Western Digital External USB Passport HD no show in My Computer

THE PROBLEM

For 2 years I have had a Western Digital USB Passport drive plugged into a USB port on my Gateway Vista laptop. I use it for backing up my files. Until very recently it worked flawlessly. I use the built-in Vista Backup scheduler, set to automatically backup every day at 12 noon. NOW, for the last 3 weeks or so I get the notice that backup has failed due to backup drive not found, i.e., no drive, (F in my case, is reliably visible in My Computer. I say "reliably" because if I reboot with my WD Passport drive plugged in, it does at first show as "WD Backup (F" which always has been the proper drive title in My Computer.

BUT, if I do a bunch of work on this laptop during the day, OR put the computer to SLEEP at night (my usual course for ALL the time I've had this Passport drive connected) the next day somehow, for some reason, I'm not sure what, I always get a readout after what should have been the normal noon hour backup that "Last Backup Failed.â€

Unplugging the Passport drive cable and plugging back in, as would be the case say with a key drive, does not cause WD Passport HD to reappear as anything. I hear the "tung" sound common in this laptop signaling a usb drive being plugged or unplugged "” but no (F drive reappearing in My Computer.

Why this is happening now after 2 years of flawless activity is a mystery to me. Haven't done or installed anything radically to my laptop, that I can figure.

Two things I have done recently:

A. This Gateway Laptop came with several Gateway-sponsored games that had been on there as it came out of the box. Never used them, plus none were free, but wanted to nag me to purchase them. So I had removed them using RevoUninstaller. As I recall there was some sort of note about games and Network something or other as I was removing the games. NOT SURE AT THIS POINT IF WD PASSPORT BACKUP PROBLEM PRECEDED GAMES REMOVAL.

B. Regardless of Note A. I tried turning laptop back to an earlier Restore Point to possibly undo some glitch the had developed anyway, going back to a point when my WD Passport did function correctly. NO IMPROVEMENT.

ALSO: I've found the following advice about my backup problem at a couple Internet discussion sites:

1. Lots of time removing the USB Hubs in device manager.
Shutting down the computer for 3-5 minutes, powering it back up and allowing the usb ports to be installed again.
then trying them works.

2. Try another usb cable or do "add hardware" in Control Panel.

3. Try clicking Start and opening Devices and Printers to see if your computer is reading it. If it reads "Unknown" try downloading the drivers off the Western Digital Website.

Nothing doing in the Add Hardware trick through Vista Control Panel. Checking on current driver thru Device Manager tells me I already have best device driver, which I'd already expected. Western Digital site offers no driver downloads, such as for Printers, etc.

I haven't tried removing USB Hubs via Device Manager and rebooting, again because said Hubs and general WD USB device drivers still work properly part of the time, as after fresh reboot. It's only after a day of working or putting machine to SLEEP over night that WD Backup (F mysteriously vanishes from among the rest of My Computer standard display of existing drives: Local Disk (C; Recover (D DVD RW Drive (E

Sooo, any help or advice anyone here can offer will be much appreciated.

Thanks much for your time and attention,

Timothy

 

Yes check with a diagnostic program. Portable hard drives in my experience are more susceptible to failure and always make more the one backup.