Windows 10: Win 10 Cannot Access External USB HD but Device Manager Sees it "Working Properly"

Lost access to a WD Elements SE external HD overnight on otherwise healthy Win 10 systems two PCs tried so far w/ same result.


The drive power light functions, and can hear the internals activate...Windows Explorer then pops up a USB drive with letter, but not name of drive. Attempts to open that un-named drive get message "please insert a disk" then the properties show all blanks. When accessing properties under that drive letter nothing populates re drive name or size, and an error check attempt cannot be performed as Windows shows message "Windows can't access disk." Disk Management does not show the drive at all.


Here's the weirdest par: Device Manager shows the drive by correct name, populates the correct size, and says the disk is working properly.


So...I'm stumped. Can't find anything on this combo of circumstances. Device Manager sees the drive, but the rest of the system does not.


Have tried to update driver says current, and other portable HDs all working fine. Have tried different USB ports. Have uninstalled it and restarted...it shows again in Device Manager, but no change on access problem.


Help please!! And thank you!!

:)

 

win 10 will not recognize external HD/storage devices....

Try this:
Press Win Key + X and go to Disk Management.

See if your drive is listed here.

If exists, right click on a partition and click Change Drive Letter and Paths...

If it's not listed there, try rebooting your PC with the drive still connected and turned on.

 

win 10 will not recognize external HD/storage devices....

so trying my external drives on new win 10 machine. both devices worked fine on win 7, every other device I use via this
usb connection also work fine. so how can I get win 10 to work fine? I see one of the devices is listed in device manager but cannot get it to actually work. I see lots of people have this issue with win 10 and cannot get it to recognize external devices either. been half hour and still not recognizing the drives

image shows seagate bup etc which I think is the external device

windows version number is windows 10

 

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!