Hardware·18,997 discussions

My External HD Is Acknowledged In Disk Management, but It won’t work!

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I have searched the internet, but I have not found a solution. I purchased a hard drive two days ago, and it worked fine for a day. After using it, my computer had trouble shutting off. When it turned back on, my hard drive could not be read. It would only come up in disc management, and it could not be initialized. Any help? This is a Satellite Laptop, and the External Hard Drive is a 500 GB Toshiba Canvio. I really need it to work, and I don’t want to go back to Best Buy. I just left from Best Buy to attempt to fix a laptop with no success. I don’t want another tech fail on my hands.. 🙁 Please… help.

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Clarifications

In reply to My External HD Is Acknowledged In Disk Management, but It won’t work!

Clarifications

Did you use the Safely Remove Option on the Task Bar to Dismount the drive?

In reply to My External HD Is Acknowledged In Disk Management, but It won’t work!

If you did I would suggest trying it in another USB Port or try another Lead. If it has a Y Cable you need to plug both of the USB Plugs into the Computer.

The Y lead has a Power Plug and a Power & Data Plug and if the computer is a NoteBook them most likely the HDD doesn’t have enough Power to actually run the drive properly. If there is no Y lead involved but you have a External Power Supply I would suggest trying the External Power Supply in another Socket. It’s not unknown for Plug Boards to have individual sockets fail.

Col

Reponse To Answer

In reply to Did you use the Safely Remove Option on the Task Bar to Dismount the drive?

To be quite honest, I’m a bit confused at what you mean by “lead” and “power plug”. There’s one plug which connect the external hard drive to a usb input. I’ve tried different outputs, but they come up with the same result. I can hear the hard drive making noise, I see the bulb lighting up, and the computer tells me that the hard drive is fine, but it still acts like it was damaged somehow.

Things to try..

In reply to My External HD Is Acknowledged In Disk Management, but It won’t work!

The first thing I would try is to try connecting it to another computer and see what happens. If no other computer is available, try plugging it into another USB port on your computer.

In [b]Disk Management[/b] does the drive show “Online” as well as the size and what format the partition is in? Also if you right click on it, what items (selections) aside from [b]Format…[/b] is available to you?

I can understand your frustration of possibly having to make a return trip to Best Buy, but that might just save you a bunch of grief later. In other words it could be that there is something wrong with your drive and replacing it now under warranty might save you heartache later? 🙂 At the very least they could plug it into their computer to verify if it’s the drive or something with your computer…

Reponse To Answer

In reply to Things to try..

Here’s the thing. My external hard drive makes noise and the little bulb lights up, but in Disk Management, it says: “Disk 1 – Unknown – Not initialized” and when I right click the box where the text is shown, it reads: “Initialize Disc – Offline – Properties – Help” even though I was using it on the same computer not more than an hour ago. Properties is telling me that the hard drive is fine, but it won’t initialize. I should mention that after the computer took a few minutes shutting down, it ran some updates. I did some research before posting, and I’m not very good with this form of computer difficulties, but one answer mentioned something about system updates affecting the external hard drive. Could the problem be a result of it dangling from my laptop? It seems to be perfectly fine…

Reponse To Answer

In reply to Things to try..

I don’t think the failure you are describing was caused directly by the updates but I also wouldn’t rule it out. The only way I can see it causing a problem is if it updated or changed the driver of your USB controller or the update was a firmware update to the external drive itself – generally that requires a seperate/special setup program that will warn and caution you before being applied.

That being said the problem is most likely the external drive, the USB cable or the USB port on your computer. The easiest and quickest way to verify this is to plug it into another computer and see if the problem follows the drive.

Another thing you can try is to try a restore point prior to the updates being applied. This would help rule out an update causing the problem. To be perfectly honest I’d attempt this as a last resort. One that I would attempt after verifying that the external drive was good.

If there is no data on the drive, or data that you are not too concerned about and OK with losing, I’d take it back to Best Buy and have it tested/checked out. It should take them less than a minute. If it checks out and works there then you can focus your attention to your computer. If it fails there then you walk out with a new (replaced) external drive. 🙂

Cable fault/port failure

In reply to My External HD Is Acknowledged In Disk Management, but It won’t work!

Try another USB port and check out a different port cable to the drive. The drive is trying to initialize but can’t complete its start until the interface acknowledges the drive controller. It could be the port connector on the drive enclosure too. Either end if the cable is suspect. I have seen some USB ports fry traces off the port card(if you’re lucky) or the system board itself.

Reponse To Answer

In reply to Cable fault/port failure

I’m a little confused about what you mean. I have tried all usb ports and none get me more than acknowledgement in disk management, a clicky, fan sound and a little blue light on the surface of the hard drive. How do I inspect the wire itself? What is the output on the hard drive called? I’m sorry about being lost, but I never have had such a frustrating device. :-/

OK so you only have the 1 USB Plug

In reply to My External HD Is Acknowledged In Disk Management, but It won’t work!

And it’s makes no difference if you plug it into another USB Socket so the only other option you have is to try another USB Lead.

if that doesn’t make any difference the Actual Enclosure or the HDD in it has failed and needs to be replaced.

[i]Edited to add[/i] Have you tried running the [b]chkdsk /r[/b] on this drive to see if that makes any difference?

Col

Reponse To Answer

In reply to OK so you only have the 1 USB Plug

[b]chkdsk /r[/b] without a drive letter would only perform it on the boot drive. 🙂

At this point I’m thinking it’s a hardware failure in the enclosure or the drive itself. Easiest thing is to plug it into another computer. If problem follows then it’s the drive. If it works on another computer then he needs to focus his attention to his computer. Seems like taking it back to BestBuy would accomplish this. 🙂

Reponse To Answer

In reply to OK so you only have the 1 USB Plug

Ooops… I also meant to give this a positive vote and accidently clicked the negative. Guess it can’t be changed(?)…

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