The drive can be replaced if it is under warranty.Īnswer ID 10336: Steps to Get a Warranty Replacement, Power Supply, or USB Cable Answer ID 18754: Third-Party Data Recovery Software for Windows and macOSįailed or Damaged Drive Warranty Replacement.Answer ID 33498: Western Digital Warranty Replacement and Data Recovery.The drive may need to be replaced if it is not detected in Disk Management (Windows) or Disk Utility (macOS). Answer ID 21880: Steps to Safe Eject and Remove USB Flash and External Drives on Windows or macOS.Answer ID 30483: USB Hub, PCI, PC Card Not Recommended for External Drives.Drives should be safely removed and ejected before shutting down the computer. It's best to connect directly into the computer ports. Using a powered USB hub can cause the drive to stay on. Determines whether the drive should stay on.Allows the drive to sense if the computer is on or off.The drive can be connected with a different cable or computer if it still is not seen by the system.ĭrive Does Not Power Down When the Computer is Shut DownĪ common reason a drive will not shut down with the computer is that the drive may have a power sensing feature. Answer ID 8200: Steps to Format a Drive for Use with Windows or macOS.Answer ID 3823: How to Access macOS Disk Utility.Answer ID 18075: How to Access and Use Disk Management on Windows.The drive may need to be formatted if it seen but will not mount. Check to see if the drive is shown in Disk Management (Windows) or Disk Utility (macOS).Install any updates or drivers for the computer system.Īnswer ID 13977: How to Install WD Drivers for Windows and macOS for External Drives.Connect the data cable from the drive directly to the computer.Īnswer ID 30483: USB Hub, PCI, PC Card Not Recommended for External Drives.Press the power button if the drive has one.Unplug other devices if a power strip is used.Įxternal Portable drives do not require a power adapter.įor these skip steps 3 and 4, and move to step 5. Wait 60 seconds for the drive to power on. Remove the USB and power cable from the drive.Western Digital Support cannot help with third-party software or hardware. View the Use of Third-Party Software or Websites disclaimer. (In a future post I’ll explain how Windows 8 users can do that.Fix external drive not powering on or off with cable replacement, Windows updates or power setting changes.*END Second, because the utility lacks a “run at startup” option, you’ll have to load it manually each time you start Windows–or not, if you add it to your Startup folder. (Specifically, set it to “Show icon and notifications.”)

First, modify your System Tray so the indicator stays visible at all times. To make the most of Activity Indicator, you’ll need to do two things. However, when I tried this on my Samsung, pairing it with the CapsLock key, it triggered the actual Caps Lock every time there was activity. You can even configure it to interact with various keyboard LEDs (if your system has them), lighting up, say, the NumLock key whenever there’s drive activity. Activity Indicator also provides 18 different icon sets to show drive activity/inactivity, everything from a simple LED-style rectangle (in your choice of six colors) to a little Geiger counter-style meter.

Hard drive light