Vista 64bit stopped recognizing and connecting to external drives...

February 8, 2009 7:59 PM

Vista 64bit has recently stopped recognizing my iPhone and WD MyBook external HD...please help!

I have a WD 500GB MyBook and an iPhone. Both have connected without problems to my Vista 64bit machine. Now, I can no longer access them.

My PC on some level still "sees" the devices because the iPhone will connect and sync with iTunes and the HD is listed in the device manager. However it is listed as "This device is not configured correctly." I've tried uninstalling, disabling, reinstalling drivers, different ports and have had no luck getting my machine to see either device.

And I've verified that there is nothing wrong with the HD or the iPhone. Both connect flawlessly on my husband's Vista (non 64bit of course) machine.

Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks!

posted by pghjezebel to computers & internet (5 comments total)

This might seem like a stupid question (it does sound like you know what you're doing) but have you tried cold booting the machine? And how about rebooting with the drive attached to the USB port?

If it's a 2.5" drive (i.e. if it's entirely powered by the USB port, rather than using an external power suppply) does it actually spin up when you plug it in? (You might need to hold it to your ear to tell, if it just goes 'tick ... tick ... tick' then it hasn't spun up, and probably isn't getting enough power from your USB port.)

(Not being an iPhone user, I can't suggest anything there, so forgive me for ignoring that and focusing on the drive.)
posted by The Monkey at 9:38 PM on February 8

Are you sure you've relaoded the drivers correctly you should call your OEM and see if the drivers are different than the plug and play drivers.
posted by Rubbstone at 12:33 AM on February 9

@ The Monkey - Yep, tried cold booting with the device both connected and not connected. Also tried a combo of device connected/not connected with no-drivers vs. drivers already installed.

The drive does actually spin up, but not as long as it usually does (like when the computer was recognizing it).

I forgot to mention above, the drive is connecting via Firewire and the iPhone is USB. I have tried the drive as USB, but it still didnt help.

@ Rubbstone - The drivers I downloaded are from the Western Digital site, and are also the ones I used before when my machine actually recognized the devices.
posted by pghjezebel at 8:08 AM on February 9

Just to update this, in case anyone else has a problem like this...
I ended up reinstalling Vista, which solved the drive connection problems.
posted by pghjezebel at 7:30 PM on March 3

That's good news, I'm sorry I couldn't offer anything to help you avoid doing that.
posted by The Monkey at 4:40 PM on March 4