Don't worry if your Western Digital(WD) external hard drive suddenly stops working or cannot be recognized by your PC while the light is blinking. Download EaseUS hard drive recovery software and follow these quick fixes and effective methods to effectively fix this WD error without losing any data.
Western Digital offers an expansive portfolio of technologies, storage devices, systems and solutions for businesses and consumers alike. Our data-centric solutions are comprised of the Western Digital®, G-Technology®, SanDisk® and WD® brands. Western Digital Corporation, also known as Western Digital and WD, is a famous American computer hard disk manufacturer and provider of various data storage solutions. It develops, manufactures and provides storage devices, data center systems, and cloud storage services to solve the evolving needs of the information technology industry.
OverviewWD external hard drive not recognized but the light is on
'It seems that my WD 1TB external hard drive cannot be recognized on my PC but the light is on. The flashlight of WD external hard drive continuously blinking when I connect the drive with USB cable. But the problem is that the WD hard drive still not working when I connect it to a new USB cable with the PC. Nothing is detected. Do you know how to make the WD external hard drive to show up and work again? And how to restore the saved data on the drive?'
If your WD external hard drive or USB drive etc is having a similar problem with the light on but not detectable by your PC, don't worry. Just follow the following quick fixes and effective methods to restore a non-working/unrecognized WD external hard drive and get all the lost data back right now.
Quick FixesWD external hard drive light on but not recognized
Here you have three options to quickly fix, and repair WD external hard drive with the 'light on but not recognized' error:
1. Change USB port/cable to detect WD external hard drive
Crop image preview. If the WD external hard drive cannot be detected or fails to show up in your PC, please change the USB port (You may try to connect the external hard drive to the motherboard), or connect it with another new USB cable to see whether it shows up in the PC.
2. Remove and clean up the virus that blocks/stops WD external hard drive from working
When the computer or WD external hard drive gets infected by virus or malware, you may not be able to access saved data or even open the drive in PC.
Use anti-virus software or CMD to remove the virus or malware on your PC or WD external hard drive first.
3. Turn on USB Root Hub to make WD external hard drive recognizable
- Click Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
- Open Device Manager > Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
- Right-click USB Root Hub > Click Properties > Power Management.
- Uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.
Repeat this process to turn on all USB Root Hubs in the list and reboot the PC to see if the WD external hard drive shows up on your PC.
Advanced FixesWD external hard drive light on but not recognized
To fix a 'WD external hard drive not detected, recognized or not working but light on' issue without losing any data, please don't format your drive and follow these steps to solve your problem:
1. Make unrecognized WD external hard drive detectable in PC
Here, you have two options to try to make the WD external hard drive detectable on your PC:
Option 1. Change drive letter to make WD external hard drive show up
Samsung laptop print screen button. 1. Right-click on This PC > Manage > Disk Management.
2. Find and right-click the WD external hard drive > Select Change drive letter and path.
3. Assign a new drive letter to your WD external hard drive and save all changes.
Then you should now be able to see the WD external hard drive on your PC now.
Option 2. Show all hidden devices to make WD external hard drive recognized by the PC
1. Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
2. Click View in the device manager > Select Show hidden devices.
3. Expand all notes by clicking on + (plus)symbol.
4. If there are any grayed entries, right-click them and select Uninstall.
5. Reboot and try again.
2. Restore data from WD not working external hard drive with the light on
After making an unrecognized WD external hard drive detectable in your PC, the next step is to restore all saved data. If you have valuable data saved on your WD drive, just download EaseUS hard drive recovery software to get all data back with a few simple clicks:
Step 1. Choose the external hard drive
Since you're going to recover data from the external hard drive, run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and under the External Devices tab, choose the exact drive where you lost data. Click Scan.
Step 2. https://rat-download.mystrikingly.com/blog/sketch-3-9-download-free. Scan for lost data
The software will start immediately to scan all over the selected drive for all lost data. During the scan, you could see more and more data showing up in the results.
Step 3. Preview and recover data
After the scan is over, check the scan results for the desired data. You can preview the file by double-clicking on it. Click Recover and choose another location to save the recovered data.
3. Repair and fix the light on but not working/unrecognized WD external hard drive
After getting all lost data back, you can follow these steps to repair the non-working WD external hard drive by then:.
Method 1. Uninstall hard drive driver to repair the non-detectable WD external hard drive
1. Click on Start > Type: devmgmt.msc and hit Enter to open Device Manager.
2. Expand Universal Serial Universal Serial Bus controllers > Right-click every USB device found there and select Uninstall.
3. Check out whether any device shows up as unrecognized or not:
- If the WD external hard drive shows as unrecognized, go to the driver's 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 the PC.
- If it shows up but disappears later, repeat the above steps and go to Disk Management, change the drive letter and reconnect PC again.
