USB has a exclamation mark on the USB port. If this is there then just right click on the port and up-date the driver for that port and that should get you up and running.

Fazer6

Thanks freethepenguins.

Still no joy, I hope this is what you meant, please see the screenshot.

Fazer 6.

Fazer6

Anyone?

Fazer

Can anyone help?

bonzodog2

I'd open it up and get an appropriate new enclosure, they're cheap. So are disks a good bit bigger than that. LIDL have a 500GB external for < 60euro right now.

ricman

You could try a unix livecd,eg mint ,OR try safe mode.

Dulchie

This is a long shot.

Have you tried the Add Hardware Wizard. There is a possibility that the USB device discovery service is disabled.
Given that it fails to register on both computers this is unlikely but not impossible.

Fazer6

Thanks Dulchie, still no joy.:(

bobbytables

Try different USBports on the same machine. I know the device appears to be powering up but I've still come across power issues, especially on Dell desktops. Disconnect as much as you can before trying.

hearny

Are you using the cable that was supplied with the hard drive.

Some of those cables although the connections fit may not carry enough voltage to power the drive (I've seen it happen where lights come on but the drive doesn't show up).

If you have another cable try it (Playstation 3 Controller or camera cable).

Also open Device Manager before connecting the drive, make sure you connect it to a port at the back of the computer.

Dulchie

Fazer6, can you tell us what is listed under your VSO devices entry and when it was installed ?

i.e. since you were last able to access the WD drive ?