[nfbcs] External drive problem

[Steve Jacobson]

Tracy,

Be sure to try your drive on all of the USB ports on your computer.  When moving it from one port to another, wait 
until you hear the disconnect series of tones.  Sometimes the port seems to matter even if a device has worked on 
a particular port.  

Second, try it on another computer.  Usually you don't have to install software to get these devices to work.  If 
you get the same results on all USB ports and on another computer, I would be suspicious that the drive may have 
gone bad.  If you have been carrying it around, be sure to give it plenty of time to warm up when coming in from 
winter weather.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:52:22 -0500, Tracy Carcione wrote:

>I am having a problem with my external drive, which is a WD My Passport. 
>When I plug in the USB cable, it makes the USB noise, and I hear the disk 
>whirring away for a couple minutes, but then nothing happens.  It doesn't 
>ask me how I want to proceed, and I don't see it on My Computer.
>I do see it under Control Panel/System/Hardware/WD drive management devices. 
>When I choose properties there, it doesn't show me anything about how much 
>data is on the drive.  It just has "troubleshoot" and device usage: enable 
>or disable.  When I choose the driver tab, I see a driver, and I'm not 
>getting an error saying "no driver".
>When I plug the drive into another PC, it asks me to install the software, 
>which I've managed to mislay, but I'm not sure I installed it on my PC, 
>either.

>Where do I go from here? How can I tell if the drive has died, or if it's 
>some other problem?  Is it normal for a drive to whir a bit at the 
>beginning, or does that indicate it's damaged?
>Any advice would be much appreciated.
>Tracy


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