Method 2. Change registry and format to repair WD external hard drive not recognized/working error
1. Click on Start > Type: regedt32 > Click OK.
2. BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY by going to file and click Export.
3. On the left side, go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
4. If you see any upper filter or lower filters on the right side, delete them.
5. Then retry your external hard drive again.
Method 3. Format to repair/reset WD external hard drive
1. Connect the WD external hard drive to your PC > Right-click on This PC > Manage > Disk Management.
2. Find and right-click on WD external hard drive > Select Format volume.
3. Reset the WD external hard drive letter and file system (NTFS) and save all changes.
After this, reboot your PC and reconnect the WD external hard drive to the PC. You should be able to use your WD external hard drive to backup files and save data again.
Dec 03, 2020 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
I got a WD external hard drive and connect it to my computer, but I found that the WD hard drive not recognized on the computer. Why is my external hard drive not showing up? How does fix my WD external hard drive not working problems and recover my all data back?
The WD external hard drive not showing up on the computer, it means you cannot access the drive to manage your data on the device. The solution to recovering our data from WD hard drive, you should fix the WD hard disk recognized and detected on the computer. On this page, we will offer the quick fixes to help you solve WD hard drive not recognized in Windows computer and then recover data from Western Digital hard drive with Recoverit Data Recovery software.
Part 1: How to Recover Lost Data from Western Digital Hard Drive
Seagate wireless plus vs wd my cloud. Accidentally deleted and lost files from WD hard drive, or the hard disk damaged errors caused the data loss. Recoverit Data Recovery software can help you retrieve all lost data back. Download and install Recoverit External Hard Drive Recovery software on your computer, and connect the drive to the PC. Follow the next 3 steps to get your lost data back:
Step 1. With Recoverit Data Recovery, select WD hard disk to get started.
Step 2. The hard drive data recovery will start scanning the device, it will take minutes to completed scan.
Step 3. At last, you can check all the recovered files. Then, select your files and click 'Recover' button to save all recovered files on a safe device.
Part 2: How to Solve My WD Hard Drive Not Recognized in Windows
Follow the next quick fixes to help you solve WD external hard drive not recognized in Windows and make your hard disk working on the computer.
1. Check WD Hard Drive with Disk Management
You can try checking the Disk management utility to see if the hard drive is showing up there or not. With Disk Management you can initialize WD hard drive or assign a drive letter to WD hard drive partition.
Step 1. Press Windows + R to start the Run command.
Step 2. Type diskmgmt.msc and press enter to start the Disk management. https://cestworltravar1978.mystrikingly.com/blog/google-chrome-download-for-macbook-air.
Step 3. Locate the WD hard drive and right-click on it, select 'Initialize Disk' and choose the partition system between MBR and GPT.
Step 4. Then, right-click on the disk and select Create New Simple Volume.
Step 5. Also, right-click on your WD external hard drive and select Change Drive letter and path.
Step 6. Then, assign a new drive letter to your WD external hard and click OK to save the changes.
2. Turn on USB Root Hub to make WD external hard drive recognizable
To troubleshoot the problem of WD hard drive not working on Windows computer, you can turn on USB Root Hub to make it recognizable.
Step 1. Select Start, type devmgmt.msc and press Enter.
Step 2. Open the Device Manager and expand the USB controllers.
Step 3. Now, right-click on the USB Root Hub, select Properties, and then head to Power Management.
Step 4. Uncheck the box saying 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save the power'.
Pixel film studios transflare download free. Use this process repeatedly to turn on all the USB Root hubs displayed on the list. After that, restart your computer and the WD external hard drive should appear on your PC.
3. Update WD hard disk device driver
You can try to update drivers using Windows Update to fix WD external hard disk not working on Windows computer.
Step 1. Go to the Settings.
Wd Hard
Step 2. Click on Update & Security and then click Windows Update.
Step 3. Then, click the Check for updates button.
After these steps, try to connect your WD external hard disk to the computer and check what if the disk can recognize on the Windows computer.
As above we offer the quick fixes to solve the WD my passport not showing up the problem on Windows, if all fails to solve the error, the hard drive may get a physical failure, you should take it to the hard drive repair store or you need to replace a new one.
Part 3: Tips to Protect Your Western Digital External Hard Drive
While using an external hard drive, users may go through issues like hard disk not recognized. A variety of reasons can result in a Western Digital external hard drive not recognized. Some of the common troubleshooting are discussed below.
1. Do not add new data
Wd Ssd
Do not add any new files to the WD hard disk after data loss from the Western Digital external hard drive. This can overwrite the files that can be recovered from the WD hard disk and make all the data lost permanently. Hence, before you find out and recover all the lost data on your Western Digital hard disk, stop adding new content on it. This will improve your chances of WD data recovery.
2. Use anti-virus software
Regularly scan your WD hard drive with authorized antivirus software to help remove possible viruses from your WD external hard drive. By scanning and removing viruses from your computer hard drive regularly, your computer will be healthy and free from any file corruption that could lead to data loss.
1. Connect the WD external hard drive to your PC > Right-click on This PC > Manage > Disk Management.
2. Find and right-click on WD external hard drive > Select Format volume.
3. Reset the WD external hard drive letter and file system (NTFS) and save all changes.
After this, reboot your PC and reconnect the WD external hard drive to the PC. You should be able to use your WD external hard drive to backup files and save data again.
