WD External no longer recognized

[RussianCarl]

I've had a WD My Book 2.0 500gb for about 6 months now and it has worked perfectly fine... no funny sounds or anything. Well, today I reset my computer and unplugged my external while doing this. I did not think it was a big deal, but when I went to plug it back in a few hours later it was not recognized.

At first, the blue indicator light was on so I looked under Disk Management and Devices but it was not there. Tried 2 other USB ports and then I unplugged the HD from the power strip, let it sit, and replugged it. Blue power light flashed and did not come back on... still no recognition. I then tried it on another computer and it was not showing up either.

Next, I googled around some more and I went through various booting and rebooting sequences and made sure Plug and Play is activated. I am pretty clueless here... the only thing I can think of is that I fried the power switch in the case. I can't imagine I corrupted the data or anything else by unplugging it without ejecting first, or through the reset. But, before I open it up and void my warranty I wanted to check if there were any other ideas or things i could try.

I am running a brand new computer with XP SP3, and a EP35-DS3L if that information is relevant.

Thanks.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

I have run into issues with these external drives. The controller board goes bad MAYBE due to unplugging it without ejecting it first. It could be that the boards are extra sensitive.

The only way I could get data from the drive at this point was to pull the drive out of the STUPID housing which you have to rip apart. There maybe better instructions on how to dissemble but I haven't searched for them.