I have two WD MyBook External HDs hooked up to my Gateway Pentium 4 3.0 GHz PC - both a 2TB unit and a 1.5 unit. Yesterday I started having trouble with the 2TB Unit (it’s 18 mo out of warranty) - it started INTERMITTANTLY giving me the following error message when I click on a ‘shortcut folder’ to it: ‘The disk in Drive G is not formatted.

1. Error Message When Format A New Drive

Would you like to format it now? Yes or No’ Despite this ‘error message’ - I can still get ‘limited access’ to all my data on the 2TB disk by clicking directly on the ‘shortcut icon’ for the drive itself and carefully pussyfooting/navigating around - and I am still able to get limited amounts of data copied OUT of the drive - however if I try to transfer any large files it will often self-abort and give me a error message saying ‘error reading from source’ and abort my operation.

Error Message When Format A New Drive

I had same problem. And I have an solution for you. The problem is that when you plug in your HD first time, Windows 7 install your HD and associate it to only this USB port (let it be USB port '4') than if you wanna to use it (HD) again, you need to plug it, in the same USB port (USB port '4') where it was installed first time. It is Stupid!!!!

But that's how it worked with my HD. Just try all USB ports that you have on your PC. Hope it was helpful.:D PS: the same problem is with all divices you plug in to your pc.