Windows 10: External drive not detected by computer

Currently have an internal HDD running windows 10.

Before it was on Win 7 but the I took it off and made it as an external drive because all of a sudden all files (C drive files were deleted by themselves or gone).

So I was thinking maybe I can recover the files if I make it as an external drive.

Now, upon plugging the USB cable of the external drive that holds my Windows7 based OS files into the USB slot, my computer didn't detect it. On disk management it shows as drive E: no media. I have tried to change the letters to U and Z etc and still not recognised by the computer. Also on disk management it says memory of drive E is 0 and no media.

Tried to do it on other USB ports, didn't work.

Is windows 7 external drive ( was an internal drive) compatible with Windows 10 based computers?

:)

 

My computer wont detect my external portable hard drive

I purchased 2 external hard drives for my desktop computer and it is not recognized, it will detect a thumb drive but not the external hard drives.

 

latest windows 10 does not recognize my external hard drive

Hi Andrew,

We need to gather more information for us to better understand you concern about your external hard drive. Kindly answer the following:

• Can other computers detect your external hard drive?
• Does the issue occur when inserting the external hard drive to a different USB slot?
• Can your computer still detect other external hard drives or USB flash drives?
• Can you please tell us what exactly is happening when you attach the external hard drive to your computer?

 

Hi and welcome to Tenforums.

Have you updated to the Anniversary Update recently? Because there is a known bug:
Windows 10 Anniversary Update Might Hide Partitions After Install - Windows 10 Forums

.

 

All my C folders were gone when I was on Windows 7.

This is why I took the drive off and made it external drive.

I am now on Windows 10.

But it seems my comp cannot recognise the drive under "my computer". So I can't perform recovery methods.

 

So no media means the same way as a DVD/CD drive that is empty (i.e. not putting a disc in it).

So the computer knows there is an external drive enclosure put in but not the drive inside the enclosure.

I am going to an IT services shop now.

 

Okay, that sounds like a failed drive. Not what I was thinking, sorry.

 

I'd like to see your Disk Management

• Download dmDskmgr-vg.zip (contains dmDskmgr-vg.mmc)
  
  
• Open the compressed folder, dmDskmgr-vg.zip
  Double click dmDskmgr-vg.mmc to launch it
  Press the Open button if prompted Do you want to open this file?
  Answer yes to the User Account Control prompt
  
  Tip: you can drag the middle bar up to show more of the bottom pane
  
  
  
  
  (just don't drag it too far up - I also need the information in the top pane)
  
• Press Alt+PrtScn to grab a snapshot of just the Disk Management window
  Open Paint and Ctrl+V to paste it, then save the image
  
  
• Attach the image to a new post

Thanks

 

Ok problem solved.

I just went to an IT services office/shop a few hours ago. Before I had been there, I tried the drive on 2 computers: one on win 10 and the other on win 7 and different usb slots but it didn't work.

Then I went to the IT services office and they took out the disk from the enclosure and put on a something that can hold two raw disks at a time (i.e. two disk slots). There they could detect the drive on the computer. Before they tested it on 2 computers there and didn't work too.

I asked them how could they see the drive using the thing that can hold two disks (at their raw state) a time and not be able to see the drive on the screen if the disk is put into an enclosure, they said it's because the file system was broken and so they fixed the file system headers and it can now be detected on any computer. Which was a yay. Boosted my moods of the day although still worried about if I could recover all files.

Then I went home and put it on my computer's USB slot and it worked. My computer detected the drive and I am now recovering the files on EaseUS data recover on Deep Scanning method and already found most files and all types of files even the ones I deleted a few months ago. On Deep scanning which takes several hours to complete, most files look fine and full size except for a small percentage of files (typically video files) have 0 kB. But it looks most of them can be recovered. Still waiting for the results and will post the results as soon as it's done. Without deep scanning, if I did only quick scanning, most files wouldn't have been found cause it took only 6 minutes to do it and a lot of them were 0 kbs. But deep scanning fixed the problem.

So good recovery software. This software carries the duty to recover almost 1.8 TB files I lost (computer deleted C folder files by themselves)on the drive. Good job to the technician who helped me and it was only 50 Dollars and did the job well. And nice featured software (about 100 Dollars) and looks it's doing a great job.

Since a few months ago I had wanted to buy a 16 TB WD external drive on amazon but didn't cause I was thinking it's too pricey at 550 USD and thought my drive would be fine. And I kept delaying buying it and all of a sudden it happened when I wasn't home. I am gonna buy the 16 TB external drive now to back up data.

Already spent some amount of money to put a new HDD into the computer and installed a brand new windows 10, got the file system headers fixed, bought software and bought another 2 TB external drive to put the recovered files on.

Lessons to learn: always keep the same files on two drives (i.e. this can be 1 drive holds all files and a few smaller drives hold the same files), and turn off computer when you are not in front of the computer cause things can happen: viruses, spyware, the overheated disks, the drive could be formatted from a place far away by putting spyware on your computer). Buy drives if you like to keep your files. Don't risk losing a lot of files that you want to keep by delaying the time to buy the drives.

It's been 4 hard days......But it paid off somehow. I've learnt these lessons.

 

That's good news! Thanks for posting your results. Glad you were able to get most everything back. *Smile

 

Actually didn't get most of them back.

The recovery software found more files 5.6 TB out of 1.7 TB lost.
but I didn't find most files cause for example on C folder downloads only found 122 GB.
On documents only found 25 GB.

The rest are just programs (including programs that I bought), the browser with the last restored pages before I lost all files, caches, system files, registers, etc. I don't understand how they mounted to 5.6 TB. (are those registries and programs are hundreds of GB?)

There are even files I deleted back in 2013 and they were found, too.

But a lot of files that are found with 0 kB and maybe there are some that were not found are video files; They all have full names. All images are fine.
Video files that are more than 0 kB are typically full sized videos and not corrupted.

The recovery software allowed to select (tick boxes) which folders/files I want to recover and to which drive and which folder. All files go to a new drive except the programs that I bought go to the current drive on my computer.

 

It looks like it was infected by a virus that wiped out all folders and files and registries of the OS so I couldn 't download anything.

Probably have visited a webpage where someone put a virus on it.

 

Oh dear. That's not good at all. *Sad

 

ok forgot to check the "more lost files (raw)" folder.

Now just recovered the avi wmv flv mpg mp4 mkv sub folders from more lost files raw folder and it's 1.45 TB. About 75% are full sized and full and the rest are corrupted? Showing exact full size files but couldn't play them.

So I found a lot more videos that I couldn't find. Raw folder means they don't have the file name just file00001 file 00002 etc. This more lost files raw folder is only accessible by the deep scan method.

So probably 75% of 1.45 TB = 1.1 TB + 150 GB = 1.25 TB out of about 1.77 TB are found and work properly. The rest either have full sized files but corrupted (not playing on media players) and 0 kB.

If the corrupted files (the ones with full file size) are playing, the number of TB I found would be higher.

Anyway to fix full sized files that are not playing?

 

And by the way I am backing up data daily and have 2 antivirus software working together. One of them is Kaspersky. To prevent virus attacks that can wipe off all data and operating system.