WD external hard drive not recognized on your computer? Don’t worry, it’s often quite easy to fix…

3 Fixes For WD External Hard Drive Not Recognized In Windows 10, 7 and 8.1

Make sure you’ve plugged your WD external hard drive the right way. Usually the light will be on. But you can check the user’s manual if you’re not quite familiar with the drive.

Depending on whether you’re a first-time user of your WD external hard drive:

  • If yes, then start from Fix 1 and work your way down the list until the problem goes away.
  • If not, then start from Fix 2.
  1.  Partition your WD external hard drive 
  2.  Change your WD external hard drive letter and path
  3.  Update your USB controller driver

Fix 1: Partition your WD external hard drive 

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and at the same time, copy & paste diskmgmt.msc into the box and click OK.
  2. Right-click on the Unallocated area and click New Simple Volume…
  3. Follow the wizard to create a partition.
  4. Restart your computer and see if your WD external hard drive not recognized problem has been solved. If yes, then congrats! If the problem persists, please move on to Fix 2, below.

Fix 2: Change your WD external hard drive letter and path

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and at the same time, copy & paste diskmgmt.msc into the box and click OK.
  2. Locate and right-click on your WD drive and click Change Drive Letter and Paths….
  3. Click Change. Then select from the drop-down menu to assign a letter and click OK.
  4. Restart your computer and check if your WD external hard drive not recognized problem has been solved. If yes, then great! If the issue remains, you should try Fix 3, below.

Fix 3: Update your USB controller driver

This problem may occur if you are using the wrong USB controller driver or it’s out of date. So you should update your USB controller driver to see if it fixes your problem. If you don’t have the time, patience or skills to update the driver manually, you can do it automatically with Driver Easy.

Driver Easy will automatically recognize your system and find the correct drivers for it. You don’t need to know exactly what system your computer is running, you don’t need to be troubled by the wrong driver you would be downloading, and you don’t need to worry about making a mistake when installing. Driver Easy handles it all.

You can update your drivers automatically with either the FREE or the Pro version of Driver Easy. But with the Pro version it takes just 2 steps (and you get full support and a 30-day money back guarantee):

1) Download and install Driver Easy.

2) Run Driver Easy and click Scan Now. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.

3) Click Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of ALL the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system (this requires the Pro version – you’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All).

You can also click Update to do it for free if you like, but it’s partly manual

4) Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

5) Test to see if your WD external hard drive not recognized problem has been resolved.

If the issue remains after using Driver Easy, please send us an email at support@drivereasy.com. Our support team will try their best to help analyze and get it fixed for you.

Hopefully you have successfully resolved the WD external hard drive not recognized by now. If you have any ideas, suggestions or questions, please tell me in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

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