-
Written By Girish Gola
-
Approved By Vishal Sharma
-
Published On
-
Min Reading 6 Min
| Summary: When it comes to external hard drives, WD My Passport is one of the best brands. Hard drives are fragile and your WD My Passport Ultra might refuse to work. How to fix WD My Passport external hard drive not showing up error? Read more to find out why WD My Passport Ultra is not showing up. If you want the best data recovery, Stellar Data Recovery Service offers the most affordable option.
|
|---|
Table of Contents
WD My Passport Ultra is a well-known brand of portable external hard drives produced by Western Digital.
The line of hard drives has been designed to provide users with an easy and convenient way to store and access their data. The drives are available in various sizes and capacities ranging from 1 TB – 5TB, allowing users to choose the most suitable one for their needs.
WD My Passport Ultra drives offer 256-bit AES hardware encryption options for added security. The drives are compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems and can be used with a USB cable for data transfer and backup.
Though they are well made, and received generally positive reviews, WD My Passport can refuse to work. WD My Passport external hard drive not showing up on Windows PC is quite a common error.
You plug it into the USB 3.0 port and the drive fails to show up in Windows 11 File Explorer.
What to do if your WD My Passport Ultra not showing up Windows 11? We explore why WD My Passport is not showing up.
How to Fix WD My Passport External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Error
If you face WD My Passport Ultra not showing up Windows 11 error, you can try the following steps to troubleshoot the problem.
1. Check the port and cable:
Most of these situations arise due to malfunctioning hardware ports. The USB port (there are several types but usually USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 are necessary for WD My Passport) has 9 pins made of thin copper slivers.
- Repeated use can make them bend out of shape. Try to plug the WD My Passport drive into a new port.
- If it does not work, change the cable. The current standard is USB 3.0 A to Micro B Cable but models dating back a year or three might have a different one.
- The USB port on the cable can also be damaged and in the worst-case scenario, the internal copper wire can break.
Additional Reading: World-Class Services to recover data from USB Drives
2. Check Disk Management:
You have to use Disk Management to find if the drive is at all recognized and if it has a drive letter assigned to it.
Windows Disk Management is a built-in tool in Microsoft Windows 11 that allows users to manage and organize disk drives and storage devices.
- Right-click on the Start button
- Click on Disk Management
- A display box would show you the number of drives, partitions, size, size occupied, and file system
- The external hard drive would show up as removable storage at the bottom
- If you can locate it, it means the drive is recognized by Windows 11
- If it does not have a drive letter (such as F), right-click and select “Change Drive Letter”
- Assign the external drive a new letter
- Exit Disk Management
- Restart the PC or laptop
3. Update/Reinstall Drivers
Windows uses device drivers. These are tiny programs that let the OS communicate with the hardware. USB devices, displays, and hard drives all have specific drivers.
To update WD My Passport device drivers on Windows, you can follow these steps:
- Right-click the Start button
- Select "Device Manager" from the context menu
- In the Device Manager, locate the device. You have to expand Disk drives or USB controllers.
- Right-click on the drive. It will show up as WD My Passport <model number>.
- Click on Uninstall Device.
- Wait till it finishes and restart the PC or laptop.
- Upon reboot Windows 11 will auto-install the driver. Keep the device online as soon as it boots and Windows 11 will locate and install a new driver (if found on the net).
4. Use Hard Disk Recovery Service
Usually the above solves the error WD My Passport external hard drive not showing up on Windows PC.
If after exploring every avenue, the external hard drive refuses to work it is time for experts to take a look.
A hard drive is a delicate piece of engineering. A shock or fall can easily break the internals.
The arm on which the read/write head rests, moves 50 times per second at a height of about 5 nm.
Head crashes happen often. Otherwise, the motor can malfunction or the printed circuit board could have shorted out.
An expert technician needs to take it apart and view it under a microscope. After repair the data is available. This is the best solution to WD My Passport Ultra not showing up Windows 11 error.
This can only happen in a lab that has clean air (maximum of 100 particles ≥0.5 µm per cubic meter) known as a Class 100 Clean Room.
In India, only Stellar Data Recovery Service has this kind of infrastructure.
Additional Reading: How to recover data from WD External Hard Drive during Warranty
Data Recovery Service – Unparalleled Performance
Why should you choose Stellar Data Recovery Service?
Any neighborhood “engineer” can open a hard disk casing and poke around (after which the WD My Passport would go from almost dead to absolutely dead).
- Experts with 25 years of track record and global clients.
- Only Indian data recovery service to have a Class 100 Clean Room.
- Stellar Data Recovery Service has access to 15000 hard drives from which we can source parts.
- We work not only with tiny external drives but gigantic Dell and HP servers owned by large corporations.
- Every year Stellar Data Recovery helps 40,000 clients globally.
- Our dedication to quality and process has made Stellar an ISO 9001 & ISO 27001 organization.
- No worries about safety and security. We guarantee that your data will not find its way into the wrong hands.
Additional Reading: Professional Data Recovery Service
FAQ
There are two factors that contribute to the cost.
The first is the amount of data that has to be recovered. A small hard disk with only SQL tables is easier to recover than a 2 TB drive with images, documents, music, and video.
The other is how long our experts have to spend. The more complex the breakdown the greater the difficulty of retrieval. It is easy to switch out a capacitor in a shorted PCB but harder to change the actuator arm with a replacement.
We assure you that it will be highly affordable and charge less than our competitors.
Our experts use special techniques and tools to recover data from various storage devices such as hard drives, solid-state drives, memory cards, USB drives, and more
Files that are not accessible are usually not completely deleted. Only their address in the file table has gone. The data itself still resides on the hard drive. It is a matter of finding the data and recreating a new file table. Then the data can be cloned to a new drive and verified.
We can reconstruct data using advanced algorithms.
We follow a “No recovery, No Charge” policy.
We do not retrieve data until you fill in a media retrieval form where you specify the target folder and contents.
If we have been unable to find them we return the advance.
But if you want us to recover 100% of the drive and we succeed in getting almost all, the “No recovery, No Charge” policy will not apply.
Conclusion
Do not panic or despair if your WD My Passport Ultra not showing up Windows 11. We have plenty of experience in recovering lost data.
Call us and we shall be glad to help you.
Additional Reading: Fix WD My Passport Hard Drive Not Detected, But LED is Blinking
