Windows 10: USB-connected SSD disappeared from explorer

Hello everyone,

I am old George from Norway. Thank you for accepting me as a member of Windows 10 Forums.

I was searching the wed for urgent help when I came cross this Forum. As I am doing this for the first time I will most likely make many mistakes. However, I hope you veterans will have patience with me in the beginning as I expect to learn by using. I will be pleased to receive suggested solutions from experienced and smart members of the Forum.

Windows 10 Home 64 bits

Case History:
Last week I faced what I believe was a ransomware attack which locked my device. I do not know what kind of virus it was as there was no definition on the message that filled the whole screen and delivered an automatic print out. The message contained a fake Microsoft Support phone number. I did not call of course.

Nevertheless, I fixed the lock problem myself by a quick forced shut down, disconnecting the power and removing the battery. I also pushed the on/off button 8-10 times to make sure that no power was left in RAM or any other components. Next time I started the PC it was unlocked and working as usual. I also performed a Bitdefender virus search without finding any traces of the attack.

I also wanted to check the registry and did that with the Wise Registry Cleaner s/w witch was recommended by one of the leading computer magazines in the country. Regrettably I missed to make a registry back-up After running the cleaning (and there was quite a few issues taken care of) I wanted to make a complete system back-up on the external SSD I am using for that purpose. Connecting it to one of the USB ports, it did not show in the explorer. It showed, however, in the list of invisible icons (lower right hand corner of the screen) as well as in the Device Manager. So now I cannot back-up the system on an external SSD.

What totally confuses me is that if I connect a USB memory stick instead of the SSD it works just fine I can open and read the files as normal.

I have 3 external disks and they have all been tested in 2 other PCs. They all work fine.
The disks were also tested on all 3 USB ports on my PC with the same result.

I tried to do a system restore, but as Windows automatically sets the date and time I could not roll back to the date before the registry cleaning took place. Is it possible to select the date manually in any way?

My hope is to get the help I need on the Forum. I have been using computers for nearly 40 years and the last 10-15 years I have been able to fix most of the problems myself by finding help on Internet. But this time I am totally lost. I consider my computer- and S/W knowledge as rather limited, but I have a feeling that this problem might come from a change in settings somewhere after the registry cleaning.

I am sorry for the long story, but in order to be as clear as possible I found it worthwhile telling you all I know and what I have done during one weeks efforts trying to resolve the problem. Unfortunately without success.

Thank you all for taking the time to read my post. I am looking forward to your suggested solutions with great interest.

:)

 

USB-connected SSD disappeared from explorer

Until you try to assign the drive letter, everything else is just a possible distraction at this point.

@togel - this is today's next order of business for solving this caper *Wink .......

USB-connected SSD disappeared from explorer

 

USB-connected SSD disappeared from explorer

OK, found it, but how do I attach the screen dump?

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This don't seem right to me...

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I just came to think about that I formatted the disk before the problem occurred. Can that be the reason?

 

USB-connected SSD disappeared from explorer

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