Need help fixing my Hard Drive/ Only shows up as Local Disk (F:)

[finalx001]

My computer won’t recognize my WD My Book. Whenever I connect it to Windows 10, it just comes up as "Local Disk (F. Trying to click on it just causes my computer to freeze until I unplug the Hard Drive from the USB port.

I really don’t want to reformat my Hard Drive because I have a lot of important things on it. At the very least I’d like to find a way to transfer all the files onto my computer. I just don’t want to lose anything.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Please make it easy for me to follow and understand.
Thank you.

 

[Snick]

Hi finalx001,
Welcome to SevenForums!
Don't have a problem assisting less computer savvy individuals.

Have you tried connecting it to another computer to see if you issue persists?

My first thought is your external WD My Book drive is failing. However, give chkdsk a try first.
Click rb: in searchbox type cmd,
when that appears, right-click choose run as administrator
administrative CMD window will open on your desktop. Copy and paste bold text below, with mouse, in CMD window at >
chkdsk /r F:

This command will check your WD for errors and try to correct them. Be patient, it may take a while. I would set my power options to sleep never while chkdsk is running. To do so:

Click rb: in searchbox type Power Options
Click on power options when it appears. Choose one of the options like High Performance, change settings, to never on both drop-down menus. When you finish you can change them back to what you had before.

Check to see if your drive is now accessible and you can name your drive. Hopefully you will be able to do this.
Next, test it with Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows. Here's the link to WD Diag, it has instruction on that page.

I'd run the Quick Test, if it passes, run the Extended Test, it it passed, both, hopefully it will, then your good to go.

If it doesn't pass both or if it fails on the Quick Test, your drive is failing.
I monitor my posts via email and hopefully you drive will be working/accessible again. If not you'll have to attempt to recover the data on your drive. There are a few free excellent data recovery programs available. I'll walk you through it if need.

Nic