Unable to access external hard drive

Hi Richard,

I realize the inconvenience that you facing with drivers and will certainly help you.

This issue might have occurred if the hardware settings are changed.

To assist you better on the issue, I request to provide information on the questions below:

1. Are you receiving any error code when you try to access WD Passport?

2. Did you install Anniversary update on WD Passport?

3. When you say” I moved it to another PC to retrieve my files, and it's working fine on that one running previous version of Windows 10”, is the file system type RAW or NTFS?

4. Are you able to access it from Disc Management? If no, try accessing it from Disc Management:

1. Press Windows Logo + X keys.

2. Click on Disc Management.

3. Check if the drive is reflecting there, right click on the drive and open it.

Do get back to us on the information, your reply is most important to assist you better on the issue.

Thank you.

Thanks for getting back to me, answer to your questions in order as follows:

1. yes, drive not recognized, incorrect file format.

2. No, it was just connected to my PC

3. File system on other PC showed NTFS

4. No

I have the same problem with the update. My Samsung Portable T3 1TB SSD (USB 3.1) was not recognized after the update.

It was shown as RAW instead of NTFS. On my notebook which had not yet installed the AU, it was recognized properly and as NTFS. I tried removing the USB drive and uninstalling it from the device manager and removed drive letters that were assigned to it. After rebooting and repluging, it was still detected as RAW. I also tried installing the latest USB drivers and other new drivers that i found on my motherboard vendors website but it didn't help. 

After rolling back to the previous build, everything was back to normal. The drive is detected as NTFS etc... 

I also once again tried upgrading to the new build but unplugged the drive and uninstalled it from the system before the upgrade, but the result was the same after plugging it back in... Same problem on other USB ports.

Strange enough, my 64GB USB 3.0 stick seems to work just fine on the same USB port and it is also formatted as NTFS. 

And it seems like we are not the only ones. A quick search shows that many people are affected from this problem.

See: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/4vyifo/bug_windows_10_anniversary_update_tanked/

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4vycur/windows_10_anniversary_update_deleted_a_whole/

http://www.tenforums.com/general-support/58573-windows-10-anniversary-update-problemas-not-recognizing-external-hdd.html

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/08/windows-10-anniversary-update-delete-partition

Here a short overview of my system:

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VIII Ranger

Motherboard Chip: Intel Sunrise Point Z170, Intel Skylake-S

CPU: Intel i7 6700k

RAM: G Skill F4-3000

GPU: Nvidia GTX 980 Ti

Software: I had no security program installed at the time of the upgrade and also have no other programs that might cause a problem like this (Just basic stuff like steam, office, chrome etc.).

The only program that might have a chance of causing this could be TrueCrypt, but I don't use full disk encryption, just a virtual disk/container so i would rule it out.

@Sudeep Aprameyan: Please let me know if you need additional info about my system. It would be really great if you could help us out, as many people are affected of this and it might be a major bug with the anniversary update. 

@BB-19 and RICHARD LEONTE Jr - please do not format your disks.

You will lose all your data if you format it.

Please help us gather additional information about the disk and partitions so we can troubleshoot it more.

BB-19 - I will contact you on reddit PM.

Richard, I will ask someone to get in touch with you.

Please bear with us while we work this out.

Mahesh

RICHARD LEONTE Jr, I have sent you a private message. Please review at your earliest convenience.

Paul...

Same issue here after the Anniversary Update. WD Passport Ultra formatted with NTFS. Seen as RAW in Storage Management and mounts in This PC, but the drive is inaccessible. In device manager, it is correctly displayed.

Tried uninstalling and reinstalling Intel USB from device manager with no change.

Drive works on other PCs with previous version of Win 10.

Wnt through technical support and the tech remoted into my PC and tried all number of things to no avail. Recommended offloading the files and formatting the drive, but that really isnt an option without massive downloading from online backup. Would much rather see the issue fixed. 

Happy to provide any additional information to get this resolved.

Hi Mahesh Dudgikar [MSFT]

I have any topics related in the Microsoft Community PT-BR.

All cases ocorred after update Windows 10 1511 to 1607.

- The update drivers IDE/AHCI haven't successful.

* The downgrade 1607 for 1511 the external disk - ok

http://answers.microsoft.com/pt-br/windows/forum/windows_10-files/hd-externo-em-formato-fat32-n%c3%a3o-%c3%a9-mais/43cfdd8d-3079-490f-b123-2fbe8e10c7bc

http://answers.microsoft.com/pt-br/windows/forum/windows_10-files/hd-externo-em-formato-raw-depois-de/105171d0-cf23-4314-993d-4df1379847e8

http://answers.microsoft.com/pt-br/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/drive-externa-n%C3%A3o-acess%C3%ADvel/e95ef100-dd45-4584-b4c4-4e901e96e0e4

This is possible have information the fixes about problem?

If necessary i can collect information about cases for you.

Thank's

Thanks Luiz for pinging on this.

We are still working on the issue and the more data we have will help.

You can direct folks hitting the disk issues (showing as RAW or inaccessible disks) to contact PaulSey...

He can help get the product team data to investigate.

heres my issues with the 1607 update.  I have 2 WB my passport external drives and both show up as RAW. however on a laptop with 1511 version both these drives work as expected showing NTFS.  I also have 2 seagate external  slim drives. both of those drives work on the 1607 update.  For me the problem appears to be with the WD drives.  I contacted WD , their solution is to reformat, but i wont do that since they work perfectly on earlier versions of windows.

on other online sites this issue with 1607 affecting both internal and external drives seems to be everywhere.

God i hope microsoft can fix this quickly. 

It's not just the AU that has this problem. I'm still on 1511 and every time KB3176493 update gets applied I have to roll back because my D: drive disappears. My D: drive is a two disk RAID array, as is my C: drive operating from the same RAID controller on the Dell motherboard.

I haven't received the AU upgrade notice yet but have tried a manual upgrade using the Media Creation Tool. This fails with a message that a piece of software needs uninstalling but doesn't tell me what software. I haven't tried a clean install using the MCT yet.