Computer doesn't recognize Western Digital My Book World HD transferred to USB enclosure

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chrisjordan

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Mar 1, 2015
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So I had a Western Digital My Book World Edition a few years ago that housed all of my media. I thought it'd be great to have a wireless hard drive that I could access anywhere, but it was kind of annoying waiting for my old computer to boot up, connect to the internet, and then take an extra minute to establish a connection with the hard drive. Plus it hardly worked if I was anywhere but home.

Long story short, I eventually got sick of it, transferred all the media to my computer's internal HD, took the damn thing apart, bought a cheap Rosewill external USB HD enclosure and stuck the HD from the World Book in there.

When I plug the new enclosure into my computer (running Windows 7), it recognizes that I connected a USB Mass Storage Device and it appears as such in "Devices and Printers", but the HD never shows up in "Computer" as a drive for me to actually open. I'm assuming its because I don't have the proper driver being that it wasn't set up to be plugged directly into a computer. I don't know. I figured I was getting into some funny business taking a drive that was supposed to work one way and then trying to make it work another way.

I'm definitely not an IT specialist, but I'm not an idiot either. I know just enough to get myself into trouble. Can any of you guys help me get my computer to recognize the hard drive? Ideally without having to reformat it.
 
Solution
Phillip Corcoran
Windows often fails to assign a drive letter to external hard drives even though it acknowledges that one has been connected.
The place to go to rectify that issue is "Disk Management" to add a drive letter to it:

Control Panel >> Admin Tools >> Computer Management

In the left panel click on "Disk Management" and wait for drive configuration graphics to appear.
In the main panel, scroll down and find the ribbon which says "RAW" and has no drive letter or name.
Right-click on it and choose "Change drive letter & paths".
Click "Add".
Accept the default letter and click 'OK'.
Wait about 20 seconds, may be less.
Drive name and drive letter should now be shown on the ribbon.

Windows Explorer should now show...
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Phillip Corcoran

Phillip Corcoran

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Sep 7, 2013
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Windows often fails to assign a drive letter to external hard drives even though it acknowledges that one has been connected.
The place to go to rectify that issue is "Disk Management" to add a drive letter to it:

Control Panel >> Admin Tools >> Computer Management

In the left panel click on "Disk Management" and wait for drive configuration graphics to appear.
In the main panel, scroll down and find the ribbon which says "RAW" and has no drive letter or name.
Right-click on it and choose "Change drive letter & paths".
Click "Add".
Accept the default letter and click 'OK'.
Wait about 20 seconds, may be less.
Drive name and drive letter should now be shown on the ribbon.

Windows Explorer should now show the drive.
 
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Solution
C

chrisjordan

Reputable
Mar 1, 2015
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4,510
Phillip! Thank you!

It didn't show up in the panel as "RAW", it showed up as 3 different partitions without names at all, which wouldn't let me add a drive letter to it.

I ended up deleting all of the active volumes in the panel below, where the drives are visualized as boxes. I was left with one large "unallocated" box which I right clicked on, chose "Add a Volume" and from there brought me through some menus where I could choose the drive letter, etc.

Unfortunately, Windows required me reformat the disk in order to use it, but I already had most of the good stuff off of there anyway.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! I wouldn't have figured any of it out otherwise.
 
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