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External HDD doesn't show up. Disk manager asks to initialize disk?

AGGELOS_970
By AGGELOS_970
in Storage Devices
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Hello guys,

 

I just plugged my WD external HDD to my computer but its not showing up on the file explorer. 

Only if I go to the Disk Management I can see it but it shows up as "unknown/not initialized" and it asks me to initialize it. The thing is that I do not want to lose any data and as I googled a bit initializing the disk would cause that.

I tried downloading some tools but they show the drive as 0MB or not at all cause there isn't any letter assigned to it.

 

So any ideas on how or if I can get my files back at least?

I'll add some screenshots if it helps.

Any help will be appreciated! 

Thanks!

 

 

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1 minute ago, zMeul said:

looks like it borked

sorry mate

 

try it one some other PC

try booting a Linux live CD and using gparted. I have gotten a number of usb drives that refused to work in windows alive again that way.

                     ¸„»°'´¸„»°'´ Vorticalbox `'°«„¸`'°«„¸
`'°«„¸¸„»°'´¸„»°'´`'°«„¸Scientia Potentia est  ¸„»°'´`'°«„¸`'°«„¸¸„»°'´

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28 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

try booting a Linux live CD and using gparted. I have gotten a number of usb drives that refused to work in windows alive again that way.

I'll try making a bootable Ubuntu USB drive.

After that what I'll need to do?

 

 

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22 minutes ago, AGGELOS_970 said:

I'll try making a bootable Ubuntu USB drive.

After that what I'll need to do?

open gparted and try formatimg the drive to ntfs of fat. 

                     ¸„»°'´¸„»°'´ Vorticalbox `'°«„¸`'°«„¸
`'°«„¸¸„»°'´¸„»°'´`'°«„¸Scientia Potentia est  ¸„»°'´`'°«„¸`'°«„¸¸„»°'´

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5 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

open gparted and try formatimg the drive to ntfs of fat. 

Yeah but I don’t want to lose the files that's the thing...

 

 

 

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oh well maybe Linux will have a better time reading it, you could try installing foremost into the live cd and try scanning it for files. 

                     ¸„»°'´¸„»°'´ Vorticalbox `'°«„¸`'°«„¸
`'°«„¸¸„»°'´¸„»°'´`'°«„¸Scientia Potentia est  ¸„»°'´`'°«„¸`'°«„¸¸„»°'´

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Just now, vorticalbox said:

oh well maybe Linux will have a better time reading it, you could try installing foremost into the live cd and try scanning it for files. 

I just tried booting from a live Ubuntu USB drive and I only saw my internal drives. Didn't find the external one.

 

 

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Try the drive on a different computer. I have a backup drive that only shows up under Windows 7. 

Main System: Phobos

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8C/16T), ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 16GB G.SKILL Aegis DDR4 3000MHz, AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB (XFX), 960GB Crucial M500, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations/macOS Catalina

 

Secondary System: York

Intel Core i7-2600 (4C/8T), ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3, 16GB GEIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1600MHz, Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB, 240GB ADATA Ultimate SU650, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

Older File Server: Yet to be named

Intel Pentium 4 HT (1C/2T), Intel D865GBF, 3GB DDR 400MHz, ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB (HIS), 80GB WD Caviar, 320GB Hitachi Deskstar, Windows XP Pro SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2

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5 hours ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Try the drive on a different computer. I have a backup drive that only shows up under Windows 7. 

 

7 hours ago, zMeul said:

looks like it borked

sorry mate

 

try it one some other PC

 

5 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

oh well maybe Linux will have a better time reading it, you could try installing foremost into the live cd and try scanning it for files. 

 

Ok so I tried pretty much everything with no luck. At the end I even tried to initialize the disk but it gave me an error.

So I was like forget it I'll try again later maybe I can reset it with some command or something. 

 

1 hour later plugged in the drive suddenly it showed up in the disk management as an NTFS drive only that it didn't have a letter to it. 

So I assigned a letter, windows recognised it and boom all of the files were there.

 

I don't even know what the hell happened! It's like the drive is having a mind of its own. Literally didn't change anything!

 

 

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Just now, AGGELOS_970 said:

1 hour later plugged in the drive suddenly it showed up in the disk management as an NTFS drive only that it didn't have a letter to it. 

So I assigned a letter, windows recognised it and boom all of the files were there.

back-up your data and toss it

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1 minute ago, zMeul said:

back-up your data and toss it

Yeah that's what I'm thinking of doing...

The thing is the drive isn't that old anyway. Must be like less than 3 years, more than 2.

 

 

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Just now, AGGELOS_970 said:

Yeah that's what I'm thinking of doing...

The thing is the drive isn't that old anyway. Must be like less than 3 years, more than 2.

might still be under warranty, check and RMA the hell out of it

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Just now, zMeul said:

might still be under warranty, check and RMA the hell out of it

I think it's not.. I'm not sure though will check.

But if I RMA it now they'll see that its working fine lol.

 

 

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Or CrystalDiskInfo to quickly check the status of it (sectors, etc). 

Main System: Phobos

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8C/16T), ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 16GB G.SKILL Aegis DDR4 3000MHz, AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB (XFX), 960GB Crucial M500, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations/macOS Catalina

 

Secondary System: York

Intel Core i7-2600 (4C/8T), ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3, 16GB GEIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1600MHz, Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB, 240GB ADATA Ultimate SU650, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

Older File Server: Yet to be named

Intel Pentium 4 HT (1C/2T), Intel D865GBF, 3GB DDR 400MHz, ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB (HIS), 80GB WD Caviar, 320GB Hitachi Deskstar, Windows XP Pro SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2

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17 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Or CrystalDiskInfo to quickly check the status of it (sectors, etc). 

 

22 minutes ago, zMeul said:

you could use HDDSentinel to check SMART data: http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sentinel_trial.php

 

Apparently the disk is "perfect".

I don't know.. I'll extract the important files and I'll only use it for media I guess.

Power on time is only 44 days as well. Like I only use it as a secondary mostly media storage drive. It's not like its been used heavily.

 

 

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