Failed WD (western digital) 160GB USB external drive. When plugging into windows vista or XP I get a repeated tinging sound. I cannot see the drive nor is there any indication that the system has located the drive. I actually have two of these drives.

Here are some of the things I have tried:

1. Trying to locate the drive through windows computer management in XP and Vista- fails. I just I cannot see anything at all.
2. I have downloaded the utilities from WD - these cannot see the drives.
3. Even tried linux but the same issue.

Any ideas before I toss these pieces of junk?

Yes.........

1) Save the case and replace the drive inside.

2) Physically destroy the old drive itself, say with a large hammer.

Just to make absolutely sure it is not the case electronics interface try hooking them up with an adapter after removing them from the caddy.

I am inclined to agree with Cobra though.

Good catch. I for one should have mentioned that because I have an Interal HDD in #3 that used to be an External HDD until the case electronics failed.

hi,as i have 4 WD external drives,i had the same problem, i had mine plugged into the front of the tower, after getting frustrated with it,i plugged it into the back usb slot , also i formatted it to NTFS before i used it,works great now,hope this helps you ..........

Cannot find a way to format the drives.
They are the portable versions and they do not have a caddy so to speak - no external power cords. When the drive is plugged in they refresh the device manager repeatedly screen such clicking around becomes impossible.

No system that I use will see the disk - fdisk on linux shows nothing either.

Are these 2.5" HDD's?