7 replies to this topic

[leader2]

Hi I have a seagate 1.5 tb external drive and for over a year it has had problems showing up in my computer. It shows up in the device manager and disk management, but not in my computer so I can't access it. Thankfully I backed up my files to another drive, before yesterday when it seemed to go on the fritz for good. (I hope not ) Last year when the drive wouldn't show up, my mother suggested to unplug it and plug it back it in and that would work whenever it wouldn't show up until yesterday. I tried that several times, I changed the outlet that the plug goes into, I uninstalled from device manager and checked disk management. Nothing! This is driving me up a wall, because I need this drive to work and it refuses to show up in my computer, but shows up everywhere else! Actually I did notice something I found strange that may be of use to you guys. In device manager the USB mass storage device had a exclamation point. Also in disk management the drive shows up as being black and unallocated (whatever that means ) Maybe that can be of some use to you and I hope so because I have no idea what to do. If you can't help, please point to someone who can. Thanks

[8210GUY]

That sounds like the disk needs formatting, what you describe in being able to see it where you have, and nothing more, is usually meaning it requires Initialising\formatting before the system will acknowledge it, now I have come across this happening for no obvious reason, eg it works one day, then the next it does this, my best guess is somehow removing the drive upset it, hence the system refusing to see it again until formatted again, most common time I see this is switching between more than one system, not sure how you remove it, but you should always use the safe removal option.

This doesn't mean there isn't something else behind this, but I cover it to raise awareness, now lets try to find out if the drive has a fault, go to the Makers Site, select you're device and download they're utility and scan the drive with an extended scan, see if it finds any errors, if this wont play nice try removing the drive and adding it as an internal slave just for testing purposes, if it tests in the system, but not in the caddy, it may be a faulty caddy.

Should there be data on the drive you need, use Puppy Linux and boot to that, mount the problem drive, then you can move data over to the other drive, of course this assumes it can see it, then if the scans say all is well, go into the Control Panel - Admin Tools - Disk management, click on the problem drive, then initiate it if required, and format it, all being well and you manage this, the system should then see the drive again, if this fails then something is wrong somewhere, but the scan should highlight that if it's the case, hope this helps a bit anyway.

[leader2]

That sounds like the disk needs formatting, what you describe in being able to see it where you have, and nothing more, is usually meaning it requires Initialising\formatting before the system will acknowledge it, now I have come across this happening for no obvious reason, eg it works one day, then the next it does this, my best guess is somehow removing the drive upset it, hence the system refusing to see it again until formatted again, most common time I see this is switching between more than one system, not sure how you remove it, but you should always use the safe removal option.

This doesn't mean there isn't something else behind this, but I cover it to raise awareness, now lets try to find out if the drive has a fault, go to the Makers Site, select you're device and download they're utility and scan the drive with an extended scan, see if it finds any errors, if this wont play nice try removing the drive and adding it as an internal slave just for testing purposes, if it tests in the system, but not in the caddy, it may be a faulty caddy.

Should there be data on the drive you need, use Puppy Linux and boot to that, mount the problem drive, then you can move data over to the other drive, of course this assumes it can see it, then if the scans say all is well, go into the Control Panel - Admin Tools - Disk management, click on the problem drive, then initiate it if required, and format it, all being well and you manage this, the system should then see the drive again, if this fails then something is wrong somewhere, but the scan should highlight that if it's the case, hope this helps a bit anyway.

I your advice to format the drive and the drive did show up. For a little while. Not it's not showing in disk mgmt even though it's showing in device mgr! What in the world?! Can you tell me what to do? The boot drive C isn't even showing up in disk mgmt now!

UPDATE: When it disappeared I tried unplugging it and replugging it in and it showed up as unallocated as though it had never been formatted. I reformatted it again and sure enough it has disappeared again. what is going on and what do I do?

Edited by leader2, 26 December 2010 - 05:03 PM.

