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Cannot open WD external passport HD

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Name: bdthomas02
Date: June 12, 2008 at 06:36:37 Pacific
OS: XP
CPU/Ram: 3.0/1.0
Product: Dell Precision 380
Comment:

I cannot open my Western Digital external passport 2.5 hard drive. My computer is showing the drive in Device Manager under disk drive but it does not show up in MY Computer where the other drives are listed. How can I access the drive? I need to get some very important information off of the drive. It was working correctly but all of a sudden stop working.

Thanks,

Thanks,

bdthomas02



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Response Number 1
Name: XpUser
Date: June 12, 2008 at 07:11:41 Pacific
Reply:

Does this external USB HD show up in XP Disk manager (run diskmgmt.msc)? If it does, is the drive file system listed as RAW or Healthy?

i_Xp/VistaUser


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Response Number 2
Name: bdthomas02
Date: June 12, 2008 at 07:26:48 Pacific
Reply:

No it does not show up in the XP Disk Manager.

Thanks,

bdthomas02


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Response Number 3
Name: wanderer
Date: June 12, 2008 at 08:08:32 Pacific
Reply:

delete the entry for it in device manager and reboot. This should force a reload of the driver. Otherwise test it on another box. You may have lost the hd.

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Response Number 4
Name: bdthomas02
Date: June 12, 2008 at 08:35:38 Pacific
Reply:

I deleted the entry and did a reboot. The system said new hardware found and device working properly but I still cannot open the drive. The drive does not appear in My Computer. The drive does not appear on any other machine. Is there another way to open the drive or is the drive dead?

Thanks,

Thanks,

bdthomas02


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Response Number 5
Name: aegis
Date: June 12, 2008 at 10:58:11 Pacific
Reply:

I would suggest that you download a diagnostic from the hard drive manufacturer's web site. Thanks to Dan Penny for the following web site with a list of the manufacturers diagnostics:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm...


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Response Number 6
Name: bdthomas02
Date: June 12, 2008 at 11:33:47 Pacific
Reply:

I have done that and the results were positive. The hard drive passed the diagnostics with flying colors. As I stated in my earlier posts the Device Manager shows the hard drive under Disk Drives but I cannot access the drive. Any more suggestions?

Thanks,

bdthomas02


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Response Number 7
Name: aegis
Date: June 12, 2008 at 12:48:28 Pacific
Reply:

If you are able to run the 'Recovery Console' and it sees the drive, it might be worth a try to do a fixmbr. Or it might be necessary to use it to repartition/format the drive. I've had to do that when I've had this problem. But I was able to access the drive on another system.

(edit) I'm not sure if the recovery console can access a USB drive. You might have to try connecting the drive internally.

If the recovery Console doesn't see the drive, that's a problem. If one of the manufacturer's diagnostic utilities has an option to partition and format the drive, you could use it.

You could try a file recovery program to save some of your data.


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