'My 1TB WD external hard drive is not working on my Windows 10 PC and I can do nothing to the drive since it fails to show up in This PC.
I've changed the USB port but it still not working.
I don't know what reasons have made the drive not responding, and neither I know any solutions. I've saved quite a lot of important files inside the drive. If you have any methods to fix my issue and make the WD external hard drive work again, please help me. Thank you.'
Though it's no longer a new problem that external hard drive fails to work or suddenly fail to show up in PC. But it's still a tough issue for ordinary users when their external hard drive, USB or SD card etc devices suddenly become unrecognized, not working or responding in PC. Here below, you'll find 1 quick fix and 4 methods to fix WD external hard drive not working issue. If your external hard drive or storage devices are having this issue, relax and just follow to get your problem fixed right here now.
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Go to Applications Utilities Disk Utility. Select the unmountable WD external hard drive and click 'Erase' on the top. Provide a name and a format to erase the drive. When finished, you can mount your WD external hard drive on Mac and use it again. Also read: Other ways to erase external hard drive on Mac. Sep 28, 2018 No noise on the hard drive. Connected the external HD to my Mac but it won’t mount. I tried mounting with `diskutil mount /dev/pathToDisk` and `diskutil mount readOnly /dev/pathToDisk` but it won’t mount. The disk is formatted in the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format (HFS+). I downloaded WD Drive Utilities software to check the HD and it. Usually, disk mounting is an automatic process and happens when the external hard drive gets connected to Mac via one of the USB ports. Hard drive mounting can be done manually using Disk Utility.
Here is a list of the best data recovery software for Windows and Mac users. Use data recovery software to retrieve deleted or lost data quickly.
Quick fix WD external hard drive not showing up/unrecognized/responding error
1. Click Start > Type: devmgmt.msc in the Search box and hit Enter.
2. Open Device Manager > Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
3. Right-click on the USB Root Hub > Select Properties.
4. Go to Power Management and uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.
After this, reboot PC and reconnect WD external hard drive to your PC, then you'll be able to use the drive again.
If this quick fix doesn't work, relax and just follow below-offered methods to repair not working WD external hard drive or devices now.
Fix WD external hard drive not recognized error
Here you have two methods to follow and fix WD external hard drive not recognized or undetectable error in Windows 10/8/7:
Method 1. Reboot PC into Safe Mode to make WD external hard drive recognizable
- Go to Setting > Update & security.
- Tab on Recovery > Advanced Startup > Restart now.
- PC will automatically boot into another Startup Settings screen.
- Press F4 to initiate PC reboot into Safe Mode.
- Then check whether the WD external hard disk can be detected or not.
Method 2. Change drive letter to make unrecognized WD external hard drive detectable
The other way is to change the drive letter with Disk Management tool so to make unrecognized or undetectable WD external hard drive to show up in PC:
- Right-click on This PC/My Computer > Select Manage.
- Go Disk Management > Find your external hard drive and right click it by choosing Change Drive Letter and Path...
- Assign the drive with a new letter that doesn't exist in your PC and mark the Partition as Active.
- Click OK.
- Restart PC and your External hard drive will show up and work again.
Fix WD external hard drive not working/responding issue
When WD external hard drive, USB or other brands of storage devices are not working or not responding to any operations in your PC, don't worry. You can follow below-offered methods to get problems fixed right now:
Method 1. Update WD external hard drive driver to make it work
1. Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc in Search to open Device Manager by hitting Enter.
2. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers > Right-click every USB device found there and select Uninstall.
3. Then check out whether any devices show up as unrecognized or not:
- If WD external hard drive shows unrecognized, go to drivers tab and delete/uninstall the driver; Then check out whether the external hard drive shows up in My Computer/My PC or not.
- If it doesn't show up, reboot or restart PC;
- If it shows up but disappears later, repeat above steps and go to Disk Management, change the drive letter of your WD external hard drive and reconnect it to PC to let PC detect it again.
Method 2. Repair corrupted system files/bad sectors on not working WD external hard drive
Corrupted system files or bad sectors on WD external hard drive or other storage devices would block your device from working or responding in Windows PC.
Wd External Hard Drive Software
Professional partition manager software from EaseUS will repair bad sectors and fix corrupted system files to make your WD external hard drive work again. Free download, install it and follow below guide steps to fix bad sectors and corrupted system files on your drive now:
Extra Tip: WD external hard drive recovery
Wd External Hard Drive Not Mounting Machine
After fixing not working external hard drive on your Windows PC, you may continue using it for storing fancy data again.
But if you lost files or valuable data on the drive, don't worry. Professional WD external hard drive recovery solution offered by EaseUS hard drive recovery software is what you exactly need. It will simply restore lost files from WD external hard drive within 3 simple steps on Windows 10/8/7 etc PC.
If you lost files after fixing WD external hard drive not working issue or cannot access saved data in your storage devices, just free download EaseUS hard drive recovery software and let it help now.