External USB drive is not accessible

Hi,

 

It appears that hard disk is detected in device manager but does not show in Windows Explorer. This issue might also occur if external device is not assigned a drive letter.

 

Below are some troubleshooting steps that will fix the normal issues with external hard disks.

 

Method 1: Run the hardware troubleshooter and check if it helps.

 

·Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search.
(If you're using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, and then click Search.)

·Enter Troubleshooting in the search box, tap or click Troubleshooting, and then tap or click Hardware and Sound.

·Tap or click Hardware and Devices, and follow the instructions on the screen. You might be asked for an admin password or to confirm your choice.

 

Method 2: Try connecting the external hard drive to the USB port on which others are working fine.

 

Method 3: Let’s check the disk management and see if the hard drive is detected. If it is detected, change the drive letter and go back to the Windows Explorer and check if you can open it.

 

·Open Disk Manager by pressing Windows key + R, in the run prompt type diskmgmt.msc, hit Enter key, it will open the disk management that will list all the disks that are connected to the computer.

·Check if you can see the USB drive. If it is listed.

· Right-click the drive, and then click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the letter that you want to use, and then click OK.

 

Also contact Western Digital support:

http://community.wd.com/

 

Please post here with the status of the issue and we will be glad to assist you further.

This is not a simple problem.
The drive is 200 gb, and where a 160 gb drive will format, the 200 gb will not be "shown" so as to format.
In the case of the 160, I used a WIN98 start-up floppy and Win 98 disc to setup up partitions. That sets E: partition and a F: partition, but on the screen teh F: was not formatable, in XP HP Compaq.
The 136gb was NTFS formatable.

So stick it in an IDE USB box and the Win 7 PC will format both E: and F:, and in fact, I formatted F: as FAT32. Oddly my Win98 PC can see and use the F:
I could not format F: in the XP Pro machine.

But the 200gb apparently exceeds some kind of limit or is not recognizable by the bios.
The funny thing is I labelled that drive NTFS I/13/2013 when I had a Dell XP Pro, in INK on the drive face.

Obviously it's been FDISK 'ed, and partitoned, by me.
Put it in a USB box and it is sensed but not shown as a drive on the screen, in HP Compac XP Pro, or HP Win7 home premium, AMD64.

Not a question of USB port, or jumper setting.

Not a big deal, just curious.

Regards
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Hello,

Thank you for keeping us updated on the status of the issue.

I would suggest you to use steps provided in this Microsoft help article and check if it helps.

My Drive does not appear in Windows Explorer view
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330140

Important notes:
Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/back-up-registry

Please ignore steps which you have already tried in above article.

I hope this information helps.

Thank you