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external hard drive not detected after windows 10 creator update

Hello, my computer just had the "Creator Update". Everything seems to have gone smoothly except...

before the update, my external drive worked. After the update, it no longer worked.

It's not recognized at all. It's not in Device Manager and there's no yellow triangles. It's also not in Disk Management.

I tried every USB port.

I tried updating drivers, they are all updated.

I tried safe mode.

Specs:

Seagate 500GB Expasion External Drive

P/N: 9SFA2-500

Dell XPS 8700

Intel Core i7-4790 CPU 3.60GHz

I have seen this an similar issues online with the creator update, but cannot find a solution.

Thanks

Hi,

For us to better know your concern, we'd like to ask some information.

1. Have you tried connecting your external hard drive to a different computer with Creators Update and getting the same issue?

2. Have you tried connecting a different external hard drive to your computer and getting the same issue?

3. Have you tried using a different USB cable to connect your external hard drive to your computer and getting the same issue?

Hope to hear from you soon.

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I have not tried it on a different computer yet. I was planning on trying it on my windows 7 PC at work on Monday.

I have not tried another external harddrive, but I have tried USB thumb drives, and they do work.

I have not yet tried a different USB cable but if I find one with the same style plug, then I will. Like I said though, the only thing that changed was the Windows 10 update. The drive was working before the update but not after.

Similar problems are here...

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/external-seagate-drive-not-appearing-after/150f7582-12b4-41c8-8f52-d4469381506b

and here...

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/since-creators-update-win-10-wont-recognize-my/094be347-7c69-4e93-9b13-018994b5e207

Only switching to different USB ports is not fixing the issue.

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Also, some external drives when plugged in show up as an "Initio" device, something you could check - the following link is for external optical drive but the same issue has occurred with external hard drives as here:

https://mightbeuseful.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/solved-asus-external-blu-raydvd-external-drive-not-working-in-windows-10/

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Useful information but that didn't seem to be the problem. 

But after some more testing (I even connected it to my Android phone with an OTG cable to make sure the drive was still good) it finally decided to show up. But I never did anything differently that I did previously, no system or driver updates, nothing. Scanned the drive for errors and didn't find anything. 

Weird, I wish I knew what the problem was.

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Ok, now after not using my computer since this morning the drive was not recognized again. All I did was stop using the computer. I didn't turn it off, reboot, install updates, or anything.

Then after using the computer maybe 30 minutes, I hear it whir on and I see the drive again. 

Power Management Properties in Device manager does not have the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option checked.

Could something in the creator update be causing some other power saving "feature"?

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Question Info

Last updated August 9, 2020 Views 1,429 Applies to: