How to Fix a WD My Passport or External Drive Not Showing Up in Windows

If your WD My Passport or another external drive is connected but missing from This PC, the cause may be a drive-health problem, an unallocated disk, or a missing drive letter. I start with Western Digital’s diagnostic utility and then use Windows Disk Management to identify and fix the most common setup problems.

Before you change anything

Do not format or erase a drive that contains files you need. Formatting and the Drive Erase feature can remove data. If the disk is already formatted and contains data, skip directly to the section on assigning a drive letter.

1. Check the WD drive’s health

For a Western Digital drive, install WD Drive Utilities and let it detect the connected drive. The utility offers several checks:

• Drive Status: a quick SMART-based health check.
• Quick Drive Test: checks for performance problems and normally completes in a few minutes.
• Complete Drive Test: a deeper check that can take hours.

Before installing WD Drive Utilities, I scanned the downloaded installer with VirusTotal. The exact file I checked returned 0 detections across 72 engines at that time. That result applies only to that file and scan, so download current software from a trusted source and scan the copy you receive.

2. Open Disk Management

1. Right-click Start and choose Run.
2. Enter diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.
3. Locate the external disk by its capacity and status.

If the disk appears here but not in This PC, inspect whether it is unallocated or already formatted without a drive letter.

If the drive is new and unallocated

Only use these steps for a new or intentionally blank drive. Right-click the unallocated space, choose New Simple Volume, select the desired volume size, assign an available drive letter, and format the volume as NTFS. The demonstration uses the full disk, drive letter E, the label “External Drive,” and Quick Format.

If the drive is formatted but has no letter

1. Right-click the existing NTFS volume.
2. Select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
3. Choose Add.
4. Select an available letter and click OK.

Return to This PC and confirm the external drive is now visible.

What happened in my test

On my 1 TB WD My Passport, the Drive Status check passed. Windows could see the disk in Disk Management, and it appeared in This PC after I created the volume and assigned drive letter E. If your drive still does not appear in Disk Management or fails a health check, stop before formatting it and consider data-recovery or hardware-diagnostic options.