Okay, so I'm in a spot of bother with a portable WD Elements 1TB external hard drive. It belongs to my boss and he gave it to me in order to fill the shit out of that thing with movies and tv shows. During the transfers I noticed one weird thing but was too tired and let it run. It came up with the little transferring files pop up but only displayed the amount it was transferring, not time left.

But basically, I put all this shit on his hard drive and it seemed alright. I checked the WD and all the files were on there. I pass it back to him and he says it won't open on his computer, it doesn't even register. He plugged it into his PS3 and said that while it took ages to load, he managed to get access to it and was happy. But then he comes in the next day telling me that it won't load on his PS anymore. So I take it home and plug it in to suss it out. I get none of the 'new device added, would you like to: Open in a new folder etc etc' which is a little weird. So I opened up My Computer to suss shit out and now My Computer won't load. The loading bar at the top (which I didn't know existed, usually it opens immediately) starts off fast and gradually gets slower and slower before actually stopping maybe a centimeter (bit less than half an inch) away from the end. I never see My Coimputer, I don't even know if the hard drive has registered.

It's like WD got a beef with my computer, whatsupwitdat?!

 

Do you have any other WD devices plugged in? I've noticed with Buffalo drives that if I have more than one plugged in, my laptop will not register the extra drives. I haven't noticed it with WD, but it's a simple fix if that's the problem.

If it's a hardware problem, you're probably screwed, so let's assume it's software and the volume is messed up or something. The aim is to format the drive and copy the files again. Repairing a damaged volume can be done, but then you'll never be sure how well the data survived.

1a. Reboot your PC. Heaps of strange problems have been cured with a reboot.
1b. A different USB cable. WD use reasonably common USB cables. If you have one lying about, swap it out.

2. Let's check if Windows can even see the drive right now.
Open up Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management
In the left frame, click on Storage -> Disk Management



You'll see a list of all of the storage devices appear in the main frame. Can you see the WD drive appear? Mine shows up as "Elements [F:]".

Spoiler

If you can't see your drive then that means that Windows isn't even mounting it. You're going to have to get a new USB cable if you didn't already try that at [1b]. If that fails, then try Linux instead.

3. Right click it, and format. When it's done, disconnect the drive, plug it back in, and check if My Computer can now see the empty drive.

4. Don't copy heaps of files using Windows copy/paste. It's kind of shitty. Use TeraCopy. http://codesector.com/teracopy - It's a complete replacement for the Windows tool, it's free, there's no nag or popup screens. I've been using TeraCopy for over a year and am very happy with it. It has a file transfer verification option which I keep turned on. After it transfers all of your files, it'll then go back to the original files and verify that they're identical to the copied files. It makes the process slower, but ensures everything has been copied perfectly.