New Western Digital HD Not working....

Buy a powered USB hub. My external WD drive came with a power adapter.

 

You can't assume that the drive is broken based on the fact that a friend's computer failed to see it. Not all computers will recognize a drive this large.

An unpowered hub is not the solution. The hub you have is powered by your computer's usb port. If the USB port was not strong enough for the drive, an unpowered hub would not be strong enough either. The only way to be sure is to plug it into a hub that does not draw power from the computer. (You need a wall wart/power brick).

 

Here are some solutions for the error "usb device not recognized"
I. Remove Hidden Devices
1. Click Start. Click Run. Type cmd and press OK.
2. Type “set DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS=1″ (without quotation marks) and press Enter.
3. Type “set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1″ (without quotation marks) and Press Enter.
4. Type “start devmgmt.msc” (without quotation marks) and click press Enter.
5. Click View. Click Show hidden devices. note I suspect, the person writing this meant to now open Windows Explorer and click view.
6. Click “+” to expand Imaging devices, Unknown devices and USB devices.
7. Are there any USB devices and unknown devices (including grayed out devices)? If so, please right click it and click Uninstall.

II.1) Remove all oem*.inf files =
1. Click start and click run then under the run line type in the command “cmd” (without the quotation marks)
2. In the command line, type in the following (without the quotes) and press enter after each command:
“cd \windows\inf”
“ren infcache.1 *.old”
“ren oem*.inf *.old”
“del C:\windows\setupapi.log”

2) Removing all entries under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Enum/USB that start with VID ==
Removing the VID entries from the registry will cause them to be redetected at restart.
CAUTION: If you have a USB keyboard or mouse, do not remove the VID entry for these devices, otherwise, Windows may not restart correctly.
1. Click Start and click Run. Type regedit and click OK. The Registry Editor window will open.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB.
3. Highlight and delete all the VID_…. entries.
Permissions may be set allowing the deletion of the VID_ entries by following the steps below:
a)Right-click the key to be deleted, and then click Permissions. The VID_… Permissions window will open.
b)With Everyone highlighted in the Group or User name section, select Full Control in the Permissions section.
c)Click Apply, and then click OK.
4. Turn off the computer.

3) Reconnect the USB device to the computer system. A New Hardware Detected window should open and reload the drivers.

I hope one of those helps.
I actually did the Current ControlSet\Enum\USB for a flsh drive I was having trouble with in 98SE and it worked for me.

III. This page explains how to remove the PID from the registry for HP devices. http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=bpy20135
if you can discover the PID of your 250gig external hd, this is doable.

IV. I'm also finding mention of people who unplugged the computer from the wall for about 30 minutes and that solved the problem. Hey, it might be worth a shot to get your hard drive back in business.