my external hard drive won’t show up in “my computer”?

Eric N: my external hard drive won’t show up in “my computer”?
I have a 1 tb western digital external usb hard drive. It won’t “autorun” or show up in “my computer” it shows power on and when i open the “new hardware” tab in control panel a “wd” shows up on the list and says “this device is operating properly” yet won’t show up . any ideas? Thanks

Answers and Views:

Answer by whyme123
I had this problem once before. Follow these steps

1. right click my computer and hit MANAGE
2. on the left menu, click DISK MANAGEMENT
3. You should see a disk with black color instead of blue color. If you see this, go to step 4, if not, go to the bottom

4. Right click the black and click “assign drive name”
5. Name the drive something high, like X Y or Z
Should show up in my computer.. Your computer saw the drive, did did not assign a drive letter to it.

IF you didn’t see the unallocated drive, then your hard drive may have a hardware problem. Plug it into another computer to see if it works. If it doesn’t work, then you need to replace the drive