If all else fails, I had hoped to format the hd and just use a program to recover all my lost files but when I try to initialize the external hd it says 'The media is write protected'. The hard drive is only supposed to have 320gb, which is what it originally had when I purchased it. A weird thing I have discovered is that disk management says it has 2047.35gb unallocated and claims it is uninitialized. Under disk management it shows my external hard drive as disk 1. When I right click on both to view properties, it shows that there are no errors and everything says it is working accordingly and it recognizes it as an external hard drive by western digital. The hard drive shows up in device manager and disk management. Also, all the drivers are up to date and I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the device itself under properties. After it stops making noise, the usb gets recognized on my computer(computer makes the noise of a usb device being plugged in, it even says Device is ready to be used). Another thing that I think rules out power source problems is when I plug in the ext hd it makes 10 whirring noises and after each one it comes to a stop, makes a beeping noise and spins again. I have also tried the ext hd on my other computers and it shows the same issues. So I originally thought it was lack of power issues but I've tried removing and replugging it back into the different usb ports, nothing.

For the record, I'm using window 7 64bit.Įvery site I read about this problem pointed the blame at the usb port not providing enough power for the hard drive. It has been working flawlessly for about a month and then all of a sudden it was no longer accessible(icon to access it didn't appear under my computer).Īfter researching about a dozen help sites with this problem I tried every solution on all of the threads I came across. So recently I've purchased a western digital 'my passport essential' external hard drive.

Hub surge wd external hard drive mac