Solving the Issue of WD External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Windows 10/11 - Tools

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"WD external hard drive not recognized but light is on"

"My 1TB WD external hard drive is not recognized by the computer, although the light is on. When I connect the WD external hard drive with the USB cable, the light keeps blinking. The issue remains even when I connect it to the computer with a new USB cable. The computer doesn't detect anything. Do you know how to make the WD external hard drive show up and function properly again? Also, how can I recover the data saved on the hard drive?"

If you're troubled with similar issues on your WD external hard drive, USB drive, or any other storage device, where the light is on but it's not being detected by the computer, don't panic. Follow these quick fixes and effective methods to recover your non-working or unrecognized WD external hard drive and restore all lost data immediately.

Solving the Issue of WD External Hard Drive Light On but Not Recognized Quickly

Here, you have four quick options to fix and resolve the “WD External Hard Drive light on but not recognized” error:

Request WD Hard Drive Repair Service
Replace the USB Cable or Port
Remove Viruses
Enable the USB Root Hub

1. Seeking WD External Hard Drive Repair Service

If you need hard drive repair, you can turn to a professional data recovery service. This service is capable of retrieving data from hard drives and other storage devices that have suffered mechanical failures, damage, physical harm, or even worse conditions. Contact us now to initiate the data recovery process.

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Tool-based Hard Drive Recovery Service

Click here to contact our experts for a free evaluation

Consult with our Tool Data Recovery specialists for one-on-one manual recovery services. After a free diagnosis, we can offer the following services:

Repair damaged RAID structures, unbootable Windows OS, and corrupted virtual disk files
Recover/repair lost partitions and repartitioned drives
Undeformat hard drives and fix RAW drives (Bitlocker encrypted drives)
Repair disks turned into GPT protected partitions

This is a video on how to fix an external hard drive. You can refer to this guide to immediately address your external HDD issues:

2. Try a different USB port/cable to test the WD external hard drive

If the WD external hard drive is not detected or showing up on your computer, try switching the USB port (you can connect the external hard drive to the motherboard directly), or use a different USB cable to see if it shows up on your computer.

3. Remove and Clean Virus Blocking/Stopping WD External Hard Drive from Working

When your computer or WD external hard drive is infected with a virus or malware, you cannot access the saved data, and you might not even be able to open the drive on your PC.

In that case, use an antivirus or remove the virus or malware from your computer or WD external hard drive via CMD.

4. Enable the USB Root Hub to Recognize the WD External Hard Drive

Click on "Start" > Type: **devmgmt.msc** and hit Enter. Open Device Manager > Expand "Universal Serial Bus controllers". Right-click on "USB Root Hub" > Click on "Properties" > "Power Management". Untick "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power."

Turn off WD external hard drive to save power

Repeat this process for every USB root hub on the list, and then restart your PC. After that, check if your WD external hard drive shows up on your computer.

Advanced troubleshooting steps for WD external hard drive not recognized with LED light on, in UTF-8 encoding: 1. 检查连接：确保硬盘正确且牢固地连接到计算机。尝试使用不同的USB端口和数据线，以排除硬件接口问题。 2. 重启设备：关闭电脑，拔掉硬盘，等待一分钟，然后重新连接并启动电脑。这有时能解决临时的系统挂起问题。 3. 安全模式：如果在正常模式下硬盘未显示，尝试启动电脑进入安全模式。在此模式下，系统会加载最少的驱动程序，可能有助于识别硬盘。 4. 驱动更新：检查并更新硬盘驱动程序。访问WD官网，找到对应型号的最新驱动程序，并按照说明安装。 5. 设备管理器：在“设备管理器”中检查硬盘是否被禁用。如果已禁用，请启用它。如果找不到硬盘，可能需要右键点击“磁盘驱动器”，选择“扫描硬件改动”。 6. 系统还原：如果在某个时间点硬盘曾被识别，考虑执行系统还原到那个时间点，但请确保备份重要文件，因为这可能会删除最近的更改。 7. 硬盘检测工具：使用WD提供的硬盘诊断工具，如WD Drive Utilities或WD Diagnostic，检查硬盘的健康状况。 8. 操作系统兼容性：确认你的操作系统与硬盘兼容。例如，某些较旧的硬盘可能不支持最新的Windows版本。 9. 数据恢复软件：如果上述步骤无效，你可能需要专业的数据恢复软件，如Recuva或tools Data Recovery Wizard，尝试从硬盘恢复数据。 10. 专业帮助：如果所有方法都失败，联系WD客服或专业的数据恢复服务。可能是硬件故障，需要专业技术来处理。请根据实际情况逐步尝试这些步骤，希望问题能得到解决。

To fix the issue of "WD External Hard Drive not detected, recognized, or working but LED light is on" without losing any data, follow these steps without formatting the drive:

Make an Undetected WD External Hard Drive Recognized on PC
Recover Data from WD External Hard Drive
Fix WD External Hard Drive Light On But Not Working Issue

1. How to Make an Undetected WD External Hard Drive Recognizable on Your Computer

There are two possible ways to make your WD external hard drive visible on your computer:

Option 1. Change the Drive Letter to Make WD External Hard Drive Visible

1. Right-click "This PC" and select "Manage," then choose "Disk Management."

2. Locate and right-click on the WD external hard drive > Select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

3. Assign a new drive letter to the WD external hard drive and save all changes.

Change drive letter so that the computer can recognize it

Your WD external hard drive should now appear on your computer.

