Need help with an external hard drive

[sokdo]

I have a 500gig Western Digital My Book external hdd and now it doesn;t show up on My computer. When I go to device manager, it just shows up as a USB mass storage device and when I click properties, it says : Location0 ( My Book ) so I'm guessing my computer can't recognize it because I haven't given it a location or assigned a drive to it? I have around 200 gigs of photos + movies and files on there and I'd rather not reformat it, can anyone fix this problem? I went to MY computer and then manage and then Disk Management and it doesn't show up there =/ Anyone can help me fix this?! I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

[taliesen]

OK, dumb question - rather than My Computer, have you tried going through Windows Explorer?

If you haven't already, try unplugging the cable from the drive to your computer, wait a bit, and plug it back in. If that doesn't do it, unplug it, reboot the PC, and reconnect the drive after boot up is fully completed.

Also, if you're running something like TweakUI, make sure that you haven't disabled all the drive letters that aren't used by internal drives - and if you have any other external drives, flash drives, etc, try disconnecting them and reconnecting the problem one to see if it takes one of the other drive letters.

I've got a My Book and several other externals, and haven't ever seen this problem - so my suggestions are just guesses.

Good luck!