WD My passport not Recognized when Plugged in

I have a WD My Passport portable USB hard drive which one of my computers can't detect when plugged in. It doesn't show up in My computer, Device Manage or Disk Management.
The only way to get the device recognized is to reboot the computer with it connected, enter BIOS (and do nothing), and reboot again.

The drive works fine on my other computer.
It has the WD Unlocker Software built in.

Caledon Ken said:

Hi Lagnaetti

If you plug in a USB Thumb drive is it recognized on this computer?

Everything is recognized except this one particular hard drive.

Caledon Ken said:

So when it is recognized is it listed correctly in device manager?

and if recognized, in the same section, if you show hidden devices, are there hidden devices?

Yes it is. And there are no hidden devices.

Hi Lagnaetti,

The main problem: You seem to have installed WD Smartware on your other PC and have set it up in a particular fashion - Password protected/ lock/unlock enabled/ Auto unlock enabled.

To be able to read your drive on another PC you may have to perform certain operations on the smartware-installed PC as well as the other PC on which you want to read it.

Unfortunately, anyone not using that PITA-software and conversant with it ( that includes me :)) will be able to guide you on it.

You are advised to raise your query on the WD Forum indicating how you have setup that software - full details and not a mere statement "I have installed Smartware / WD unlocker"..

Note: All WD external drives except Elements model are hardware-encrypted. If the electronics inside the enclosure fails ( fail, they do) you will be effectively locked out of the drive and have to seek the services of WD Data Recovery Partners to recover the data. Again if you have Password protected it using Smartware and you forget the password, you have to do a full erase to be able to use the drive again. You would lose all your data.

jumanji said:

Hi Lagnaetti,

The main problem: You seem to have installed WD Smartware on your other PC and have set it up in a particular fashion - Password protected/ lock/unlock enabled/ Auto unlock enabled.

To be able to read your drive on another PC you may have to perform certain operations on the smartware-installed PC as well as the other PC on which you want to read it.

Unfortunately, anyone not using that PITA-software and conversant with it ( that includes me :)) will be able to guide you on it.

You are advised to raise your query on the WD Forum indicating how you have setup that software - full details and not a mere statement "I have installed Smartware / WD unlocker"..

Note: All WD external drives except Elements model are hardware-encrypted. If the electronics inside the enclosure fails ( fail, they do) you will be effectively locked out of the drive and have to seek the services of WD Data Recovery Partners to recover the data. Again if you have Password protected it using Smartware and you forget the password, you have to do a full erase to be able to use the drive again. You would lose all your data.

My friend, the problem is with only one computer.

Bree said:

Sometime a usb device is misrecognised the first time it is plugged in and an incorrect driver is loaded. This will then always be used for that device whenever it is plugged in. The only way to correct this is to uninstall the device in Device Manager and let it discover the device again, hopefully loading the correct driver this time.

Didn't help