Windows 7 Won't Recognize External Hard Drive

I'm using the release candidate and whenever I plug in my Western Digital Passport USB external hard drive, I get nothing. It doesn't show up in device manager or in My Computer. The light on the harddrive comes on and the drive spins up, so I know it's working. Windows just won't recognize it. Any ideas?

Have you looked for a drive letter in Windows Explorer.

Does this drive have it's own power source?

Go to Control Panel > Device Manger and see if any entries have a yellow flag beside them.

Originally Posted by mattjones16

I'm using the release candidate and whenever I plug in my Western Digital Passport USB external hard drive, I get nothing. It doesn't show up in device manager or in My Computer. The light on the harddrive comes on and the drive spins up, so I know it's working. Windows just won't recognize it. Any ideas?

I have the EXACT same problem. I also only have the problem with my WD Passport external HDD. It turns on, spins, and lights up, but just does not show up in windows 7. Someone please help.

reghakr,
The drive is powered by the USB port. I looked in windows explorer. I looked in Device Manager. Any other ideas?

I heard this worked in another post.

restart and access the BIOS. Look for an entry named something like On chip USB.

It's default setting may be 1.1+2.0. Change it to 1.1 and see if that makes a difference.

I did this:
Go: control panel
administrative tools
computer management
disk management
scroll down the list of drives and your drive should be there.
May need to be formated

If it is there you may need to assign a drive letter, I have had this happen in Vista with certain thumb drives also once happened in W-7

Give this link a try for compatibility with Vista:

Western Digital Passport USB

You'll need to know the exact model number and a link is provided to the manufacturer's site

I have the same problem. It's there when I boot. The lite for the device flashes once red and then I hear a pop from the speakers & at the same time the lite goes out. It's enabled in the Bios I know as I can use it when I switch drives & boot Ubuntu 9.04. I'm sure its just the sort of thing Microsoft is looking for......after all its still a Beta.
Can someone tell me where to go and report this to Microsoft. Mike

I did this:
Go: control panel
administrative tools
computer management
disk management
scroll down the list of drives and your drive should be there.

Originally Posted by Super Sarge

If it is there you may need to assign a drive letter, I have had this happen in Vista with certain thumb drives also once happened in W-7

I second this ,,, you probably DON'T need to format it.
Drive letter is probably missing, or assigned an already existing drive letter.

I have used diskmgmt.msc to assign a drive letter and this works. however it still keeps happening and I have used diskmgmt.msc several times to assign a new drive letter. Perhaps Microsoft should be made aware of this problem. It does not happen to me in vista. Otherwise it seems a great os.