Windows 7: WD Ext HDD 1021 2TB Hard drive stopped working

I plugged it in and the software was installed successfully but it doesn't show up in the explorer with a drive letter. Now when I go to the device manager it does show up but I am not able to format it or give it a letter etc. It doesn't have a fat32 or NTFS File System. It shows as Disk 1 unknown 1863.01 GB not initialized.I tried to right click to initialize and it say the media is write protected can someone please help me with this i have been trying to fix this for last week with no success.

Hello and welcome blindaussie mate you can fix this drive with Partition Wizard or through a command prompt .
Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

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personally I get rid of any software these drives come with as they are more trouble than they are worth IMHO anyway.

Either way takes a fair while to do and you need to make sure the drive is formatted afterwards.

Hi blindaussie,

Try what ICit2lol has suggested.( I do not know whether it will work or not.)

In case it does not work, Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt. Right click on it and Run as administrator.

In the Administrator: Command Prompt box against the command prompt type
each of these commands one at a time in this order (of course after each command press ENTER)
diskpart
list volume
select volume n (where n = the problem volume)
attributes disk clear readonly
attributes volume clear readonly

after each of the last two you should get the response that it was successful.

( Neither do I know that this will work. Why lol only? lol.)

thank you ICit2lol and jumanji but these solutions didn't fix my problem. I went to disk management as suggested I can see the hard drive it doesn't have a letter it just says Disk 1 unknown 1863.01 GB not initialized then in the box to the right it a black header and inside it has 1863.01 GB unallocated when i right click to initialize it tells me the disk is write protected .The same thing happens when i go to diskpart in clean all i t says diskpart has encountered an error:The media is write protected . See the system event log for more information. I hope this information will help find a solution for me I greatly appreciate your help

You didn't say what happens when you go through diskpart, list volume, select volume n blah blah. Can you please elaborate?

I went into command prompts as administrator went to diskpart,list disks the disk showed up as disk 1 i went to select disk 1 then went clean all and the reply was error this disk is write protected

My instructions was not for clean all but for clearing attributes.

select volume n (where n = the problem volume)
attributes disk clear readonly
attributes volume clear readonly

Naturally I am interested in knowing what happened on attributes clear readonly, and attributes volume clear readonly commands.

I went to diskpart entered list volume but it doesn't show any volume for the drive that I can't access. The list shows all the other volumes eg:volume 4 C NTFS 455 GB Healthy Boot,there are 3 drives other but not the one need to fix.

You said "disk showed up as disk 1 i went to select disk 1 then went clean all and the reply was error this disk is write protected "

Now you are saying no volume is shown. Did you run diskpart with administrator privileges?

Please post a screenshot. A picture is worth more than a thousand words.

I have attached a screen shot as you con see when I list volume the disk isn't there when i list disks you can see the disk