Option 2. Show all hidden devices to let your PC recognize the WD external hard drive

1. Click the **Start** button, type **devmgmt.msc** in the search box, and hit Enter.

2. In Device Manager, click Show hidden devices.

3. Tap the "+" (plus) symbol to expand all of your notes.

If any of them are grayed out, right-click them and select "Uninstall."

5. Restart your computer.

Show hidden devices to get PC recognize WD external hard drive

2. Recover Data from WD External Hard Drive with Lights On but Not Working

After getting your PC to recognize the unrecognized WD external hard drive, the next step is to recover all saved data. If you have valuable data saved on your WD drive, simply download the tool Data Recovery Wizard and retrieve all your data with just a few simple steps:

Step 1. Select and scan the external hard drive

1. Download and install the Data Recovery tool on your computer or laptop. 2. Connect the external hard drive to your computer. 3. Run the Data Recovery wizard and select the external hard drive from the list of external drives. Then, click on 'Scan' to look for lost data.

Step 2: Review the scan results

Data recovery software will immediately scan all data on the selected drive, including deleted, corrupted, and existing data.
You can use the filter feature to quickly locate specific file types, such as images, Word documents, Excel files, PDFs, videos, emails, and more.

Step 3: Preview and recover the data

Double click a file from the scan results to preview it.
Select the files you want and click "Recover".
Choose a location different from the original drive to save your recovered files.

3. Fixing and Resolving Issues with WD External Hard Drive Not Working or Not Being Recognized with Lights On

After retrieving all the lost data, you can proceed with the following steps to fix your non-working WD external hard drive:

Method 1: Uninstall the Hard Drive Driver to Fix Undetected WD External Hard Drive

1. Click on "Start" and type: devmgmt.msc then hit Enter to open Device Manager.

2. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers, right-click each USB device you find there, and select Uninstall.

Check if any devices are listed as unknown.

Uninstall the driver to get your PC recognize WD external hard drive

change the drive letter

Method 2: Fix the Unrecognized/Not Working WD External Hard Drive Error by Modifying the Registry and Formatting

1. Click on Start > Type: regedt32 > Click OK.

2. Click "File" and select "Export" to back up the Registry.

3. On the left, navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.

If any upper or lower filters appear on the right, remove them.

5. Try your external hard drive again.

Method 3: Format/Reset Your WD External Hard Drive

1. Connect your WD external hard drive to your computer > Right-click on "This PC" > Manage > Disk Management.

2. Locate and right-click on the WD external hard drive > Choose Format Volume…

3. Reset the letter and file system (NTFS) of WD external hard drive and save all changes.

Format WD external hard drive for reuse

After that, restart your computer and reconnect the WD external hard drive to it. You should be able to use the WD external hard drive to back up files and store data again.

WD External Hard Drive Not Showing Up - FAQs

Here are some popular topics related to the issue of "WD External Hard Drive Not Showing Up." Please find brief answers to these questions: 1. **USB端口问题**: - 确保已将WD硬盘正确插入到电脑的USB端口中，并尝试其他USB端口以检查是否为端口故障。 2. **驱动程序问题**: - 更新或重新安装WD硬盘的驱动程序，这可能有助于解决识别问题。 3. **硬盘电源**: - 检查外置硬盘是否获得足够的电源，尤其是对于需要独立电源的型号。 4. **操作系统兼容性**: - 确认你的操作系统（如Windows或Mac）是否与WD硬盘兼容，并安装任何必要的软件更新。 5. **文件系统**: - 使用磁盘管理工具检查硬盘的文件系统是否被操作系统识别，例如FAT32, NTFS, 或HFS+。 6. **安全卸载**: - 如果之前没有正确弹出硬盘，可能导致问题。确保每次使用后都安全卸载设备。 7. **硬件故障**: - 如果上述方法无效，可能是硬盘本身出现故障，考虑联系WD支持或专业数据恢复服务。 8. **磁盘检查**: - 在命令提示符中运行`chkdsk`命令来检查和修复硬盘错误。 9. **隐藏驱动器**: - 检查Windows设置，确认未隐藏该驱动器。 10. **恢复模式**: - 尝试在另一台电脑上连接硬盘，看是否能被识别，这可能帮助确定是硬盘问题还是电脑问题。如果以上建议都无法解决问题，建议联系WD客服获取进一步的技术支持。

How do I fix the issue of my WD external hard drive not showing up on my computer?

You can resolve the issue of WD external hard drive not showing up by changing the drive letter:

1. Enter Disk Management. 2. Right-click your external hard drive, and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths..." 3. Assign a new letter to the external hard drive, and save the changes.

How do I get my computer to recognize an external hard drive?

Try the following methods to get your computer to detect and recognize an external hard drive:

Connect the external hard drive to a different USB port
Try using a different USB cable
Update or reinstall the disk driver
Change or assign a new drive letter
Repair the corrupted file system
Fix bad sectors

Why isn't my WD Passport (Western Digital external hard drive) recognized by my computer?

When your WD hard drive is not showing up in File Explorer or Disk Management, the possible causes can include:

Issues with the USB port or cable connection
Damaged file system on the external hard drive
Bad sectors on the hard drive
Outdated disk driver

Resolved: WD Hard Drive Lights Up But Not Showing Up