Same thing happen to me. With much trial and error I found that the USB connecting jack at the Elements end is not making properly.
Missing USB Mass storage device driver for WD passport external drive I am running windows 8.1 & I do not have a driver in my device manager. I have a WD passport external drive and it shows up in device manager with a yellow exclamation point.
Try to enter the jack half way. If the drive light comes on wait and see if spinning starts and the arm moving is felt. If so see the drive is recognized and files are able to reed. In my case I cleaned the both ends with a sharp safety pin. Specially the drives end and drive socket projected pins with grooves.If these groove end plastics are not letting cable to connect properly or only power is connected without data lines this can happen. My solution if this is the case is to expand slightly the drive end jack, end metal cover joining parts slightly outwards to get a little good pressure on the drive side male projection part. Open the upper metal cover by unscrewing 4 screws on left and right edges.
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Remove the cover to expose the back side of the motherboard PCB showing 5 or 6 screws. Unscrew all of them and pick up the PCB.
Use an obsolete toothbrush and adequate PCB cleaning thinner and rub the three IC solder bases quite gently together with all metal points on the board. Take utmost care while rubbing and cleaning. Dry the cleaned surface with a dryer and screw back all screws and cover the upper part as well. Plug the hard drive in and power it up. In more than 60% of cases, hard drive problems are fixed and it starts functioning. Copy your data off the drive at your earliest convenience.
Hi John, To make sure if the driver for the device is missing or corrupt and not loaded properly, I would suggest you to get back to us with the Device status shown in the device manager. Refer to these steps:. Press Windows key + X, select Device manager. Locate the Device. Check if there is a yellow exclamation mark or a red cross mark over it. Right click on device and select properties. In the General tab, check the device status.
If the device status reports that there is no driver loaded for the device, then I would suggest you to try the steps suggested in this article and check: Hope this helps. Keep us updated in the results for further assistance.
Ok Ben, After many attempts at various items I finally got my WD Passport 2500 usb 2.0 drive working. I did exactly as you directed but let device manager do its thing to find a driver. Not sure where it found it but suspect it was somewhere in the op system. I had installed the WD Universal but after I had already upgraded from 7 to 8.1. I had all my files backed up to the device so damn glad I do not have to go back to win 7 just to retrieve the files. I was immediately able to access the device and all of my files.
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Just as an FYI, there were 2 items that had the exclamation marks, one was the 'mass storage device controller' and trying to install drivers did nothing. I believe it was error code 31 and said it probably did not resolve the problem. You want to update the other item under 'Other devices' = Unknown device and when I chose that one and let it go wherever it needed, Viola. I am now going to copy everything, compressed to Onedrive and upgrade to 10. Wish me luck!
A very happy Dell 1745 (unsupported for 10) camper. Thank goodness I have a new Surface Pro to fall back on but I love the 17' screen on the Dell. Everything else so far is working superbly.