Windows not seeing external drive

[cbrookhart]

Windows is not seeing my external hard drive (Western Digital 250GB MyBook). I was trying to save a file to it and as before, it was taking a significant amount of time to just access the drive/get it ready for saving. At one point due to this issue, I could not access any other drives connected to my computer (the two internal drives). While all this was going on, the light on the external drive was flashing every few seconds. I tried to restart the computer and the restart process was taking forever. I eventually just pulled the USB cable out and did a hard restart. Now that the USB cable is connected and the drive light is solid, WIndows is not seeing the drive. I've plugged the USB cable into all USB ports on the computer, and the drive is not coming up. I don't think all the USB ports are bad. The drive was working just fine until I tried saving a file to it. 

 

Why is the drive not being recognized in Windows? Why is it consistently taking a long time to access the drive from Windows Explorer? Why would the whole computer lock up because of an issue with the external hard drive? Is there going to be any way of accessing the data on the drive?

[T3X4S]

A couple of items on external drives, then something about what you're experiencing:

Normally, what goes out on external drives is the controller card.  
Yes its a name brand
But they typically use second-rate stuff on externals (ever wonder why they are $10-$20 more than a bare drive ?)

But 2 things came to mind when reading your post:

1.) If its 250GB - its probably damned old - therefore dead or on the verge of death (surely you have backups...everyone has backups of important stuff...)
2.) The issue your seeing sounds typical of a bad partition. (this could be related to #1, or it could be related to the "background info"

My bet is that since its a 250GB drive, its old as hell.
YOu can try running a CHKDSK/R on it.

But if it were me, and my time is more valuable than some $20 HDD, I would get the data from my backup cloud files, trash that thing, and go get an SSD on a stick. (or go strictly cloud)

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

Have you tried using a different USB cable?

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[cbrookhart]

The only issue with running chkdsk is that the system does not see the drive. When I type D:/ at the command prompt, Windows tells me that is a bad command.

I'm about to try a new cable and see if that does anything. I did try the drive on another computer and encountered the same issue - Windows will not see the drive.

Yes, the drive is very old. I'm hoping there's a way to recover the data from it. It's mainly pictures, but unfortunately they exist only on the drive.

I ran a chkdsk /r on it the last time I had issues and no errors were found. Now the drive seemingly has failed completely.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

Can you see if the disk is appearing in Disk Manager?

 

Right Click Computer > Manage > Disk Management

 

It should give you an idea if the drive is dead dead or just not being detected properly. If the drive is that old and you don't have a backup of it, it may also be worth cracking it open and trying to insert the HDD into another caddy or enclosure. 

[cbrookhart]

The disk is not showing in disk manager.

 

When I logged into the computer, I heard the sound of a USB device connecting, giving me hope that somehow the drive in question came back online. When i pulled the USB cable out, I heard the sound again. Drive is still not accessible.

 

I guess it probably didn't help that I took the USB cable out while the light on the drive was blinking. The light is now solid, but I cannot access the drive. I guess I have to try a new USB cable and if that doesn't work, look into data recovery. I really hope the data isn't lost.

 

Edit: The sound I'm hearing is WIndows displaying an alert to safely remove the external USB device. When I click the prompt and select the eject option, nothing happens. I pull the cable out, and Windows displays a message that the USB mass storage device can't be stopped.

Edited October 19, 2017 by cbrookhart

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

You try taking the HDD out of the enclosure and putting it in your system? Could be that the controller on it is bad.

[xendrome]

11 hours ago, cbrookhart said:

The only issue with running chkdsk is that the system does not see the drive. When I type D:/ at the command prompt, Windows tells me that is a bad command.

Well D:/ is  a bad command, since it's D:\ or just D: <enter>

[cbrookhart]

I didn't even realize I was using the wrong command syntax. The drive finally appeared in Windows. I'm now trying to access it in the hopes that I can transfer data from the external drive to one of the other two internal drives.

[cbrookhart]

So, the drive somehow came back online and I got the data that I wanted and transferred it to another drive.

 

Obviously something is wrong with the drive. The drive is now in the RAW format, as determined from running the chkdsk command. I'd like to know specifically what is wrong with it. In searching, I found references to the RAW format and downloading file recovery software. I got what I wanted from the drive, but still want to see what the issue is with it.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

2 minutes ago, cbrookhart said:

So, the drive somehow came back online and I got the data that I wanted and transferred it to another drive.

 

Obviously something is wrong with the drive. The drive is now in the RAW format, as determined from running the chkdsk command. I'd like to know specifically what is wrong with it. In searching, I found references to the RAW format and downloading file recovery software. I got what I wanted from the drive, but still want to see what the issue is with it.

As I said above, it could be the controller card going bad, not the HDD itself.

[Circaflex]

On 10/20/2017 at 0:37 PM, cbrookhart said:

So, the drive somehow came back online and I got the data that I wanted and transferred it to another drive.

 

Obviously something is wrong with the drive. The drive is now in the RAW format, as determined from running the chkdsk command. I'd like to know specifically what is wrong with it. In searching, I found references to the RAW format and downloading file recovery software. I got what I wanted from the drive, but still want to see what the issue is with it.

Most likely the controller within the enclosure has gone bad. I bet the drive is still good, those little pcb boards that convert the sata connection to usb go bad frequently. I bet if you took the case apart, pulled the drive and hooked it up internally ir with a new dock, it would work. Ive seen it many times.