Help! My new Western Digital 1 Tb My Passport SE portable USB 2.0 disk drive which works fine on my laptop (running Windows Vista Home Premium Edition) is not detected by my desktop (running Windows XP Peofessional Service Pack 3). Are appropriate drivers available? Where? Is there any other way to get the drive detected? Thanks in advance.
Portable USB harddrives are usually USB powered. If it can't get enough power it may fail to be detected. If the drive has a Y cord, make sure both are plugged in. Sometimes due to the internal cable connecting front USB ports to the motherboard the front ports aren't able to supply enough power. Try plugging into rear USB ports. If you have a powered USB hub, plug the drive into that. If the computer had a problem reading the drive, it may have started ignoring it. In device manager, show all devices, and you might find the drive with an X next to it. Remove it and get the computer to redetect it.
Thank YOU!!! Plugging the device into a rear USB port did the trick. I just had to juggle a few other USB devices around.