lap top with windows 8.1 doesn't recognize external hard drive (WD MY PASSPORT)

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blamelessgirl

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Mar 18, 2014
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I Plug in my external drive to my Lap top (its light turns on, it sounds like it plugs) and it appears in "Device Manager" and says "it's working properly" but when I look for it in "computer" does not appear at all, I already checked "disk management" and it appeared and it said unallocated, it doesn't show me the option to drive path, what can I do?
 
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blamelessgirl

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Mar 18, 2014
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my lap top that has windows 8.1 is new but I've already used my hard drive before without no problem in a windows 7 pc
 
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blamelessgirl

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Mar 18, 2014
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no, i can't because that pc is infected by virus, it can't even turn on
 
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PegasusOrgans

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Jan 23, 2014
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As someone else on here named "TomTom11" told me, "You don't even need drivers, Windows 8 just installs the drive without needing to do anything." But, obviously, that is useless prattle.
Try some of these as DVD drives not being recognized seems to be common for Windows 8.1:
http://www.askvg.com/optical-drives-are-not-showing-in-my-computer/
 
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ahiggs1

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Jun 26, 2014
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I had a similar problem with WD My Book Essential Edition Series 2 (WD6400H1U-00), which runs on mains, and I had previously used on XP. When I attached to my new Win8.1 Desktop and powered up, the 4 drives that I had partitioned on it all 'flashed' on the screen, then disappeared to be found no more! I tried other USB ports and discovered that this malfunction occurred on USB 3 ports but not on USB 2 ports. Not sure why this occur as I assumed that the USB 3 should be backwards compatible.
 
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FuneFeai

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Jul 24, 2014
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I am having exactly the same problem as "BlamelessGirl" I have a SeagateExpansion external drive to save and backup files...It worked perfectly on my old laptop with Windows 7 Pro....I bought a new laptop with Windows 8.1, and the external drive is just not recognised in "This PC" (Called :My Computer" in Windows 7)...Device Manager tells me that the drive is there,and that it is working perfectly, but I cannot right click any files to save to it,and it does NOT show on :This PC"...I have Googled the problem, and there seem to be literally hundreds of people with this complaint...All the blame seems to point to Windows 8 not recognising whatever is plugged into the USB ports!!!!!!
 
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girgis2000

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Aug 13, 2014
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I'm not sure about Windows 8 - but i've just ran into the same problem (on windows 8) - the reason i say unsure, is I've just installed 8.1

Now in the past, the format of the hard drive was important, as to whether or not the system could open the drive. Fat 32/NTFS are the two main formats users will use (public). Windows needs NTFS (previous versions - going to find out about 8.1 now) - but in the past, you couldn't read a FAT32 without having tertiary software installed, that was able to load up the drive.

If it's still the same - then yes, you'll get the light and beep (because there's a connection made, and the hard drive software/hardware is communicating with your laptop) - BUT - windows wont load the drive. This was a massive problem in the past if you owned both a mac and pc - because mac's prefer FAT 32 - although they are better, as they could also read NTFS.

Have a search online whilst i do my research :D - hope this wasn't BS!!
 
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jdonalds2001

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Oct 3, 2014
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I had the problem too. I have a Seagate USB drive that came formatted for a Mac. I plugged it into my Windows 7 computer and it worked just fine. I plugged it into my Windows 8.1 computer and the drive was recognized but no letter was assigned. I deleted the 1TB partition and recreated it in NTFS and now it works fine.

It was a backup drive so I didn't lose any data. As soon as I got it working I just did another backup onto that drive.
 
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rpaterso47

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Oct 3, 2014
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This is the first useful bit of advice I've come across in two+ days of futile research ... I did exactly as you suggested and now I am able to access my external HDD. Thanks.
 
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