Western Digital portable hard drive won't read on my computer...

CanadianBacon · 12-25-2007, 04:09 PM

I live in canada and bought a portable hard drive from California. It's a WD 160GB portable hard drive. I plugged it into my USB port on the front of my computer and it won't read. Can anyone help?

2048Megabytes · 12-26-2007, 01:03 AM

Are you sure the USB ports you are using are working correctly? Are there software compact disks that came with the external hard drive?

Gamepsyched · 12-26-2007, 01:38 AM

I had this drive before usually it installs its software automatically but most of the time it ****s up so go to the western digital support site and get the drivers then connect it

oregon · 12-26-2007, 04:51 AM

How is it formatted? I'm assuming it is FAT32, so that means it should automatically be recognized. Check in device manager to see if it shows up there, and is just not mounting.

CanadianBacon · 12-26-2007, 09:50 AM

Yeah it's FAT32. I checked device manager. It's reading perfectly fine. Like the computer knows that it's there, but I'm just not able to access it. I tried looking in My Computer and it was nowhere to be found. Tried downloading drivers for it off the website and nothing works.

codeman0013 · 12-26-2007, 06:55 PM

I'm guessing its assigned a drive letter already in use... Right click my computer go to manage then go to disk management... If you see it in there it may need to bechanged right click and go to Change Drive Letters and paths make it like R or something high and it will probably show up if not let us know i have other options.

reddevil6 · 12-27-2007, 01:08 AM

have u got a realy old computer say 5 or so years cos older computers can only read a certen amount of space if this is what it is it can be fixed by doing a bios update

SirKenin · 12-27-2007, 01:13 AM

Try pulling the drive out of the case and hooking it up directly.

edit: Oh.. wait a second. Something to do first. Right click on my computer and select "manage". Go to disk management. If you see it in there, give it a drive letter that isn't already used. It will probably show up then.

CanadianBacon · 12-27-2007, 08:39 AM

I tried assigning it to a letter and it actually worked. Many thanks guys. Much appreciated.

12-25-2007, 04:09 PM	#1 (permalink)
CanadianBacon New Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 5	Western Digital portable hard drive won't read on my computer... I live in canada and bought a portable hard drive from California. It's a WD 160GB portable hard drive. I plugged it into my USB port on the front of my computer and it won't read. Can anyone help?

12-26-2007, 01:03 AM	#2 (permalink)
2048Megabytes Diamond Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Mainland United States Posts: 1,016	Are you sure the USB ports you are using are working correctly? Are there software compact disks that came with the external hard drive? __________________ "Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder." -- George Washington Processor: AMD Athlon 4600+ Dual-Core (2.4 gigahertz) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-M78SM-S2H Memory: 2 gigabytes of Super Talent PC2-6400 Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 3650 Power Supply: OCZ StealthXStream OCZ600SXS 600 Watt Operating System: 32-bit Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Favorite Video Games: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Luxor 2

12-26-2007, 04:51 AM	#4 (permalink)
oregon Diamond Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: portland, oregon Age: 17 Posts: 1,009	How is it formatted? I'm assuming it is FAT32, so that means it should automatically be recognized. Check in device manager to see if it shows up there, and is just not mounting. __________________ MB: Gigabyte P35-DS3L CPU: Core 2 Duo E6550 @3.5hz GPU: PNY GeForce 8800 GT 512 RAM: 4GBs DDR2-800 (Ballistix and OCZ SLI) CL4 PSU: Antec NeoPower 650W Case: Antec 900 HDD: Seagate SATA 250GB, 16MB cache Seagate SATA 320GB, 16MB cache

12-27-2007, 01:08 AM	#7 (permalink)
reddevil6 Diamond Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Australia Age: 16 Posts: 1,174	have u got a realy old computer say 5 or so years cos older computers can only read a certen amount of space if this is what it is it can be fixed by doing a bios update __________________ (1) GA-MA770-DS3 - AMD 6000+ @3.33GHz - WD SE16 2x500G - ASUS 9800GTX+ @820 - 2036 - 2350 - Apacer 2x2G DDR 800 @953MHz - Thermaltake Soprano RS100 full tower - Coolmaster extrema power duo 650W - 3DMARK06 12256 (2) GA-81945P-G-RH - Pentium D 945 (3.4GHz) had it @4.42 GHz - SATA 3.0G 1x250G 2x500G - ASUS 3850 - 3G DDR 533 - Topower 750W - 50''(127CM) 1080P 1920x1080 plasma - 3DMARK06 7250.

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12-26-2007, 01:38 AM	#3 (permalink)
Gamepsyched Silver Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Age: 15 Posts: 140	I had this drive before usually it installs its software automatically but most of the time it ****s up so go to the western digital support site and get the drivers then connect it

12-26-2007, 09:50 AM	#5 (permalink)
CanadianBacon New Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 5	Yeah it's FAT32. I checked device manager. It's reading perfectly fine. Like the computer knows that it's there, but I'm just not able to access it. I tried looking in My Computer and it was nowhere to be found. Tried downloading drivers for it off the website and nothing works.

12-26-2007, 06:55 PM	#6 (permalink)
codeman0013 Diamond Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Inside my network at work Age: 23 Posts: 1,493	I'm guessing its assigned a drive letter already in use... Right click my computer go to manage then go to disk management... If you see it in there it may need to bechanged right click and go to Change Drive Letters and paths make it like R or something high and it will probably show up if not let us know i have other options.

12-27-2007, 01:13 AM	#8 (permalink)
SirKenin banned Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 4,711	Try pulling the drive out of the case and hooking it up directly. edit: Oh.. wait a second. Something to do first. Right click on my computer and select "manage". Go to disk management. If you see it in there, give it a drive letter that isn't already used. It will probably show up then.

12-27-2007, 08:39 AM	#9 (permalink)
CanadianBacon New Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 5	I tried assigning it to a letter and it actually worked. Many thanks guys. Much appreciated.

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