# WD Passport problem



## fitlibrarian

I have a 40 Gig WD Passport that just quit working. At first I thought it was the USB port since I had just reformated my computer. It is not the USB port because my mp3 player still works on that port. Also the drive is not opening up on my other two laptops.

Before I reformated the computer I had backed up everything to the WD Passport. I am just sick about the idea that 5 years worth of digital photos could be gone.

I can hear the WD spinning around but it does nothing more. Anyway I can recover what is on this thing? 

My kids swear they did not drop it. I don't want to reformat it because it would erase everything.

Please help me if you can.

BTW I have already emailed WD passport.

:upset::upset::upset:


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## dai

can you see the drive in disk management and the space occupied by the files


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## fitlibrarian

How do I find disk management?

It does not appear at all (while plugged in) my computer


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## dai

control panel /admin tools
look in the left column for disk management and click on it


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## ceri sheeran

Hi,

Your USB ports on the laptop may not be able to supply enough power for the WD Passport drive.

Try using a powered USB 2 hub or try using a separate power supply unit for the WD Passport drive. The 40GB passport drive I have has provision for a separate power supply jack instead of being powered from the USB ports. 

The cable supplied with the drive I have, is intended to use two USB ports to power the drive. A laptop may not be able to supply enough power on the USB ports to run the drive.

Even on mains poer, not battery a laptop may struggle to supply enough power on the USB ports for the drive, hence the need for a separate power supply to the drive.

hth

Ceri


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## c_speers

fitlibrarian I have the same problem as you. My Passport is a 60GB, but it just stopped working, i can hear the Hard drive spinning though. ITs not being recognised in Disk Management, but the computer still seems to recognise it when it is plugged in, however it wont load up the files.

Any ideas?


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## mbag

Here is a possible solution to the original problem, but I don't know why it works: Plug the drive into a computer running Vista.

I have a similar problem. I have a WD Passport 60 gig that I keep music and personal files on at work. Computer is running XP, version 5.1.2600. Every few weeks or longer, the drive simply disappears and cannot be accessed, even after unplugging and replugging it in. The drive light comes on, and you can hear a soft rhythmic clicking, as if the drive is spinning on an endless loop. No error messages, nothing. The drive is simply not detected.

I took the drive home to see if I could recover it. I plugged it into my Vista box there, and it started up fine. All files were there, and fully accessible. The amazing thing is, after this "reboot" through Vista, it works fine when plugged back into the XP computer at work. (At least, until the next time it craps out, which can be weeks later.)

I have done this numerous times, and it always works. It's somewhat annoying, but better than not having the drive.

Note that plugging it into other XP computers (at work) does not "reset" the drive, and you still just get the clicking sound, with no recognition by the OS.

Hope this helps. More importantly, does this suggest to anyone what the underlying problem is? I'd like to be able to solve the problem for good ...


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## bongo667

Any news?


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## kansasa

I ran into a somewhat similar problem with my passport when my USB DVD player didn't have enough power to run it. I made my own cord to power it through the USB cable using a 5v power adaptor. I've posted instructions at my blog and a video at YouTube. It's pretty simple to make the cord and I used items I had around the house so it didn't really cost me anything. You could use the cable when the USB from your computer doesn't supply enough power as well as use it when it won't work with a USB enabled DVD player. The link to my blog is at
http://kansasa.blogspot.com/2008/06/make-your-wd-passport-work-with-any-usb.html 
I hope this helps some


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