I archived some files onto My Book Essential Portable Drive many years ago, and now on my new Windows 10 Laptop I am not able to see this device as I plug it in. The white “on” light turns on fine when powered. Any suggestions on how to fix this problem? I asked customer support for a link to drivers but they said it is no use as it is a device malfunction. I don’t believe it. I am a novice so this is all new to me. Will be grateful for any advise.
There could be various reasons for a drive to become unresponsive or undetected. It can be a hardware issue or some software issue. The external drive may be detected by the system if you connect it to another PC, but it doesn’t respond.
Below are the few possible reasons for this issue:
Corrupt or unstable USB driver
Windows is missing important updates
USB controllers may have become unstable or corrupt
Corrupt USB drive or partition
However, you can still fix the issue and extract the files from the USB drive by attempting the below methods:
Reboot your system - Shut down your system, remove the power cord wait for some time & then connect the power cord & boot your system.