Cannot access external HD contents - WD My Passport 1.5TB

Nitronyx · May 18, 2014

I just did a clean format of my computer hard drive and re-installed windows vista over the past 12 hours. I have a WD My Passport 1.5TB external drive that was working just fine prior to me cleaning up my computer. I had noticed a few days ago when I tried to access the drive on another computer, that even after entering my password, the drive would show up as a "Local Drive (F

" and not the name that I gave it.

The drive is inaccessible and tells me that access is denied. It wasn't until I began re-installing windows that the thought occurred to me that I might experience the same thing on my computer after the wipe. Sadly, my thoughts were correct. I am unable to access the files on my external, even after re-installing the WD software and drivers from the website. What do I do? I am at a complete loss. Even using a recovery program to get my files back, does not give me everything on the drive...

plaintuts · May 18, 2014

Is the data encrypted by a third party application and accessed by a password?

And why vista?

Nitronyx · May 18, 2014

The data encryption software came with the hard drive. I never had any problems with it prior, because I never used it on any other computer.

Edit: Yes it is accessed by a password, which I entered. However, it still does not grant me access to the drive. I re-installed the software from WD's website and I can access the security feature to reinstate the password or disable it, but none of that helps.

As for why Vista? Heh...I've had my computer for a long time now, close to 7 years, it's still in great condition. I believe the type of computer I have does not allow for an update to 7, for starters. I know of friend who had a similar computer (XPS 1530) and at the time he mentioned that trying to update the OS was a pain in the arse. So I never really gave it much thought after that. Vista sucks, I know.

plaintuts · May 18, 2014

Even after installing the same version of the encryption software?

If so, you will need WD support for this.

encryption software doesn't really creates a barrier of protection for your files, just randomizing the structure to make it unreadable.

Nitronyx · May 18, 2014

Okay, so I found a complete solution that I think will work for many people who seem to have this issue.

It's a little hard to remember EXACTLY what I did now that the drive is fully accessible now. I was in the process of following a guide to uninstall and re-install the drivers for the external HD when I came upon the option to change the permissions on the drive.

Essentially, I clicked an option that allowed me to try to take control of the permissions as one of my users or as the administrator. I chose the user because it is essentially the same thing as my admin. When I clicked the button to proceed, a popup appeared that showed that my computer was running through all of the files/folders on the drive to take control of all the permissions therein. When the process was complete I went back to My Computer to view my drives. Where it previously said "Local Drive (F: )", refreshed, and voila! The name I assigned to my drive was back up, along with the space allocation, and it is now fully functional and accessible

!

I hope this will work for those of you who are also experiencing the issue of not being able to run your drives due to password protection or inaccessibility.

plaintuts, thanks for responding as well

.

taylor101 · Nov 4, 2014

Can you post a link of that guide? I believe I am having the same problem. with my external hard drive. The computer recognizes it as a local disk and I am not able to view the contents. Please help, any more insight would be appreciated.
Thank you

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