My passport hard disk not detected

[raghuravindran]

Hello,
my portable HDD "My WD My Passport" 500GB is not getting detected in my laptop. Tried with another lptop too, same result. Changed connecting cable, still no effect. Can u pls help me retrieve the drive without loss of data?

 

[phil22]

It may not have a drive letter, Windows Explorer can't show it without one.
Go into Control Panel>Computer Management>Disk Management.
Look for the ribbon in bottom right panel which relates to that device.

Right-click it and choose Change Driver Letter & Paths
Click Add.
Choose a letter.
Click OK.

If the drive truly has not been recognised, not even by Disk Management, the drive itself could be faulty. A common problem with external hard drives is that the USB converter board fails in the enclosure. On some models the drive can be extracted and placed into a different enclosure to overcome that problem.

The WD enclosure is secured by concealed clips around the edge so you'll need to use a thin bladed tool to open it up.