Originally Posted by l.esho

That sounds like a great idea.

I actually have a question about my portable external hard drive.

It was working fine until recently. When I plugged it into my USB port, my computer didn't recognize it. Nothing showed up in My Computer. However, it did sense something had been plugged in.

Can you help me out? I googled it and it seems a lot of people have had this problem but I couldn't find a suitable solution.

Ps: I was watching Signs and my computer suddenly wouldn't respond while it was plugged in. Then it went into System Recovery and that's when it stopped working.

Check it it shows up in disk management (windows). The file system might have been corrupted.

It's WD My Passport Essential
model is WDBAAA5000ABK-NESN
500 GB

you can literally type in external harddrive and see the option "not recognized" in the google search bar. Unfortunately, lots of links come up.

It's a fairly new harddrive, I've owned it less than a year.

Ps: It shows up in Disk Management, but I just don't know what to do from there.

I appreciate all the help

Originally Posted by l.esho

It's WD My Passport Essential
model is WDBAAA5000ABK-NESN
500 GB

you can literally type in external harddrive and see the option "not recognized" in the google search bar. Unfortunately, lots of links come up.

It's a fairly new harddrive, I've owned it less than a year.

Ps: It shows up in Disk Management, but I just don't know what to do from there.

I appreciate all the help

Are you sure the computer is plugged in?

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

Are you sure the computer is plugged in?

It would be hard to check Disk management if not, wouldn't it?

Seems like it is a common issue with this hard drive. Have you tried a power booster cable as suggestion here? http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Passp...-2TB/m-p/29502

seems like the drive might not be getting enough power to turn on... weird.

It was working fine until recently apparently so my best guess would be some damage/corrupted file.

If it is insufficient power then get a USB Y-Cable but then again if it needed more power it would have been packaged with it anyways.