Western Digital Elements External HD doesn't show connected on PC?

Joel, try to connect the HDD to another computer. Also check under disk management to see if your external drive shows there. Also make sure that the drive has a drive letter assigned to it. Go into disk management and check if your drive shows there. If it shows but it does not show a drive letter, make sure you give it one. Also, try to connect the drive to a USB port in the back of the computer, avoid using a USB hub. You can also try uninstalling the usb driver and once you restart the computer, the drivers should get reinstalled by the operating system. After that reconnect your drive. Furthermore, make sure that the cable is in good working order. Try to either use a different cable on your drive, or check the cable by connecting it to a different device. Hope this helps, good luck.

"This solution worked for me:, pretty much what Oldturkey said.

Computer Management, Disk Management,

Right click the (Healthy) Primary Partition - of the size of hdd without drive letter,

Select ""Change drive letter and paths...""

Add...

I had a Toshiba hdd from a friend that wouldn't even initialize so couldn't add a drive letter, I ended up very pleasingly pulling it apart and smashing it to bits before throwing it in the trash, very disappointed it didn't have the massive magnet in it that the old hard drives used to have. (Bought the friend a new hdd double the size to compensate - was told there was nothing on it anyway)"

wd 2gb elements not working even not seen in disc management. Pls help some one.

I just bought a brand new wd elements 6 tb drive. It was not recognized by windows, disk management, or explorer. I found I had to have it plugged into the blue usb ports, which i believe are 3.0 I have 4 other usb ports which must be 2.0 and the hard drive isnt recognized if it is plugged into one of them.