surface pro recognizes but won't open my external hard drive

Question

I have an external WD hard drive that is about 6 years old. 250GB. My surface pro will recognize it, but there is no option to open the files.  I've connected it while on battery and while plugged in. The hard drive doesn't have its own power source. I tried a different, newer, WD hard drive and it had no issues. 

Any ideas why it won't give me the option to open files on the older hard drive even though it recognizes it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Try plugging it in to another computer, move the files off of it and reformat it.  Then move the files back on and try it on the tablet.

WD drives can be 'picky' sometimes.  I have four of them myself.  They are pretty good but when you switch them from machine to machine, they tend to stall out because the file allocation table gets messed up.  Shouldn't be anything wrong with the drive.

If it still does not work, while it is plugged into the tablet, open the file manager (you will probably have it open already) and right-click on that drive on the list and tell it to "unmount" and unplug it.  Wait a moment or two and plug it back in.

Answer 2

i'll try this! thanks!!