Windows 10: 2TB Seagate drive not recognized Windows 10 (no Disk Management)

I have a 2TB Seagate GoFlex Desk external hard drive that works fine on my previous Windows XP computer (I know, very old) but is not recognized at all on my less-than-a-year old Toshiba laptop (S55-C5274) running Windows 10. I have been through support with Seagate, Microsoft, and Toshiba, with each of them point the finger at the other with no resolution. According to Seagate, the drive is compatible with Windows 10 and should work.


Unlike other users' problems I've read, my Windows 10 PC does not recognize the external hard drive anywhere - no sound recognizing something is there when plugging in, nothing in This PC/My Computer, and nothing shows in Disk Management or Device Manager. So unlike many others, I am unable to just do a partitioning to assign a letter via Disk Management - the computer doesn't even recognize it's there. The Seagate drive, however, does light up when plugged into the Windows 10 computer, and as I mentioned, still works perfectly on the Windows XP machine, where it is accessible via My Computer.


I have tested every USB port on the Windows 10 machine, and all work fine with other drives and peripherals, so it's not a hardware issue. Also, I have moved all my data from the Seagate drive onto a 2nd external drive, so losing data is not an issue. I even reformatted the Seagate drive (NTFS) via the Windows XP machine, but that did not change anything. Also, I have never used the Seagate software to manage the drive (which is not compatible with Windows 10) on either PC, and it has always worked fine without the software. Finally, the Toshiba Windows 10 PC is up to date with Windows Updates.


I'm tired of being bounced around with zero help from Seagate, Microsoft, and Toshiba. Can anyone here help? I really hate to have a perfectly good 2TB drive become useless with all future PCs...

Thank you!

:)

 

windows 10 external hard drive

Widows 10 does not recognize Seagate freeagent goflex hard drive. it doesnot appear in Disk Manager or Device Management. I can access hard drive from my Apple Laptop and Windows 8.1 desktop

 

Windows file explorer

Hi, The only place the drive shows up is under other devices in device manager. It doesn't show up under disk drives. I tried it on another laptop and it works fine. It is a Seagate 2tb drive.

Thanks for the help!

 

my first suggestion to you is the test that our disk drive in another PC and see if it recognizes it

 

The Seagate drive does work in my older Windows XP PC.

 

If the drive has a power supply try unplugging both the USB cable & the power cable from the drive & then reconnect _USB first then power. If no external power supply it may be that the drive isn't getting enough power from the Win 10 PC to run it.
If you have any files/folders on the drive, connect it to the XP & save them to online storage if you have space there or save them to the computer, then do this:

• Type in "DiskPart" in command line.
• Type in "list disk" in command line to show all disks in this machine.
• Use "select" to set the focus to the specified partition.
  For example "select disk 1".
• Use "clean" command to remove GPT disk from the current in-focus disk by zeroing sectors.

• Go back to Disk Management, you can see GPT disk is "Not Initialized" now.
• Within Disk Management, right click on disk info, choose "Initialize Disk", You can see GPT disk is "Unallocated" now.
• Right click on disk info, choose "New Partition…", follow Partition Wizard and format it.

Ignore the mention of GPT disk as this works for all drives incl USB, HDD etc.

I have both a 4TB & 6TB external HD & have had problems with the 4TB losing connection mid backup or not appearing at all under device manager or anywhere, worked perfectly under Win 8.1, I was disconnecting the power supply to the drive regularly so I did the above & apart from the odd occasion the drive appears to disconnect when running backup it now reappears when USB cable is plugged back in again (it didn't before). The only other option if your PC & XTHD is USB 3 is to use a USB 2 hub which works.

HTH,