# Western Digital hard Drive not recognized



## Smileypen (Nov 9, 2004)

Hello. I'm on a Dell XPS 410 running Windows XP. For some time I've had a Western Digital My Book Premium 500BG USB Hard Drive attached on which I back up data. The recent backups have failed, and when I open My Computer the drive isn't there. 

Many attempts have been made using information on the Western Digital site to find a fix for this, all to no avail. It seems my problem is not on their radar at all. The backup software seems to operate the way it's supposed to, except that the drive is not recognized by Windows, so I can schedule backups and make selections as to what gets backed up, but nothing happens.

I cannot use the Safely Remove Hardware tool to unplug it so I can reattach it because the hard drive doesn't appear in the list of devices. It does not show up in the Device Manager in Windows. I need to be able to get the data off of this drive. 

I also tried attaching the Hard Drive to my laptop running XP, which also did not recognize the drive. 

Any suggestions?


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## t-mpg (Oct 15, 2007)

Mabey the usb cable is not functioning properly.

Does your hard drive give any indication as to whether or not it is recieving power??


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## Smileypen (Nov 9, 2004)

The USB cable functions properly on another hard drive. The hard drive lights up on the front showing it has power.

This is weird. The drive spontaneously became recognized by Windows, and the Windows Explorer window shows that the correct portion of the drive's capacity is being used, but when I try to open one of the folders, it shows nothing there. When I right-click on the drive in an attempt to check the Properties, I get the message "*Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.*" and all windows I have open close.


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## t-mpg (Oct 15, 2007)

Run an AV scan on the drive.


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## JBarber21 (Aug 14, 2008)

Any news on this? Was the problem ever solved Smileypen? I'm having the same problem.


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## 007dabomb (Jan 16, 2009)

SOLUTION FOUND WORKS PERFECTLY !!

http://www.techsupportforum.com/f108/solved-wd-my-book-opinions-ahd-help-please-281749.html


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