Hi, I would like to offer my thanks for any help ahead of time. I have a WD Passport usb powered external that was just working yesterday. Now when i plug it into my pc I hear the chime but no autoplay pops up, nothing shows in My computer and its doesn't show up in Disk Manager neither. I always here the chimes when I unplug and replug it into the pc. I even removed it from the casing and plugged it directly into my laptop nothing still shows.
Have you tried leaving it plugged in and powering off/on the PC. I have a WD external drive that sometimes does the same when it's connected through it's eSata port.
if doesn't showup when directly connected to laptop then get a new drive as that is now a paperweight.
For my own information (I've never "directly connected" an external drive to a PC) - does that mean there is an IDE/sata and power connector that has to be made?
that's one costly paperweight ;'( If you take the shell off of an external hdd its just as the same as a internal b/c the pc powers the hdd instead of an external power source so you would connect it regularly as an internal.