My computer can not see my wd passport

[betneb]

my computer can not see my wd passport 1tb any more, please do i have hope of retrieving the data i have in the drive and how?

I've checked it in the Device Manager/ Disk Management and i can't see my device there. what can i do?

 

[nhasian]

try it in a different computer. if that still doesnt work you know its a problem with the wd passport.

 

[bambiboom]

my computer can not see my wd passport 1tb any more, please do i have hope of retrieving the data i have in the drive and how?

I've checked it in the Device Manager/ Disk Management and i can't see my device there. what can i do?

7.20.12 2PM

betneb,

I had the same problem with a WD 320GB Passport external drive > the drive contained 2 GB of data, but was unable to access the disk in any way. In Win Explorer clicking on the drive name and right clicking "Properties", I was only able to see there was a 100MB FAT32 partition of which 36MB was used. These files appeared to be the setup/structure files for the Drive, and I decided that the problem was in the formatting of the drive and/or in the setup of partitions. Seeing that the format was "FAT32" is still my main suspect in the Passport reading problem.

Using my third computer (Win 7 Ult 64 > Dell Dimension 8400, P4 3GHz , 3GB/ Quadro FX570, WD Caviar Blue 750), I downloaded and installed the free version of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard >

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

-and a program I 'd used before > EaseUS Partition Manager >

http://www.partition-tool.com/download.htm

Data Recovery saw the sound files on the Passport and I copied these to a storage partition on the computer HD (WD Caviar Blue 750GB). The free version, by the way, allows you to recover 1GB- if you have more to retrieve, you must purchase the full version.

In Partition Manager, it was possible to see that the main partition- 297GB- of the Passport had not been "allocated". In EaseUS I clicked on the 297GB unallocated volume and then > "Create Partition", making sure the dialog box showed NTSC format instead of FAT32. After about 4min processing- which I believe was formatting, EaseUS gave the partition a new drive letter and this volume appeared in Win Explorer. As a test, I copied the two large sound files back to the new partition and all appears readable/usable. There is now a 100MB partition containing the drive working files and the remaining 300GB for storage. In the 8400 Win Explorer this is called > "WD Passport (H and "Logical 1 (I)"

As I'm not 100% certain of the cause of the original reading problem (conflicting FAT32 format or?), nor whether Partition Manager wipes the drive, so I recommend looking into your situation with both of these programs carefully before taking action. In use, note that you create a list of actions that are then initiated. More than once, I've started to close the program - thinking I was finished, only to be asked whether I wanted to make the changes I'd specified.

I've had very good luck with free EaseUS utility software, especially the partition one with which I've set up 4 HD's at home. They offer a very good disk cloning one as well, which I will use to place a backup disk image (about 74GB) of the Dell Precision T5400 on the now useable Passport.

Good luck!

Cheers,

BambiBoom

[Win 7 Ult 64 > Dell Precision T5400 > xeon qc 3.16 /12GB / GTX285 /WD RE4 500GB]