Vista - external hard drive does not appear anywhere on the computer.

i've had the Western Digital WDH1U10000N 1TB for a little over a week now. it was working fine, up until yesterday night. i made the switch from my PC to my laptop. when i plugged the USB into my laptop, the external hard drive was not recognized. so, i tried plugging the USB into another port, and after a few minutes it was recognized by the laptop. this morning when i plugged the external hard drive back to my PC, it is not recognized. moreover i can't find it anywhere on the computer. i know for a fact it is turned on, but i just can't find it anywhere on my computer. does anyone know what the problem is?

Have a look in Disk Management. Maybe there is a problem with the drive letter. You can reassign that in disk management.

i've taken a look there before, but the external was nowhere to be found.

if this helps, the external is usually displayed as drive e.

BUMP.

anybody?

Open a cmd prompt and type in

diskpart
list disk

Does it see your disk in there? If it does then type in

select disk# (# will be the disk number from above for your 1TB)
list partition

Does it see any partitions?

no, the external isn't listed there. but i know for a fact the external is functioning properly, and not broken because the lights in it are on.



thanks for your help though. anyone else want to step up to the plate?

The lights require power, so your troubleshooting technique is a bit flawed. Have you tried multiple usb cables and on other computers? A brand new hard drive will show up with the show disk command providing its powered and physically connected.

"iownstan" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:93d6490c02358c8669754fe1c2ff5009@xxxxxx-gateway.com...Go into disk management and re-letter your DVD drive that is showing as
drive E to a different letter (as shown in you image from later post). Does
the drive then show?

i could only re-letter my C and D drives in disk management.

I think the disk in the enclosure has died, or there is a problem with
the internals in the enclosure. The slow recognition of the drive was
probably its last gasp.

Contact your supplier or WD for a warranty replacement.


On 11/07/2009 14:43, iownstan wrote: