Windows 10: My External Hard Drive Is Showing Up In Disk Management But Not Present (Migrated)

Hello All,


Thank you in advance for your support.


I have had this 1TB IOmega HDD for like 10 years. It worked just fine until about 2016. I had recently moved and didn't really need it so it just kind of hung around the house making appearance hear and there... kind of like a house cat. In any case- I have tried numerous USB ports and different computers over the years trying to recover some items on it, but I never put too much thought into why it didn't work. However, the need has increased for me to gain access to my old data on this drive and I have spent hours trying to crack this egg.


Here are the steps I've taken thus far (maybe not all-inclusive but you'll get the gist):

Uninstalled/Reinstalled/Updated driver for both the USB port and the HDD itself (that's why there is no photo of that tab)

Went into the disk manager and attempted to assign a letter but the options were greyed out

Ran cmd as Administrator and diskpart, list disk, select disk, select volume, assign letter for all three partitions on the drive- this was most interesting because all were successful, but the primary partition didn't allow me access the information within it. I went to the properties and the Security tab wasn't available so I couldn't give myself access as the administrator. The other two partitions did allow me to access them and the Security tab, but there was nothing on them. Further, once I restarted the computer (one of many after each attempt to gain access), the letters I assigned all went away. Additionally, I renamed the primary partition IOMEGA and it stuck!

Lastly, I went back into the many different threads regarding all the steps I took, looking to find an operator error and I noticed that all the examples had the same Disk Management screen as me, but their examples also had names next to the volume. Mine do not.



Once again, thank you in advance. I am hoping you all can help me figure this out without having to delete my information. I did that once before with this hdd when switching from MAC to windows. Didn't realize that reformatting it would wipe it- lost about 800 gb of music collected over a lifetime. :'I

:)

 

external hard drive showing up in device management but not disk management

Hi,

I recently tried to use a brand new Seagate 2TB External HD, but it is not showing up. It initially showed up, but after I tried reformatting it to exFAT32, it disappeared from the disk management list.

I then tried:

• refreshing the disk management list,
• inserting into a different USB port,
• re-starting my computer, and
• uninstalling the device from device manager/letting it refresh,

I still can't see it. There is no yellow error in the USB controller list.

I'm on Windows 10.

Intel i5-3317U @ 1.7GHz

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

Help with external hard drive

Hi Debbra,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

I appreciate your interest in windows 10 and also for trying the troubleshooting steps to fix the issue. I understand the inconvenience you faced. I will certainly help you with this.

I would suggest you to plug in hard drive then check in disk management you can see the drive or not.

Follow the steps to check Drive in Disk Management.

• 
  Go to the Control Panel then click on the
  Administrative Tools. .
  
• 
  Under the Administrative Tool Click on Computer Management.
  
• 
  Click on Disk Management and check the External Hard Drive.
  

Also check in BIOS whether External Hard Drive is listed or not.

For help with the BIOS settings, refer to the computer manual or contact the manufacturer.

If it doesn’t work then, I would suggest you to update BIOS for updating BIOS contact Lenovo Support.

Follow the link:

Home - Global Support - FR

Disclaimer :

Modifying BIOS/complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) settings incorrectly can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the configuring of BIOS/CMOS settings
can be solved. Modifications of the settings are at your own risk.

Hope this information is helpful. Please do let us know if you need further assistance, we’ll be glad to assist you.

Thanks.

 

External hard drive is showing up as local disk drive

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



As you have mentioned that the external hard drive is showing as local disk drive instead of a USB drive, it is because the file format for the external hard drive is same as the internal hard drive and that’s why it is showing
up as a local disk drive and not a USB drive.



Also, since you are facing issues while changing the drive letter of the drive, for further clarity on the issue and to guide you accordingly, respond to the questions listed below:

1. What is the make and model of the hard drive?
   
2. Were you able to save or create a file on the hard drive previously?
   
3. What happens when you try to copy and paste the data from the hard drive?
   
4. What was the result of check disk performed on the drive?
   

Since you are receiving the access denied error, I would suggest you to check if the user has appropriate permissions to read/write data on the external hard drive. Refer the article

"Access Denied" or other errors when you access or work with files and folders in Windows, refer the section
I cannot access, change, save, or delete files and folders.



Note:
The above article applies to Windows 10 also.



Please get back to us with the above information to assist you further with the issue.



We await your response.



Regards,

Prakhar Khare

Microsoft Community – Moderator