Western Digital HDD not recognized in "My Computer"

rmitch71 · 03-22-2009, 04:57 PM

Greetings. I was reading some of the other posts regarding this issue and they were extremely helpful. I have a WD 500GB My Book External Drive running on Windows XP. The drive is recognized in the device manager but not locatable in "my computer." I downloaded and ran the Testdisk-6.01 software. However, after I complete the 'analyse', 'quick search', and 'N' for not vista commands, the program begins to "analyse cylinder" and runs through a sequence of numbers. It also says, 'read error' on the next line with a run through of numbers as well. After 2 or 3 hours its still running. I finally stop it. Then it says 'structure: OK' but never gives command prompt to 'write". I figured there was something wrong since this was not mentioned in the directions you gave. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Rmitch71

**raptor_pa** · 03-22-2009, 06:11 PM

Did it stop on your own. or did you interrupt it's run. If interrupted you don't want to write the half data anyway. If you interrupted, let it finish it's run and see what it says. Never abort recovery software that deals with basic file structure repair, you could come up with more of a mess than you started with

rmitch71 · 03-23-2009, 06:15 AM

Thanks for the response. I did interrupt the process. Wont do that again! I restarted the process last night. I just checked on it this morning and its still 'analysing cylinder'. I will update once its finished.

rmitch71 · 03-24-2009, 08:40 AM

My computer crashed during the analyse cylinder process so I restarted. I noticed however that the WD drive was listed as having 2199GB/2047GiB. That is not the right size. The instructions say that if the drive size was incorrect then I needed to check the HD jumper settings, BIOS detection and install the latest OS patches and disk drivers. I have the latest OS patches and disk drivers but I don't know what the other stuff is.

**raptor_pa** · 03-24-2009, 09:35 PM

The two GB error size is often a sign of failed firmware, or major corruption. Since it is an external disk, the jumpers and BIOS have no effect. A couple of choices, if the data is critical then you will need to get hte disk out of the USB enclosure and attach it driectly to the PC, other alternative is to give up on the data, and try to zero-wipe the disk with d-ban or killdisk, repartition and reformat. That is the easiest solution, If the firmware is corrupt then you have a couple of choices, call WD and see if the drive is under warranty and return it for replacement. If the data is importnat then you will need to have a pro recovery shop take a look at it and repair the firmware. Cost is $1000 + . If the data isn't critical I would probably start with a call to WD tech support, then the killdisk d-ban option.

03-22-2009, 04:57 PM	#1 (permalink)
rmitch71 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 3 OS: Windows XP	Western Digital HDD not recognized in "My Computer" Greetings. I was reading some of the other posts regarding this issue and they were extremely helpful. I have a WD 500GB My Book External Drive running on Windows XP. The drive is recognized in the device manager but not locatable in "my computer." I downloaded and ran the Testdisk-6.01 software. However, after I complete the 'analyse', 'quick search', and 'N' for not vista commands, the program begins to "analyse cylinder" and runs through a sequence of numbers. It also says, 'read error' on the next line with a run through of numbers as well. After 2 or 3 hours its still running. I finally stop it. Then it says 'structure: OK' but never gives command prompt to 'write". I figured there was something wrong since this was not mentioned in the directions you gave. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Rmitch71

03-22-2009, 06:11 PM	#2 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,821 OS: XP	Re: Western Digital HDD not recognized in "My Computer" Did it stop on your own. or did you interrupt it's run. If interrupted you don't want to write the half data anyway. If you interrupted, let it finish it's run and see what it says. Never abort recovery software that deals with basic file structure repair, you could come up with more of a mess than you started with __________________

03-23-2009, 06:15 AM	#3 (permalink)
rmitch71 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 3 OS: Windows XP	Re: Western Digital HDD not recognized in "My Computer" Thanks for the response. I did interrupt the process. Wont do that again! I restarted the process last night. I just checked on it this morning and its still 'analysing cylinder'. I will update once its finished.

03-24-2009, 08:40 AM	#4 (permalink)
rmitch71 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 3 OS: Windows XP	Re: Western Digital HDD not recognized in "My Computer" My computer crashed during the analyse cylinder process so I restarted. I noticed however that the WD drive was listed as having 2199GB/2047GiB. That is not the right size. The instructions say that if the drive size was incorrect then I needed to check the HD jumper settings, BIOS detection and install the latest OS patches and disk drivers. I have the latest OS patches and disk drivers but I don't know what the other stuff is.

03-24-2009, 09:35 PM	#5 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,821 OS: XP	Re: Western Digital HDD not recognized in "My Computer" The two GB error size is often a sign of failed firmware, or major corruption. Since it is an external disk, the jumpers and BIOS have no effect. A couple of choices, if the data is critical then you will need to get hte disk out of the USB enclosure and attach it driectly to the PC, other alternative is to give up on the data, and try to zero-wipe the disk with d-ban or killdisk, repartition and reformat. That is the easiest solution, If the firmware is corrupt then you have a couple of choices, call WD and see if the drive is under warranty and return it for replacement. If the data is importnat then you will need to have a pro recovery shop take a look at it and repair the firmware. Cost is $1000 + . If the data isn't critical I would probably start with a call to WD tech support, then the killdisk d-ban option. __________________