USB Device Not Recognised When I Plug In External Hard Drive

SelenaRachel

Please somebody help me, I had a problem with my computer and having already lost everything on it before decided a few months ago to finally get myself an external hard drive so I could transfer everything from my Pc onto it, wipe my Pc and then put it all back again. Bought a WD My Book, cut and pasted all my music files and docs and stuff (as the plan was to wipe my PC after) and it was working fine for several weeks. All of a sudden plugged it in one day and it came up with "USB device not recognised" on laptop. Other things work fine in the USB port, and if I plug hard drive into another USB port it does the same thing. What can I do, it is only a few months old and it has all my files on it which I now have no other copy of as I needed to wipe my PC. I have looked on internet for advice, saw something about turning off laptop, removing plug and possibly battery for few minutes then turning back on which I have done, but still does the same thing. Please Please help, am not having much luck lately with computers it seems!!!

AHAR

Are you able to try the hard drive on another computer?
If it doesn't work on another computer it could be a fault with the drive but don't panic - it could just be a problem with the interface between the drive and your USB port. The drive and data on it could be fine.
If the drive works OK on another computer then there's some software problem on your PC. If so we can take it from there.

pcombo

probably best to disconnect the device from the computrer. Give the computer a hard reboot and turn back on and retry.

busenbust

Also try another usb cable; are you plugging the drive into a hub or directly into a usb port? Does the device come with another cable for additional power juice? Sometimes that's needed for Windows to recognize. Is the device viewable in Device Management?