Do not worry if your Western Digital(WD) external hard drive suddenly stops working or cannot be recognized by your PC while the light is still blinking. Download EaseUS hard drive recovery software and follow the quick fixes and effective methods to effectively fix the WD error.
"It seems that my WD 1TB external hard drive cannot be recognized on my PC, but the light is on. The flashlight of the WD external hard drive continuously blinks when I connect the drive with a USB cable. But the problem is that the WD hard drive is 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 appear and work again? And how to restore the saved data on the drive?"
If your WD external hard drive, USB drive, or a similar storage device has a similar problem with the light on but not detectable by your PC, do not panic. 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 immediately.
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How to Fix Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Windows
Are your hard drives, be it new or old, internal or external, not showing up in File Explorer or Disk Management? Follow along to learn how to make your hard drive show up again in Windows 10/8/7 without losing data.
Here, you have four options to quickly fix and repair WD external hard drive with the "light on but not recognized" error:
If you prefer a hard drive repair service, you can turn to EaseUS data recovery service. This service has recovered data from hard drives and other storage media that have crashed mechanically, failed, experienced physical damage, and worse. Contact us now to begin the data recovery process.
Consult with EaseUS data recovery experts for one-on-one manual recovery service. We could offer the following services after a FREE diagnosis
Here's a video about external hard drive repair, and you can check this guide to fix external HDD issues now:
If the WD external hard drive cannot be detected or fails to show up on your PC, change the USB port (you may try to connect the external hard drive to the motherboard), or connect it using a different USB cable to check if it shows up on the PC.
When the computer or the WD external hard drive gets infected by a virus or malware, you cannot access the saved data or even open the drive on the PC.
In this case, use anti-virus software or CMD to remove the virus or malware on your PC or WD external hard drive
Repeat this process to turn on all USB Root Hubs in the list and reboot the PC. Then, see if the WD external hard drive shows up on your PC.
To fix a "WD external hard drive not detected, recognized or not working but light on" issue without losing any data, follow the following steps without formatting your drive:
Here are two ways to potentially make the WD external hard drive detectable on your PC:
Option 1. Change drive letter to make WD external hard drive show up
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.
You should now be able to see the WD external hard drive on your PC.
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 the + (plus) symbol.
4. If there are any greyed-out entries, right-click them and select Uninstall.
5. Reboot your PC.
After making an unrecognized WD external hard drive detectable on your PC, the next step is to restore all saved data. If you have valuable data saved on your WD drive, just download EaseUS EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to get all your data back in a few simple clicks:
Step 1. Choose and scan the external hard drive
Step 2. Check the scan results
Step 3. Preview and recover data
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:
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 clicking "Export".
3. On the left side, go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{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.
The following are the top topics related to WD external hard drive not showing up issue. Check the brief answers for these problems.
How do I fix my WD external hard drive not showing up on my computer?
You can fix the WD external hard drive not showing up by changing drive letter:
How do I get my computer to recognize an external hard drive?
Try the following ways to get your computer to detect and recognize the external hard drive:
Why won't my computer recognize my WD Passport?
When your WD hard drive doesn't show up in File Explorer or Disk Management, the possible reasons could be:
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