Dec 03, 2020 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
I got a WD external hard drive and connect it to my computer, but I found that the WD hard drive not recognized on the computer. Why is my external hard drive not showing up? How does fix my WD external hard drive not working problems and recover my all data back?
The WD external hard drive not showing up on the computer, it means you cannot access the drive to manage your data on the device. The solution to recovering our data from WD hard drive, you should fix the WD hard disk recognized and detected on the computer. On this page, we will offer the quick fixes to help you solve WD hard drive not recognized in Windows computer and then recover data from Western Digital hard drive with Recoverit Data Recovery software.
Part 1: How to Recover Lost Data from Western Digital Hard Drive
Seagate wireless plus vs wd my cloud. Accidentally deleted and lost files from WD hard drive, or the hard disk damaged errors caused the data loss. Recoverit Data Recovery software can help you retrieve all lost data back. Download and install Recoverit External Hard Drive Recovery software on your computer, and connect the drive to the PC. Follow the next 3 steps to get your lost data back:
Step 1. With Recoverit Data Recovery, select WD hard disk to get started.
Step 2. The hard drive data recovery will start scanning the device, it will take minutes to completed scan.
Step 3. At last, you can check all the recovered files. Then, select your files and click 'Recover' button to save all recovered files on a safe device.
Part 2: How to Solve My WD Hard Drive Not Recognized in Windows
Follow the next quick fixes to help you solve WD external hard drive not recognized in Windows and make your hard disk working on the computer.
1. Check WD Hard Drive with Disk Management
You can try checking the Disk management utility to see if the hard drive is showing up there or not. With Disk Management you can initialize WD hard drive or assign a drive letter to WD hard drive partition.
Step 1. Press Windows + R to start the Run command.
Step 2. Type diskmgmt.msc and press enter to start the Disk management. https://cestworltravar1978.mystrikingly.com/blog/google-chrome-download-for-macbook-air.
Step 3. Locate the WD hard drive and right-click on it, select 'Initialize Disk' and choose the partition system between MBR and GPT.
Step 4. Then, right-click on the disk and select Create New Simple Volume.
Step 5. Also, right-click on your WD external hard drive and select Change Drive letter and path.
Step 6. Then, assign a new drive letter to your WD external hard and click OK to save the changes.
2. Turn on USB Root Hub to make WD external hard drive recognizable
To troubleshoot the problem of WD hard drive not working on Windows computer, you can turn on USB Root Hub to make it recognizable.
Step 1. Select Start, type devmgmt.msc and press Enter.
Step 2. Open the Device Manager and expand the USB controllers.
Step 3. Now, right-click on the USB Root Hub, select Properties, and then head to Power Management.
Step 4. Uncheck the box saying 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save the power'.
Pixel film studios transflare download free. Use this process repeatedly to turn on all the USB Root hubs displayed on the list. After that, restart your computer and the WD external hard drive should appear on your PC.
3. Update WD hard disk device driver
You can try to update drivers using Windows Update to fix WD external hard disk not working on Windows computer.
Step 1. Go to the Settings.
Wd Hard
Step 2. Click on Update & Security and then click Windows Update.
Step 3. Then, click the Check for updates button.
After these steps, try to connect your WD external hard disk to the computer and check what if the disk can recognize on the Windows computer.
As above we offer the quick fixes to solve the WD my passport not showing up the problem on Windows, if all fails to solve the error, the hard drive may get a physical failure, you should take it to the hard drive repair store or you need to replace a new one.
Part 3: Tips to Protect Your Western Digital External Hard Drive
While using an external hard drive, users may go through issues like hard disk not recognized. A variety of reasons can result in a Western Digital external hard drive not recognized. Some of the common troubleshooting are discussed below.
1. Do not add new data
Wd Ssd
Do not add any new files to the WD hard disk after data loss from the Western Digital external hard drive. This can overwrite the files that can be recovered from the WD hard disk and make all the data lost permanently. Hence, before you find out and recover all the lost data on your Western Digital hard disk, stop adding new content on it. This will improve your chances of WD data recovery.
2. Use anti-virus software
Regularly scan your WD hard drive with authorized antivirus software to help remove possible viruses from your WD external hard drive. By scanning and removing viruses from your computer hard drive regularly, your computer will be healthy and free from any file corruption that could lead to data loss.
3. Eject WD hard drive by using 'safe remove' option
Never unplug or disconnect your WD hard drive abruptly as sudden removal may not give it enough time to save the status and lead to a file system corruption. Always eject the WD external hard drive using the 'Safe Remove' option to prevent data loss from sudden ejection.
No doubt Western Digital produces the best quality hard drives, but even they are as susceptible to data losses as other hard drives on the market. You may get troubled when you lose your precious data due to any data loss reason. In this case, you can use the Recoverit Data Recovery tool to recover data from external hard drive easily.
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