[8210GUY]

That sounds like something is on the way out, at least I can't think of any situations where this sounds like it could just happen, if it were purely the drive, I would wonder about the cable, the caddy, or the port used to connect, but as you say the OS drive has disappeared as well, that does not sound good, and I fear it is a warning of a more serious failure, I hope I am just being paranoid here, but I can think of little else to explain this. The main thing to remember when removing the drive is to use the Safe Remove option, just pulling the plug can cause corruption and make it need formatting again before it will be seen again, safe remove reduces this risk. Have you tried running the drive inside the case as a slave (removing the caddy, assuming it can be) ? Do you have another system to try this drive on ? It would be interesting to know if it is the system or the drive playing up. Also let us know you're system spec, including the PSU make\model (you will need to pull the side of the case and read from the label, unless you already know what it is), and do you have any tools such as a PSU tester, meter, or spare parts to swap in for testing etc ?

[leader2]

That sounds like something is on the way out, at least I can't think of any situations where this sounds like it could just happen, if it were purely the drive, I would wonder about the cable, the caddy, or the port used to connect, but as you say the OS drive has disappeared as well, that does not sound good, and I fear it is a warning of a more serious failure, I hope I am just being paranoid here, but I can think of little else to explain this.

The main thing to remember when removing the drive is to use the Safe Remove option, just pulling the plug can cause corruption and make it need formatting again before it will be seen again, safe remove reduces this risk.
Have you tried running the drive inside the case as a slave (removing the caddy, assuming it can be) ?
Do you have another system to try this drive on ?
It would be interesting to know if it is the system or the drive playing up.

Also let us know you're system spec, including the PSU make\model (you will need to pull the side of the case and read from the label, unless you already know what it is), and do you have any tools such as a PSU tester, meter, or spare parts to swap in for testing etc ?

I am using the safe removal option yes. I haven't tried running the drive as a slave no. I don't have another system to try the drive on. The model no. of the drive is 9ZC2A8-500. And I don't have any tools such as a psu tester, meter or spare parts to swap in for testing.

[8210GUY]

The rest of the system spec would help us look at what you have, more so the PSU, but currently it could be a few things, but without other resources we can only guess at whats going on.
Ideally we need the following things to be done to narrow down where the issue may be:-

• Remove the drive from the caddy, add it as a slave, and run an extended scan on it using the makers utility (linked above).
• Also ask a mate who has a system if they will let you try running an extended scan again, but this time in it's caddy
• Ask you're mates if they have a PSU tester, or a meter to check the PSU.
• See' if a mate has a spare PSU to borrow for testing.

The reason I am asking about the PSU is if that isn't man enough, or is starting to fail, it could show early signs such as you're experiencing here, and without being able to exclude certain things there wont be any clear answers, currently scanning the drive as asked here is the only way to start narrowing down the problem.

[leader2]

The rest of the system spec would help us look at what you have, more so the PSU, but currently it could be a few things, but without other resources we can only guess at whats going on.
Ideally we need the following things to be done to narrow down where the issue may be:-

• Remove the drive from the caddy, add it as a slave, and run an extended scan on it using the makers utility (linked above).
• Also ask a mate who has a system if they will let you try running an extended scan again, but this time in it's caddy
• Ask you're mates if they have a PSU tester, or a meter to check the PSU.
• See' if a mate has a spare PSU to borrow for testing.

The reason I am asking about the PSU is if that isn't man enough, or is starting to fail, it could show early signs such as you're experiencing here, and without being able to exclude certain things there wont be any clear answers, currently scanning the drive as asked here is the only way to start narrowing down the problem.

Hi I apologize for the late reply.

Thanks for your help 8210 guy. You were helpful before with the converter box issue. (I hope you remember that trek thru difficulty. I really appreciated your patience with me.) Seagate confirmed that the drive is busted, dead, failed... Whatever word that you wanna use. I'm going to have to have it replaced. Thankfully it is under warranty. So I will have to send it back and hope for the best with the new drive.

Thanks for all your understanding. I hope that I will be able to get back to using my files on the new drive.

Thanks.

[8210GUY]

NP lol, just glad you found a solution, and more so that it was covered so it's all good.