Can't Access External Hard Drive

I'm having trouble accessing or even finding my Western Digital WD5000C032 external hd that I have been using for over a year. I've tried downloading the driver for it, restarting my computer, unplugging the hard drive, changing USB ports, and even killing the power to everything for a few hours.

At first I would get a message that said that windows found new hardware or that a new USB device had been detected but it wasn't recognized. Now nothing at all happens and it is nowhere to be found. I looked for it with the driver manager that I downloaded but it says that no Western Digital devices are detected. I looked in "My Computer" and it is no longer there either. I right clicked on "my computer ", clicked on "manage ", selected "disk management ", and it wasn't on the list of storage devices.

I also attempted a system restore to the previous day when everything was working properly but the system restore window that pops up is completely blank. Nothing, zip, zilch.

Please help.

 

Hi and welcome to the BBS,

Put your hand on the side of the case and power up the drive. You should feel vibrations from the motor spinning up.

Test it on another computer.

I managed to find the WD suggestions:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...TEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD11c2I*&p_li=&p_topview=1
Not many other possibilities apart from checking the cable.

You should have at least a two year warranty:
http://support.wdc.com/product/install.asp?groupid=101&lang=en

Matt

 

Thanks, I'll check those things out.