Hardware Western Digital Ext. Drive severe problem

orr971

Inactive User
Joined
Aug 31, 2014
Messages
16
Reaction score
2
Hello there. Please read this and help.

I have a question about a problem I had with a WD My Book Essentials 1TB. I bought 2 of them (me and my brother). It was 3 years ago but I we almost didn't use them at all. We used them once in a while to back up TV shows and stuff, mainly for backups.

After a while, mine stopped working properly. My PC didn't recognize it when I plugged it or it took a while until it popped up. Lately it has been going really crazy. I plug it and it comes up but it doesn't load anything that's inside until a long time after. Sometimes it makes the whole PC stuck and I have to restart.

The thing is, today the same symptoms started to appear in my brothers HD today. The PC recognizes that a hardware is plugged but the hard drive just doesn't come up! Even after a long time of waiting.

So, the reason I'm here telling this is that I need to know what to do. I think that WD owes us some kind of compensation for this even though the warranty is over. We bought to the same day from the same place (B&H New York) and they both stopped working and in the same way, what leads me to conclude that the product is probably damaged.

What do you think?

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1409511325.735076.jpg
 
Hint: Might be polite to introduce yourself first..... http://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/who-you-6/

May be unrelated, but I had a similar problem with a 1TB ext. drive, but it turned out to be a driver issue/conflict- I only discovered this many months later when I tried the same drive on a different PC & it worked flawlessly, but back on my old desktop (both Win. Vista) it created merry hell. Try it on a different PC, even o/s if possible to confirm or rule out.
 
Hint: Might be polite to introduce yourself first..... http://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/who-you-6/

May be unrelated, but I had a similar problem with a 1TB ext. drive, but it turned out to be a driver issue/conflict- I only discovered this many months later when I tried the same drive on a different PC & it worked flawlessly, but back on my old desktop (both Win. Vista) it created merry hell. Try it on a different PC, even o/s if possible to confirm or rule out.

I'm sorry. Hi I'm Orr what's up? :)

Maybe it can be but it is too weird. Two ext drivers with severe problems and I paid a lot of money for those. I just wish there was a way to fix it of be compensated for this.
 
Go to w-d web site, they will have a tool you can d/l to check the drive for errors, or you could back all the contents from the problematic drive to another, format the problematic drive to ntfs and see if it will help, generally speaking I keep away from 1tb hdd ,they can give lots of problems ,no matter what make.
 
You will need to assign external drive an Drive letter before it is recognised in windows..
While connected to the PC/laptop go to device manager/drive manager and assign external drive a letter..
It will then be recognised in all windows computers.
 
I will consider checking the driver and I'll also check that letter thing. Ill update here later
 
You will need to assign external drive an Drive letter before it is recognised in windows..
While connected to the PC/laptop go to device manager/drive manager and assign external drive a letter..
It will then be recognised in all windows computers.

I tried this. Went to device manager. It has a list of all the drivers and I clicked the WD but what should I do now?
 
listen mate,updating the driver will do nothing for you,the best way is the way i told you in previous post,back up your stuff,format the drive to NTFS,windows will auto assign a new letter to the drive,if you have the same problems after you have done all this,get the drive and throw it in the bin,you can buy them for pennies nowadays
 
plus when you try to up-date the firmware windows will tell you that the best driver is already installed,what o/s are you running?
 
listen mate,updating the driver will do nothing for you,the best way is the way i told you in previous post,back up your stuff,format the drive to NTFS,windows will auto assign a new letter to the drive,if you have the same problems after you have done all this,get the drive and throw it in the bin,you can buy them for pennies nowadays

The problem is this: the PC doesn't read it. It doesn't come up. I can't back it up. I can't access it.
 

Start/right click computer/click manage/disc management/ seecan you see the drive there?


If nottake the drive from the casing and make sure SATA Power Connector is connected properly tothe hdd,they are known to come loose on the W-D, If that fails try a differentpower supply
 

Start/right click computer/click manage/disc management/ seecan you see the drive there?


If nottake the drive from the casing and make sure SATA Power Connector is connected properly tothe hdd,they are known to come loose on the W-D, If that fails try a differentpower supply

Okay I'll try and keep you posted thanks!
 

Start/right click computer/click manage/disc management/ seecan you see the drive there?


If nottake the drive from the casing and make sure SATA Power Connector is connected properly tothe hdd,they are known to come loose on the W-D, If that fails try a differentpower supply

I can't open it. I don't see no screws anywhere. It's sealed and I don't know how to open it. How do I open it?


In Nolan I Trust.
 
Does the drive spin when you turn it on,ie can you hear the drive spinning.i think that drive comes with a usb cable.could you change usb cable and also try drive on a diff pc.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 
Does the drive spin when you turn it on,ie can you hear the drive spinning.i think that drive comes with a usb cable.could you change usb cable and also try drive on a diff pc.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

I tried it on a diff PC, I know for sure that the first one (the one that usually comes up but has trouble loading up the files inside and sometimes makes the whole PC stuck) is spinning. About the second one (the one that only recently stopped working) - I can't hear a spin. Does that mean that the drive inside is not connected well to the casing/the thing that connects to the USB or what?


In Nolan I Trust.
 
If its spinning it means the hard drive is pretty good.you could buy another usb enclosure for 3-4 pound of bay.if i was you i would take out hd and insert in a spare bay of pc or the enclosure.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 
I can't open it. I don't see no screws anywhere. It's sealed and I don't know how to open it. How do I open it?


In Nolan I Trust.

Often the screws are hidden behind stickers, or even underneath the rubber feet (you have to prise them out with a pointy thing), sometimes there are no screws, the top & bottom halves are just snapped together & need to be prised apart (carefully).
 
Often the screws are hidden behind stickers, or even underneath the rubber feet (you have to prise them out with a pointy thing), sometimes there are no screws, the top & bottom halves are just snapped together & need to be prised apart (carefully).

I think I need to pull them apart. I'm just afraid something would happen.

Meanwhile I wrote a mail to WD support asking for compensations for 2 of the same drives that have been ruined by themselves.


In Nolan I Trust.
 
Back
Top