Hacking Windows 7 not recognize WBFS HDD anymore

[vosszaa]

I have WD My Passport Essential 320GB and for no reason, Windows 7 64Bit and WBFS Manager does not recognize it anymore.

Just as I wanted to add some more games into the HDD, I plug it in and nothing happen. WBFS Manager does not detect it either.
I didnt make any partition on the HDD, the whole HDD is WBFS, formatted by WBFS manager 3.0 and so I want to be sure that is not the faulty HDD, I plug into Wii again and I can load and play game without any problem.

I try everything I could, try different USB port, restart pc, reinstall USB driver etc. Also i couldnt format or delete the volume of the drive because Windows doesnt see it, obviously.
Anybody got any idea?

 

[djfrantic]

Did you make sure that the drive letter is the same, for some reason my drive letter changed on me and I didn't notice until a while later.

Also, you can delete the volume, actually, windows sees it as a raw volume that needs to be formatted to something, so you can reformat it to NTFS or exfat if you need to (but you'll lose all your games).

After that you can reformat it to NTFS.

Hope that helped.

EDIT: You can use the windows partition/format utility, it comes with windows 7. But if you want to format a drive you fat32 it can't be bigger than 32GB, you'll need a 3rd party program to format it.

double edit lol: I just thought of what you meant when it said it couldn't "recognize it anymore", I know windows won't be able to "read it", but it can still format it. I thought you meant it couldn't be read but it still was identified as something.

 

[vosszaa]

Well, I check in "Disk Management" and there is no RAW drive in there.
Also if the drive change the letter by itself, how do i know what letter it changes to?

 

[djfrantic]

try to type in quick search "partition" and an option should be "create and format hard drive partitions".

I didn't clearly under your question, if windows doesn't recognize the drive at all as even a raw or "needs to be formatted", then I can't help you, sorry!

Hopefully someone can help you.

 

[Shooterbeast13]

I hope this doesn't happen with my TB Drive because I also use Windows 7.

 

[vosszaa]

if windows doesn't recognize the drive at all as even a raw or "needs to be formatted"

Yeah, that's what happen, but the drive is surely working and healthy cuz i can still load all the games on Wii with no problem. Sigh..

 

[djfrantic]

Sorry, it hope you can get it fixed. Tried different computers?

P.S: I have windows 7 and 3 different partitions on a 400GB toshiba external drive, and they're all identified with no problems.

 

[DjoeN]

stupid question, did you only use the usb cable, or did you also use an external power on your portable hdd, i always have to use the double usb connector (one for data, other for power) in my pc and the mini usb on the portable. (assuming you use a 2.5" hdd) (i use Windows 7 - 64x)

 

[Jdbye]

Here's your problem:
There's no drive letter assigned to what windows believes to be a RAW partition, therefore there's no way to load it in WBFS manager.

The solution is to assign a drive letter manually, here's how you do that:
- Go to Start, type diskmgmt.msc in the search box and hit Enter.
- Find the WBFS HDD in the disk list at the bottom, right click the RAW partition and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths. It might say unpartitioned or something, I don't have the WBFS HDD here right now.
- Press Add, choose "Assign the following drive letter" and choose a drive letter, then press OK on both boxes.
That's all you have to do, now the HDD should work.

 

[vosszaa]

Here's your problem:
There's no drive letter assigned to what windows believes to be a RAW partition, therefore there's no way to load it in WBFS manager.

The solution is to assign a drive letter manually, here's how you do that:
- Go to Start, type diskmgmt.msc in the search box and hit Enter.
- Find the WBFS HDD in the disk list at the bottom, right click the RAW partition and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths. It might say unpartitioned or something, I don't have the WBFS HDD here right now.
- Press Add, choose "Assign the following drive letter" and choose a drive letter, then press OK on both boxes.
That's all you have to do, now the HDD should work.

Like i said, even in Disk Management(diskmgmt.msc), it doesnt see anything. It doesnt detect any RAW drive. Everything shows up just like nothing happen. No alienate drive detected whatsoever.

But what makes me laugh is, i manage to fix the problem by using another USB cable.. believe it or not.

Thanks for the help and suggestion guy, really appreciated.

 

[knightmire]

Thank you vosszaa!

I've been trying to figure out a problem like this since last night. Everytime I plugged my external back into my pc it was coming up as "no driver found" or something like that. So it was basically an unrecognized device. So in windows 7 I was unable to do anything with it, couldn't even format it if my computer doesn't even know it's a hard drive!

Just like you said, swapped to another cable and poof instantly recognized, perfect. I use this usb cable for everything and never a single problem.. until now.

Thanks for the great and almost ridiculously simply fix.

 

[phong86vn]

After re-formating my hdd some times. My computer and my Wii do not recognize it anymore, and i strongly believe that it comes from some of the fat32 format tools. What can i do now, guys? I also change the cable ... but it doesnt work to me -.-"
Help...

 

[phong86vn]

One time my PC doesnt recognize my hdd. But i load it from my Wii and format it to wbfs partition and then, plug it to PC again and it can be indentified. But now my Wii doesnt recognize it too. Is my hdd totally dead ?_?

 

[videogamefanatic]

My HDD has 2 partitions. the FIRST is a WBFS, the second being FAT32. My computer (windows 7) is only assigning a drive letter to the FAT32 partition. In disk management It sort of sees the WBFS parition. It shows it as a primary partition (dark-blue) with no drive letter or attached to it.

If I right-click and click on "Change Drive Letter and Paths..." an error window shows up saying "The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management Console View is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by using the Refresh Task. If the problem persists close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart the computer."

I tried doing those things and it says it EVERY TIME. If I click that button on the other partition it works and gives options.

Any ideas?

 

[DunkrWunkah]

Did you make sure that the drive letter is the same, for some reason my drive letter changed on me and I didn't notice until a while later.

Also, you can delete the volume, actually, windows sees it as a raw volume that needs to be formatted to something, so you can reformat it to NTFS or exfat if you need to (but you'll lose all your games).

After that you can reformat it to NTFS.

Hope that helped.

EDIT: You can use the windows partition/format utility, it comes with windows 7. But if you want to format a drive you fat32 it can't be bigger than 32GB, you'll need a 3rd party program to format it.

double edit lol: I just thought of what you meant when it said it couldn't "recognize it anymore", I know windows won't be able to "read it", but it can still format it. I thought you meant it couldn't be read but it still was identified as something.

He means that windows doesn't even acknowledge the drives existence.